As far as I can make out there is no God in Buddhism?
I know there are different branches and at first it is easier for me to ask about Theravada Buddhism as that is what I have some experience of.
If there is no God can Buddhism be called a 'religion' - is it not just a form of philosophy?
sorry if this question has already been asked 100 times.
Definition of religion differs. For me a Religion should be guiding principle of a human.
I would classify religion into RELIGION SHOULD HAVE and RELIGION SHOULD NOT HAVE:
RELIGION SHOULD HAVE:
1. Be Rational.
2. Have rules of morality and immorality and guidence of what is right and wrong.
3. A spiritual philosophy to help moral guidence.
4. Can include political administration for rulers and guide for a layman and householder.
5. Should preach Equality of Man with Man. (Meaning even if all men are created unequal the society should consider them equal irrespective of gender, caste, economic status, color, creed, social status etc).
RELIGION SHOULD NOT HAVE:
1. A God and Soul.
2. Inequality of Man with Man. (Meaning like Hindu caste system which makes one man unequal to another).
3. Rites and Rituals.
4. Priesthood.
5. Dogma and Superstitions.
6. Immorality (lots of sexual verses), Hatred against other religions.
7. Be Irrational.
If you see Hinduism today most of it composes of aspects of RELIGION SHOULD NOT HAVE .
If you see Islam and Christianity it has certain aspects of RELIGION SHOULD HAVE but also unfortunately it has aspects of RELIGION SHOULD NOT HAVE (especially point #1, #6 and point #7).
So in my book, Buddhism is the perfect religion for mankind.
A religion should encourageto use Reason and Intelligence in everything than believe Dogma. Buddhism is ONLY religion today which encourages man to be more rational. Progress of man is possible only if he is rational. If a religion stifles thinking then it is of no use.
Man can truly investigate himself ONLY if he stops believing in God. Suppose u try a task with great effort and it did not happen most people say "IT WAS GODS WISH". It is laying blame to a third party rather than truly investigating our own weaknesses.
Religion progresses with development of man. Primitive man believed Sun,moon,water,fire were god themselves and worshipped nature. Later as man developed he decided that the source of all wonderful things in the world should have a single supernatural cause (It was more rational to think that) and so they labelled it as God.
A more developed society as today recognizes that belief in God is irrational and not in accordance with Science and evolution theory. So this society rejects God phenomenon.