Atheistic Religion

 

     The term “atheistic religion” may at first glance seem oxymoronic.  Many conceive of religion as god-centered in spite of the fact that major belief systems --  Buddhism, Jainism, Daoism, Confucianism -- either sometimes or always recognize no deity, while other traditions such as Hinduism and the modern Society of Friends have long included atheistic sects.  Further, a good many nominal believers participate in churches, temples, and mosques without believing the ideas on which they were built, while others accept only the vaguest notion of a “greater power” without personality or will, scarcely distinguishable from no god at all.  The category of religion extends far beyond belief in an anthropomorphic god or, indeed, any god whatsoever. 

     In spite of the fact that the Buddha quite clearly adopted an agnostic position [1], his followers’ wish for a divine leader has led to the generations of language describing him as divine.  Thus there has always existed a sophisticated intellectual tradition that more closely adheres to the founder’s words and a popular naïve practice that elevates him to the status of an immortal deity and then requests favors from him [2].  Though the Buddha, in a very practical way, focused on solving the problem of suffering through mental self-discipline, the greater number of his later followers prefer offerings and, for the more serious, such mumbo-jumbo as the chanting of sutras. 

     Similarly, Jainism, the result of another early schism in Hinduism, teaches enlightenment (moksha) rather than adoration of a deity, though the Tirthankaras (of whom the sect’s founder Mahavira is considered the twenty-fourth and final in this cycle) are thought to be very holy indeed.  They are, for instance, omniscient (kevala jnana) and are thought to guide the evolution of the cosmos.  The ultimate skepticism of Jainism, though, is implied in the elevation of the principle of anekāntavāda (non-exclusiveness, non-absolutism).  The notion that nothing whatever can be known for certain is for Jains of equal importance with non-attachment and non-violence.  Respectful of tradition, the founders of the movement did not maintain that devas (gods or spiritual beings) did not exist, only (similar to Buddha’s teaching) that they were irrelevant to human life.

     Daoism likewise has been willing to employ many colorful gods in fables, rhetoric, temple statuary, and popular ritual, but its basic philosophic position recognizes only the Dao, an impersonal principle often reducible to “the way things are” or nature.  Daoism celebrates certain individuals as xian or “immortals” who are thought to have transcended ordinary human limitations and who represent perfected examples of an ideal life, a model that anyone might aspire to follow.  Just as in the Buddhist tradition, in popular Daoism every sort of magic and superstition flourishes, though the original thought of Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi relegated such practices to stylistic or symbolic meaning.   

     Like the Buddha Confucius seems never to have specifically denied the supernatural but  rather to have insisted that one’s first concern should be everyday life, seeing that one’s behavior is orderly in itself, that one’s family is strong, and that the nation  is well-governed.    Lacking any rituals directed at a god, the school of thought identified with him stresses instead the development of a harmonious social life.  The Confucian concept of Heaven (tian) is a more ethical and social version of the Dao, representing impersonal eternal principles rather than a post-mortem all-inclusive resort.

    Hinduism has always proven willing to absorb a wide variety of belief systems.  Thus to the irritation of Sikhs, Hindus consider them a Hindu sect and some would even suggest that Buddha and Christ are incarnations of Vishnu.  In spite of this openness to a variety of supernatural beings,  the ancient creation hymn (Rigveda 10) expresses agnosticism about the world’s origin.  In addition from ancient times when skeptical or atheist thinkers appeared, they were regarded as Hindus of a particular heterodox variety, called Nirīśvaravāda, embracing both an āstika school of those who, while rejecting a supreme being, still accept the Vedas while the nāstikas reject the scriptures as well. 

    Cārvāka (or Lokāyata) skepticism and the deterministic Ājīvika school have vanished today, yet many Hindus hold essentially non-theistic views.  This is possible because many generally accepted scriptures suggest that qualities attributed to the divine are purely metaphorical, and the fact is that, of the six sects of āstika Hinduism, half (the Sāṅkhya, Yoga and Mīmāṁsā) reject any personal or creator god, indeed, any god with attributes at all.  Without detailing the specific tenets of each of these varieties of thought, it is clear that many Hindus, in the past and today, require no anthropomorphic god. 

     None of the great quasi-religious Hellenistic philosophies – Epicureans, Stoic, and Skeptic --  found personal gods significant.  Epicureans allowed for divine beings an  existence  something like the eighteenth-century Deists – as distant entities with no relation to human life [3].  For them to feel or do anything whatever would require a diminution of their perfection.  The  Stoics identified Ultimate Reality with a thoroughly impersonal λόγος or order of things similar to the Dao, a quasi-pantheist position.  In spite of this, they sometimes participated in traditional observances dedicated to the Olympians [4] simply for the sake of social harmony.  Rather like Buddhist or Hindu sadhus, they sought freedom from suffering in ἀταραξία (imperturbability or, more positively, mental serenity) instead of invoking the agency of higher powers.  Similarly, the Skeptics. Pyrrhonian or Academic, found peace in conceding ignorance and reacting to any question with ἐποχή (suspension of judgement).

     These accepted philosophies may be distinguished from those who simply accept religious practice for its symbolic, moral, or cultural value while not accepting its literal truth.  Today a significant number of members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) are Buddhist, atheist, or agnostic, and the same is true among Unitarians.  The Ethical Culture Society was specifically organized by those who came from Protestant and Jewish origins but who sought a non-theistic spiritual practice.  Christianity has been shrinking: in the Czech Republic, for instance.  Now less than one in five citizens there is a church member.  A major poll finds that a minority of Americans who call themselves Jews say they believe in god [5].  A good many Christians and Muslims hold similar views, maintaining tradition for cultural rather than theological reasons.

     In archaic times belief was universal.  Humanity originally in all parts of the globe seems to have had an animistic, almost pantheistic apprehension of divinity dispersed throughout the entire creation.  A decent working definition  of god is that which we do not know and religion seems an attempt to deal with things we cannot control.  We certainly still experience ignorance and powerlessness, but not everyone is moved to imagine an anthropomorphic first cause. 

     The goal of religion is inner peace.  For some religious practitioners worship is concerned with pleasing a mighty deity to obtain divine favor of this unique entity, allowing the devotee to feel greater confidence.  Much of ancient religion is devoted thus to offerings under the principle of “do ut des” (“I give so that you will give”), while other rituals honored ancestors (and avoided harassment by their spirits) or combated malicious magic. 

     While some people were (and are today) satisfied with buying off the forces before which we are otherwise defenseless, others pursue a feeling of connection to the cosmos, a sense of being at home, in place, and at peace.  Their spiritual work occurs entirely within the mind, independent of any external power, an alteration of consciousness aided perhaps by austerities, intoxicants, or chanting, but which occurs entirely in the mind, requiring no external agency.     

     These two directions of religious effort often coexist, even in the same believer, but they are differently distributed in human society.  The anthropomorphic option is characteristic of early civilizations (the era of the Sanskrit Vedas and the Torah), but also of contemporary oral cultures and of the poor and uneducated in technologically advanced societies.  While the most ancient practices persist vestigially, many more sophisticated thinkers have adopted what might be called the less metaphorical route to spiritual progress through meditation.  Within major traditions thinkers like those influenced by the author of the Chandogya Upanishad, Moses Maimonides in the Jewish tradition, the absolute skepticism of the Buddhist Nagarjuna’s tetralemma, or the recent refinements of the Christian Paul Tillich’s unknowable “ground of all being” likewise dispense with a personal god.  The entire tradition  of apophatic theology is based on acceptance of divine inscrutability.

     Human customs including religious practice developed because they in some way provided an evolutionary advantage, relieving unproductive stress and uniting a group in cooperative effort.  In every society of the world people elaborated notions of deities and mythic narratives defining the nature of the supernatural  and its relation to humanity.  At a certain point some thinkers found what seemed a more precise truth through dropping the whole metaphorical machinery through which the divine had been experienced and described, while at the same time the facts of existence seemed more tolerable to many  others clothed in symbolic form. 

     The fundamental distinction in the end is not between theistic and atheistic views.  Rather the contrast is between those who see dualities as essential: high and low, good and bad, human and divine, and those for whom ultimately all things are one.  The latter is the position of most mystics of all traditions.  In Vedanta it appears in Advaitism, but a similar view might be found in Parmenides and in Christianity in people like Margarite Porete and Richard Rolle.  Both routes to seek the same end: the cessation of unnecessary suffering through relief of anxieties about the unknown.  Theistic ideologies have offered a personal god who cares about the comfort or distress of humans, who may be petitioned, and whose nature is outlined in stories that seem to put everything into a satisfying place, but which require considerable credulity.  For others to whom the cosmos is profoundly indifferent such a deity can scarcely be divine at all.  For this group the individual consciousness would be lost in existential horror were it not for the redemptive realization that every person is, in essence, a part of that cosmos and capable of attaining a similar indifference, now no longer cold and forbidding, but serene and wholly enlightened. 

 

 

 

1.  In the Majjhima Nikaya Sutta 63, “The Shorter Discourse With Māluṅkya,” he refuses to take a position on the afterlife and the eternal existence of the universe as well as on the existence of a supreme being.  He illustrates his priority with the story of a man shot by an arrow who seeks only relief of suffering without being concerned about the details of the arrow and its shooter.  The Lotus Sutra contains a similar story about a man whose house is burning.  In the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (DN 16) he tells disciples not to depend on him, but rather on themselves in pursuing enlightenment.

2.  Thus one will see in Asian Buddhist temples offerings left by the faithful in hopes of good exam grades, children, or other wish-fulfilment. 

3.  See Epicurus, Principal Doctrine 1.

4.  See Clement, Stromata 5.12:76 and Diogenes Laertius, The Lives of Eminent Philosophers 7.33-34.

5.  "While Most Americans Believe in God, Only 36% Attend a Religious Service Once a Month or More Often," Harris Poll 59 (2003).