America growing increasingly Atheist

Patt Morrison (KPCC, SCPR.org)

Smile, there may be many hells and heavens yet no "God" due to workings of  karma.

  

Stephen Batchelor - atheist

The belief in God, or gods, is changing and some new research shows that the practice is on the decline worldwide. 

According to a new poll by WIN-Gallup International, the percentage of Americans who identify as “religious” dropped 13 points -- from 73 to 60 percent since 2005. The number of Americans who identify as atheists jumped from 1 percent to 5 percent in the same period. 

  

The poll posed the same question to 50,000 people in 57 countries and five continents: “Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious person, or a convinced atheist?”
  

“When we say religious, the definition of religious and religiosity has changed, especially for Americans. And so you ask the question, ‘Are you more religious?’ The answer may be that I’m not religious or as religious or more religious but I’m spiritual,” Dr. Carolyn Gordon, associate professor of communication and preaching at Fuller Seminary, told Patt Morrison. More

Was the Buddha an atheist?

Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha surrounded by humans and devas

If theism is defined as a belief, faith, or reliance on a creator/controller "God," the Buddha certainly was an atheist. But the issue is not that straightforward. The Buddha spoke of (and to) many "gods" (brahmas and devas).
  
Therefore, if theism includes the belief in "gods" (devas or "shining light beings" superior to humans in happiness, beauty, longevity, and other qualities), then the Buddha was no atheist.

The Buddha pointed out the wrong-view of relying on an all-powerful God as an explanation for the universe, karma, or as a means to enlightenment and final liberation from suffering.
  

Buddha in Thailand (Dongissel/flickr.com)

Buddhism is non-theistic. That is not at all the same as atheistic. It means that whether there are or are not gods or a God makes no difference to the need to exert oneself to develop compassion, insight-wisdom, and "salvation" (liberation from ignorance and samsara, the wheel of rebirth and suffering).
  
There are worlds in space, "heavenly" planes, some subtle (rupa), some immaterial (arupa). But even in this Sensual Sphere (kama loka), there are better planes/worlds to be reborn in.

Therefore, there is sex after death, sex in lower "heavenly worlds." In the world of Brahma -- which transcends sex, sensuality, and sexual dimorphism (Great Brahma and the other Gods being neither male nor female) -- is peaceful and sublime. But it is no final end of suffering, no escape from the round of rebirth or karmic results. It is no solution to the problem of ignorance and the suffering it brings about.

Enlightenment is a solution.

The Buddha was not a god, prophet, avatar, or an advocate for the gods/God. Instead, he demonstrated what an ordinary human being can attain in terms of wisdom, compassion, and most importantly a liberation surpassing that of God/the gods. He is therefore regarded as a teacher of devas, brahmas, and human beings.

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Noah Levine teaches Against the (Dharma)?

Seth Auberon and Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly

He's a Dharma punk and not dumb, so how does he know so little about the Buddha?

In a devastating blow to Buddhist history, author and "Against the Stream" founder Noah Levine turned the Buddha's life into an unrecognizable mishmash of revisionist thought, doubt and outlandish speculation. At one point he had Siddhartha tying stones to his privates, all the while laughing and engendering laughter from an eager American audience. The constant refrain was, "We just don't know. These things weren't written down. There was a lot of mythologizing..." Therefore we can throw anything into the story we like and it'll be just as true/doubtful as all the rest of it? Levine's heart was obviously in the right place.

(LINK) BBC documentary: "The Life of the Buddha"

   

Maybe its less Buddhism than recovery and punk

But one would have to guess -- based solely on his bumbling through the life story -- that he only recently became acquainted with Buddhism as a sacred tradition of the East. The Buddha's life, certainly much informed by mythological elements prevalent in ancient India, is retold to inspire our own path: We live luxuriously, we suffer, we assume that the only antidote to suffering is hedonism, then one day occurs to us that this has never worked. So we try something else. We go on a quest. We question convention. We go have a look for ourselves. And inasmuch as we question or reject society, we look inward for answers: What is true? What can I know to be true? How can I bring suffering to an end, not just for myself, but for all beings who suffer?

• See Noah Levine continue Wednesdays live in Hollywood

Siddhartha did not set off on this quest only once; he (reappearing in various transient forms, not as the same being but not altogether another) spent many lives developing the perfections. These enabled him to become a master physician for what ails living beings, a superlative teacher able to communicate that subtle and profound discovery of what's been going wrong in our own search for a way out, a samma-sam-buddha or "right and fully awakened one." Levine is not alone in sowing doubt and, possibly inadvertently, ridiculing the "less important" Buddhist teachings, such as its venerable history and origins.
  
Former Buddhist monk and continuing British iconoclast Stephen Batchelor, author of Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist, seems to have profoundly influenced Levine's view of not only Buddhist history but its theology (yes, it has one in spite of being a non-theistic tradition) and cosmology as well. There's more than a little of fellow punk and Zen Master Brad Warner in Levine's approach as well.
   

(ABC News) Stephen Batchelor talks about his confessions with ABC

To hear Levine tell it, Buddhism doesn't know its zafu from its zabuton and is ass-backwards on everything but its core insight (vipassana) teachings. With teachers like Jack Kornfield and his own father, Buddhist author Stephen Levine, that comes as a surprise. One would imagine his time in prison gave him time to reflect, grow hungry for answers, and then satisfy that hunger through books, monastics, and comparative religion professors.

 

Is Levine opinionated? It would not seem so, for when local meditator Sherry asked him to define "atheist," he suddenly had no personal opinion and turned the question on her like a reticent therapist.

  

Wisdom Quarterly would retell the story of the Buddha's life just for Levine's benefit. But any child with a picture book and even Keanu Reeves can get the highlights right.
  

   
It is difficult to see how one can have a sense of the Buddha's teaching, the Dharma, without a basic understanding of what the historical Buddha went through to arrive at the breakthrough that gave rise to the dispensation and the mythological elements that got added.

• FULL INTERVIEW: Stephen Batchelor's Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist

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