Expert: Laurie McLauglin - 11/12/2009

Question
Hi, why do some Buddhist believe in Devas but not in God, shouldn't the same logic apply to both?

Answer
Hello Marc

Thank you for letting me answer your question.

I understand your confusion I believe. The difference comes from spelling God with a capital G and god with a small g. Capital God is the creator of the universe, one who gives us life and who is worshiped. Lower case god (or deva) in the Buddhist cosmology is a being in one of the six realms of existence. In Buddhist cosmology, this universe is divided into six realms, two hell realms, an animal realm, a human realm, a ghost realm and two god (lower case) realms.

Without going into a all the other reasons, to put it simply, one becomes a god (or deva) when one has earned a great deal of good karma by doing really good things but not enough good karma to become enlightened. When one is a god (deva) one does not have a body that can be seen and has a lot of great powers and has everything they ever wanted and is really happy and has a perfect life (except, I belive they can become jealous of other gods and stuff).  As you can see, this life has nothing to do with being a Creator of the Universe and someone to be worshipped.  The god (deva) realm is simply a realm that really good people go where they can burn off their good karma and hopefully take a rebirth as a human so that one can work on gaining all the good karma, etc. that one needs to become fully enlightened.

In some ways, being a god (deva)is sad because at some point the devas realize that their good karma is wearing out and they must take a lower rebirth.

So as you can see, Buddhists believe in gods (devas) because that is part of our belief in reincarnation and we do not believe in a Creator God who rules the Universe and is to be worshipped.

I hope this helps.

Feel free to ask any further questions.

Take care - Laurie