Is It Safer to Believe in God?

Q: l read a book, from which I gathered that anyone can go to heaven, that all religions are right in their own way.

A: From the Buddhist perspective, the idea that ‘all religions are right in their own way’ is tricky and needs further qualifying – because the Buddha taught that different systems of religious thought differ in extents of the promotion of goodness and truth. Buddhists see that Buddhism expounds the highest degree of goodness and truth, in terms of perfect compassion and wisdom. For instance, about goodness – the Buddha taught us not to be compassionate only to humans, but to all beings – including animals and all other beings. This is a reason why Buddhists strive to be vegetarians or vegans, though it is not a must for those not ready. Meanwhile, some religions believe that animals are ‘created’ by a ‘good God’ to be killed and eaten by humans – even though no single animal seems willing to suffer for us. The breadth of compassion is so great in Buddhism that there are Buddhas and Bodhisattvas manifesting endlessly in the hells to guide them how to end their suffering, while all non-Christians are suppose to burn in hell forever. Another instance, about truth – the Buddha was so confident of the validity of his realisations of universal truths that he openly welcomed and encouraged active enquiry about his teachings – to question thoroughly before accepting them. Myself for one, became a Buddhist because I realised that there was no intelligent and practical question that I had (which were really many), that Buddhism could not answer satisfactorily. Meanwhile, there are many basic questions I have about other religions that cannot be answered well at all.

Q: If a Buddhist and a Christian were to do the same amount of good, from a Buddhist’s stand, both can go heaven. But from a Christian’s stand, only they can go heaven due to belief in God. Thus logically, one can argue it would be a safer bet to believe in God?

A: It is a misconception that the goal of all Buddhists is to go to heaven. First of all, there are 26 heavenly planes in Buddhist cosmology. As such, the idea of ‘to go heaven’ is at best vague – because which heaven are we talking about? Some heavenly planes are advantageous to Dharma practice towards spiritual liberation, while some are less. Some are even dangerous as they lead to spiritual complacency. The ultimate goal of Buddhists is not to reside in a heavenly place for good after doing good, but to break free from the rounds of rebirth by realising ultimate truth too. The Buddha taught that this is not the only life we have and there is no such thing as eternal happiness in any heavenly plane due to the limits of positive karma we can create in this lifetime. There is thus no eternal hell too, though both lives in the heavens and hells can feel very long due to great positive and negative karma respectively. Even beings in heavens and hells have to be subjected to rebirth after they die. Only freedom from rebirth is the true liberation.

While some Buddhists do aspire to be reborn in specific heavens by doing good, most Buddhists do not aspire to be reborn in any heaven. Instead, they aspire to be human again, to break free of rebirth, or to be reborn in ideal realms (called Purelands) shaped by Buddhas’ great compassion, so as to practise and perfect the spiritual path. The excellence of Purelands greatly surpass any typical heavenly plane described in any other teachings. In the case of Buddhists with right understanding who aspire to go to a better realm, they are not worried that they might be subscribing to the wrong religion, because in Buddhist cosmology, which was taught by the Buddha more than half a millennium before Jesus was born, there is mention of the equivalent of the heavenly plane taught in Christianity. And it is definitely not the most spiritually excellent of places to practise for attaining liberation. Purelands (e.g. the one created by Amituofo or Amitabha Buddha) are far more excellent, as they can guarantee perfect enlightenment (liberation; True Happiness) due to direct mentoring by perfectly enlightened Buddhas – who are also known as ‘teachers of humans and gods’. It is worth noting that while the Buddha taught that there is no almightily good creator God, he did mention there is a god who mistaken himself to have created the world, and to also mistaken himself to possess an ‘eternal heaven’. In the Buddhist scriptures, this god acknowledged the spiritual superiority of the Buddha. Thus, with the perspectives above, Buddhists believe they see the whole picture much more clearly. They are not worried that they might be missing the ‘only way’ to a heaven, because they know there are many ways to many heavens by the practice of good. More importantly, they know there are realms better than the heavens – Purelands.

Q: This reminds me of Pascal’s Wager, which states – We only have two things to stake, our reason and our happiness. Pascal considers that there is equal risk of loss and gain, a coin toss, since human reason is powerless to address the question of God’s existence. That being the case, we then must decide it according to our happiness… by weighing the gain and loss in believing that God exists. He contends the wise decision is to wager that God exists, since ‘If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing’, meaning one can gain eternal life if God exists, but if not, one will be no worse off in death than if one had not believed. But if he is real and we didn’t believe, then we end up in hell. Whereas, Buddhism say anyone can go heaven. So, probability-wise, being a Christian does seem safer?

A: Buddhists disagree that the question of God’s existence is beyond reason to answer. If there is an almighty and supremely good God who created and maintains everything perfectly, there would be no single trace of suffering in this world at all. The fact that there is much suffering is the best proof that there is no God who is almighty and supremely good in the first place. Pascal’s reasoning is thus flawed – it is not proper reasoning. It is an ungrounded assumption that to believe in what is unlikely will guarantee happiness. Instead, in Buddhism, we speak of experiencing the truth, to know and to see it in its totality via Dharma practice. There are too many ungrounded assumptions in Pascal’s Wager. Firstly, one must believe there is a God. Secondly, one must believe that this God is almighty and good. Thirdly, one must believe that one will ‘gain all’ if this God is believed in. As above, due to the truth we know, that there are thousands of children born into suffering and dying everyday due to disease and war, there cannot be an almighty and good creator God – because there is nothing good about endlessly ‘creating’ beings to suffer. If there is indeed a creator God, this God is almighty in a most evil way instead. Buddhists don’t believe they will gain everything or anything, out of belief in God – because they know he is not real. They also don’t believe they will lose nothing if they believe in this God. What they lose is their progress in the quest to realise the truth – as the belief in the existence of an almighty and good creator God is clearly taught by the Buddha to be a delusion. Adhering to such a delusion will impede progress towards enlightenment – which is to go towards perfect wisdom.

Somewhere, and I can’t find where,
I read about an Eskimo hunter who asked the local missionary priest,
“If I didn’t know about God and sin, would I go to hell?”
“No,” said the priest, “not if you did not know.”
“Then why,” asked the Eskimo earnestly, “did you tell me?”

– Annie Dillard

Related Articles:

The Importance of Inter-Religious Harmony
https://moonpointer.com/new/2009/11/the-importance-of-inter-religious-harmony
Beyond Belief: Comparison between Buddhism & Christianity
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/beyond-belief02.pdf
Threat of Eternal Hellfire
http://www.moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=97
God or Not?
http://www.moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=1896
Are Buddhists Atheists?
http://www.moonpointer.com/index.php?itemid=659
Are All Religions the Same?
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/zeph/message/834