Expert: Jeffrey Eldred - 9/2/2010

Question
Hello!
Do atheists in general like buddhism since it is a religion that often speaks about atheistic views as the truth (of course buddhism is not 100% atheistic)?  

Answer
Generally yes.

But it depends on the Buddhism. To see what I mean, compare the following three Google searches: "buddhism"[1] "buddhist extremists"[2] and "secular buddhism"[3]. We atheists recognize that people of supposed the same religion can have very diverse interpretations and there is a limit on how meaningful a statement can be made about a religion. Atheists are usually pretty pragmatic about how they feel about religion practiced by a certain person or group. They typically ask questions like "Are the actions encouraged by this religion harmful to others?", "Does this religion claim things that are demonstrably false?", "Is their method of accepting/rejecting ideas vulnerable to ideas that are harmful or demonstrably false?". Are priorities are to minimize violence and maximize human rights. When it comes to calling out particularly egregious religions traditions, though, Buddhism is not high on the list.

But even though we judge religions on their consequences, we also realize that the behavior of religious members is highly dependent on the actual content of the religion. Here is a quote from Sam Harris' End of Faith[4][5]:
“According to [Fareed] Zarkaria, 'If there is one great cause of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, it is the total failure of political institutions in the Arab world.' Perhaps. But 'the rise of Islamic fundamentalism' is only a problem because the fundamentals of Islam are a problem. A rise of Jain fundamentalism would endanger no one. In fact, the uncontrollable spread of Jainism throughout the world would improve our situation immensely. We would lose more of our crops to pests, perhaps (observant Jains generally will not kill anything, including insects), but we would not find ourselves surrounded by suicidal terrorists of by a civilization that widely condones their actions.”
Generally, atheists place Buddhism closer to Jainism than Islam.

Sam Harris is echoing Voltaire's expression of pragmatism applied to religion from 241 years prior [6].

There is a limited set of religious institutions in which someone is not required to believe false religious statements about the world and also participate fully in the religious practices. Buddhism is one of them, but I also know of similar cases of tolerance in Western religions such as Unitarian Universalism, Neopaganism, Judaism, and Quakerism. This is not to say the whole of these religions are free of appeals to the supernatural, but that there are some communities in which it is possible to be an atheist and participate in the ceremonies in a meaningful way. Just as atheist ritualistic participate in holidays, weddings, funerals, and honor ceremonies, we don't have any fundamental incompatibility with the symbolism or tradition of religion. We welcome the attitudes of religions which contend that our common humanity is more important than metaphysics, whether or not we accept the invitation to attend their religious services.

Some atheists meditate[7][8]. That, in of itself, surprises some people as a contradiction of terms. But what religious people refer to as “spiritual experiences”, atheists believe can be completely decoupled from dogma (in a similar way in which atheists believe that religious ideas about morality draw from a larger pool of secular ideas about morality, rather than another way around). “A sense of the profound”[9] is the phrase that I find to be the most accurate secular description for “spirituality”. (In contrast, “numinous”[10], “transcendent”[11], and “mystic”[12] have religious connotations which confuse the meaning). Atheists are essentially people who reject religious dogmatism in pursuit of valuable human experience, and in some sense we are highly representative of the larger trend (in Americans at least) to drop religion and pick up “spirituality”[13][14][15] of which allied religions like Buddhism are an integral part.

Links:
[1] http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=buddhism
[2] http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=buddhist+extremists
[3] http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=secular+buddhism
[4] http://books.google.com/books?id=Lr8ytqlY9NgC&pg=PA148&lpg=PA148&dq=sam+harris+f...
[5] http://www.amazon.com/End-Faith-Religion-Terror-Future/dp/0393327655/ref=sr_1_1?...
[6] http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/voltaire.htm...
[7] http://www.thenewhumanism.org/authors/zach-alexander/articles/still-atheists-run...
[8] http://www.slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming/archives/001324.html
[9] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/profound
[10] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/numinous
[11] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transcendant
[12] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mystic
[13] http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Books/2002/07/Spiritual-But-Not-Religious...
[14] http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/9137251/At_last_the_truth_about...
[15] http://www.gallup.com/poll/124793/This-Christmas-78-Americans-Identify-Christian...