What is the difference between Atheism and Buddhism?

David T: What is the difference between Atheism and Buddhism?
I guess Atheists can be in harmony with Buddhism.
Can Atheists be the transitional stage between Religious (like Christianity) and Buddhism which provides guidance and structure?
Don’t confuse with Buddhist philosophy and literature where you talk about floating elephants in dreams etc. Buddhism is much bigger than that.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Maria Tortilla
I DON’T KNOW MR. SMARTY PANTS.

Answer by Dan
Buddhism has some nice ideas and a bit of woo (magic).

Atheism has some accurate ideas and no woo.

Answer by Dirty Parsnips
Buddhists don’t believe in God, well not the Christian God. But their stories are riddled with dogma, something about a virgin birth and a floating elephant impregnating the mother, virgin birth, Buddha having magic powers. Aside from that I generally like Buddhists, but their origin story is pretty much a fable.

Answer by ℒ’amour est le chaos
Atheists dont have standards of philosophies or rules and are not a religion and considering how the human brain is built we as people dont necessarily need a structure to live peacefully because structure is already there in a way

Buddhism has standard philosophies and they can either be atheistic or theistic although they do sometimes say not to focus on God or gods too much since it messes up reaching being enlightened

Answer by Rosco
All Buddhists are Atheists but not all Atheists are Buddhists

Answer by illuzion30
Atheists think there aren’t any gods.
Buddhists believe in all kinds of stuff like everything is connected, karma, rebirth, “noble truths”, etc.

As an atheist, looks like quite a gap to me.

Answer by Gorgeoustx Go Spurs Go!53 wins 12 loses
Buddhism is a philosophy that encourages the search for enlightenment. Atheism is not a philosopy, it is simply having no belief in any god.

Answer by Mikey, just Mikey
Atheism has *way* better refreshments.

Answer by PoohBearPenguin
Buddhism still believes in a spiritual existence, reincarnation, and all that. Atheism does not believe in anything that cannot be scientifically proven.

While Buddhists do not go around trying to break into your house so they can talk to you about Sirdatha or enlightenment, that merely makes Buddhists less annoying to Atheists. As far as atheism is concerned, Buddhism is still a form of a fairy tale.

Answer by Amy
Atheism is simply the belief that there are no gods.

Buddhism is a specific set of beliefs about spiritual things. Most forms of Buddhism include a belief that there are no gods, or at least not gods in the sense other religions mean. It does include ritual and morality guidelines like traditional religions.

So, I guess Buddhism is a subset of atheism, but atheism is far from the most important characteristic of Buddhism.

Answer by Zeistermeister
Obviously there is. Buddhism has a wide spectrum of ranges from Taoist Buddhism which believes in the dogma-less way to achieve enlightenment(s), to deistic Buddhism that believes after life and meeting with you Karma Lords and the wheel of reincarnation with thousands of deities to worship from to the Zen Buddhism where it is more close to the self realization in order to achieve the divinity in oneself without recognizing the God as a personal entity but rather as a ultimate reality being experienced. Now to the atheists, they are existential and believe in no god or deities. They might have scientific inclinations and general do not practice any religious reverence to either the nature nor any god they called superstitions.

In a nutshell, atheism believes in no god and only believe in ones physical self as the ultimate reality with possible scientific backing while buddhism encompasses deity worshipping, nature worshipping, self realization of the greater reality with centuries of formulated teachings from the Buddha or recognize that this reality is of an illusory nature…..

Answer by kveldulf_gondlir
Buddhism is a religious philosophy. Atheism is a complete LACK of religion. Atheists believe that there are no gods…and that there is no spirit..no soul…nothing supernatural can exist. The have no belief in an afterlife…no belief in reincarnation and no belief in Karma. Buddhism, while not having a central deity (Buddha is not considered a god, but an enlightened being) contains a belief in many various types of spiritual beings and things of such a nature that it has nothing in common with athiesm what so ever. Athiests cannot be in harmony with any religion or religious philosophy such as Buddhism ecause of their complete lack of acceptance of any of the things necessary for a belief in religion, religious philosphy or any similar idea.