Can A Buddhist believe in God?

Look up "The Jew in the Lotus". A Jew who remained conservative but a practicing Buddhist. I do not think the Pali Canon mentions g!d at all, so believing does not disqualify you (as I understand it).
 
radarmark said:
Look up "The Jew in the Lotus". A Jew who remained conservative but a practicing Buddhist. I do not think the Pali Canon mentions g!d at all, so believing does not disqualify you (as I understand it).
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Thanks! I am going to have a lot of reading to do later...
 
Buddha advised against four fruitless speculations. The fourth is:

"A first cause or origin of the world..."

He said it causes vexation in mind and madness. :)
 
Aupmanyav said:
Buddha advised against four fruitless speculations. The fourth is:

"A first cause or origin of the world..."

He said it causes vexation in mind and madness. :)
Click to expand...

Okay, that answered my question but it seems based on people who practice Buddhism and another religion together than there must be some leeway...

I've done some reading and Buddha seemed to think Gods aren't a reliant concept. Thanks for the answer.
 
A buddhist may or may not believe in god, but it is considered a question that is not really that important.

In another point of view of the question, the worshipping of god-like deities is quite widespread among Buddhists.

"A Jew who remained conservative but a practicing Buddhist."

--> A Jew can believe in both Ayin (that which is causeless and without a beginning) and Ain Soph (God, the first cause), so, yes, there is considerable overlap between Buddhism and Judiasm (which makes sense, because both Buddhism and Judiasm are both describing the same thing, it is only in their wordings that they disagree).

Christianity and Hinduism teach the same things, too.
 
Nick the Pilot said:
A buddhist may or may not believe in god, but it is considered a question that is not really that important.

In another point of view of the question, the worshipping of god-like deities is quite widespread among Buddhists.

"A Jew who remained conservative but a practicing Buddhist."

--> A Jew can believe in both Ayin (that which is causeless and without a beginning) and Ain Soph (God, the first cause), so, yes, there is considerable overlap between Buddhism and Judiasm (which makes sense, because both Buddhism and Judiasm are both describing the same thing, it is only in their wordings that they disagree).

Christianity and Hinduism teach the same things, too.
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Hmm... that is interesting.
 
First causes and origins are, as the Buddha said, a waste of time. I was merely stating that what one means by "God" does not have to be either (like the Eternal Dao or a panthiestic "elan vital" or a panentheistic "beyond" or a real serious "via negativa")
 
G!d is a supreme entity worthy of love, faith, and veneration. Sh! does not have to be a being with a body; nor does H! necessarily have to have created everything or be some "highest good". This is admittedly a conundrum, for most (but not all) theists.
 
Buddhism as a religion/philosophy is completely neutral to the idea of "God".

However, as far as I'm concerned, if a Buddhist wants to believe in God, then what's the harm in doing so? I was a Buddhist for a couple of years, as well as a member of a Buddhist forum in said amount of time, and there were a few people who were so adamant that a Buddhist could not be theistic. One even went as far as saying that believing in God is a "wrong view" for a Buddhist and that having said wrong view could have one born into a "lower realm".

Gotta love literalists, eh? :D
 
Nick the Pilot said:
Some forms of Buddhism teach theism, for example, Tibetan Buddhism.
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That's true. As you may know, Tibetan Buddhism has massive Bon and Hindu influence.

However, that being said, good luck in telling some Buddhists that Tibetan, or any other school for that matter, is in any way theistic.
 
"...good luck in telling some Buddhists that Tibetan, or any other school for that matter, is in any way theistic."

--> I go for quality, not quantity. But as you say, it is true that most of 'modern day' Buddhism is very non-theistic. (Except for the millions of Buddhists who pray to Guan Yin everyday!)
 
The form of Buddhism that is said to be non-theistic is Theravada, but
1. When a recent pope (John-Paul II?) remarked that Buddhists didn't believe in God, he got a letter of denial from the President and Prime Minister of Ceylon.
2. I once consulted a huge manual of Buddhism published by the Thai government. That stated at the beginning that, although Buddhists don't consider God a person, they do believe in a supreme being comparable to the Hindu Brahman. The author said that those westerners who claimed to be Buddhists and atheists had simply invented their own philosophy and mistaken it for Buddhism.
I don't think that the claimed opinion of Siddhartha Gautama is really relevant, since we don't actually have any text by him or contemporary with him.
 
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