Stephen Batchelor: Confession of a Buddhist Atheist

At the roots of the arguments seems to lie the question: can one be a "good person" without the guiding moral compass of a faith, whether that faith be invested in an absolute morality coming from a "god" or from the teachings of an ancient Asian philosopher. I won't pretend to know the details of Buddhism, but the difference seems to be in using as a foundation an admittedly man-made (and I'd assert, therefore, more intellectually honest) philosophy as opposed to one allegedly handed down by a supernatural force or being. As one who embraces the admitted contradiction of being a "devout atheist" - and anti-theist - I can respect that fundamental notion of deriving a moral identity from a such less superstitious source.

Mark, my point was that a good deal of the Bible's moral instructions draw their authority from a divine figure -- in your own words, the "Laws of God" -- and that's true whether you're talking about the Old or New Testament or the Koran. "An entire mode of life and the rituals that one must follow, down to the clothes one must wear and the food one may or may not eat" are exactly the kind of "purely theological dogma" I was referring to. As a committed non-believer, what wisdom am I supposed to take away from an instruction to only wear clothing made of certain kinds of material (to use a commonly-cited example)?

Buddhism seems to potentially need less of this kind of thing, as far as I can tell, for a variety of reasons: it places relatively little emphasis on scriptural authority, it's non-theistic, and it has a long tradition of embracing vigorous debate on values (I'm aware these qualities are not all exclusive to Buddhism). To my knowledge, a literal interpretation of the karma / rebirth concept isn't as critical to Buddhist morality as the threat of divine retribution is to the scriptures of the Abrahamic faiths. It's for all of these reasons that I suspect Buddhism might hold up better than Christianity to a "de-mystifying" approach. Absent the metaphysical aspect, there would simply be a stronger framework to build on.

Obviously I can't speak for every atheist or agnostic, but for starters, I've always found the golden rule to be a solid foundation for any moral system. And it's certainly not an idea exclusive to Christianity; virtually every religion throughout history contains some version of "treat others the way you'd like to be treated." I don't think it would be a stretch to say the benefits of the rule are just as obvious with or without the authority of a divine figure to back it up.

To both the first and second parts of that sentence, I'd say: Sometimes it has been. Not always. And I'd say the same about most religions, Christianity included.

Just to re-iterate: I'm not a Buddhist, just an admirer, and I'm certainly no scholar on the topic. I'll defer to Stephen Batchelor's own Buddhism Without Beliefs as possibly holding some answers for you.

No. If you took Christ out of the equation, you would have The Old Testament and Judaism. The "bits of moral insight" are anything but disconnected. The Torah is quite clear and coherent about moral principles. An entire mode of life and the rituals that one must follow, down to the clothes one must wear and the food one may or may not eat are listed. The Law of God is clearly expressed.
The Orthodox community immerses itself into the Laws, Traditions and the text of the Holy Scriptures.

As a Christian, I consider practitioners of the Jewish Faith to be my "Big Brothers and Sisters" in Faith. Abraham is the Father in Faith of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Isn't the notion of Karma a quasi-moral precept? Isn't the same true of rebirth? If these "superstitions" are removed, exactly what are you left with in terms of a coherent moral philosophy?

On what does atheism rely for its "moral precepts?" Human nature? Reason? I have thoroughly enjoyed conversations with every devout Buddhist I have had the pleasure to meet, and have read a fair amount about it, but have always found it to lack anything transcendant or Providential. I think it is certainly a useful human contrivance and is generally peaceful, which in a world run by humans, is much in need.

Even though I'm an atheist, I've had an objective interest in Buddhism for quite a while, so I can appreciate Batchelor's point of view.

To me, the unique thing about Buddhism as a religion is that it seems like you can excise all of the fantastical elements like karma and rebirth and all the various minor superstitions, and still be left with an incredibly robust and coherent moral philosophy. Contrast that with Christianity, where the divinity of Jesus Christ and the promise of eternal salvation through belief in Him is essentially the unifying theme of the religion; if you took Christ out of the equation, you'd have quite a job separating the disconnected bits of moral insight you'd have left from the purely theological dogma.

That's not meant as a rip on Christians or whatever; it's just that as an atheist, these are the things that appeal to me, personally, about Buddhism -- at least the kind of Buddhism that Batchelor's advocating.

Of course clinging to scripture or dogmatic ideas of God is wrong-headed! That doesn't automatically negate the reality of a Supreme Consciousness. Bachelor, like most Atheists, falls into the trap of discounting the notion of God simply based on the clumsy practices of religion.

The new movement of Atheists are against all religions.

There isn't an obsession with 'god' but more of showing people that their 'god' isn't the attributes that they have given 'it', if it even did exist.

The funniest part of everyone's bashing of Atheists is that its 100x worse then what they are doing back, and they are calling them militant!