Buddhism, Religion, and the Concept of "God"

Abstract

It is here argued that, although the Buddha and the buddhas are not regarded as gods by Buddhists, they clearly fulfill the criteria of "counter-intuitive agents" as they have been presented by Pascal Boyer. To the extent that religion can be understood as human thought, action, and experience that involve counter-intuitive representations, Buddhism does not have to be the problematic touchstone for a global concept of religion.

A religion of wellbeing? The appeal of Buddhism to men in London, United Kingdom.

“…(That said, Buddhism also began to take on more overtly religious elements for some men, supporting Pyysiäinen's (2003) point that it is too simplistic to categorize Buddhism as non-theistic.) Moreover, there was a gendered element to the appeal of Buddhist as a rational system, since it helped some men overcome their skepticism around spiritualty, a skepticism which was informed by societal discourses linking rationality to masculinity (Ross-Smith & Kornberger, 1994).…”

The Evolution of Religion: How Cognitive By-Products, Adaptive Learning Heuristics, Ritual Displays, and Group Competition Generate Deep Commitments to Prosocial Religions

“…This includes religions such as Buddhism and Taoism, which doctrinally eschew personifying the supernatural, but whose adherents routinely worship an array of deities that behave in ways that violate our intuitive expectations about how the world works (Pyysiäinen 2003). Mundane agent concepts are central players in what psychologists refer to as folkpsychology, associated with a Theory of Mind module(s) (ToM), which is a cognitive system devoted to making inferences about the beliefs, desires, and intentions of other minds (Baron-Cohen 1995).…”

Spatial Configuration in Tiwanaku Art: A Review of Stone Carved Imagery and Staff Gods

“…Quite the contrary, the contention is that if the figures are indeed representations of "gods," i. e., cases of Andean divine anthropomorphism, then a more compelling question arises at to how the classification further informs on past Andean society. Indeed, the "god" interpretation in itself, as a category, means very little (Pyysiäinen & Ketola 1999;Pyysiäinen 2003).…”