The Buddha Myth?

On our naturalistic view of the rise of the Teaching-gods, it is sheer human aspiration that has shaped all the Christs, Buddhas, Krishnas and their doctrines. Each figure shows how the religious mind manufactured a myth in a period in which the making of primary Gods had given way to the making of Secondary-gods. The mythopoeic process satisfied the craving for a Teacher-god who should originate religious and moral ideas as the earlier gods had been held to originate agriculture, art, medicine, law and civilization.

One reason why the original teachings fail is that men persisted in crediting purely human aspiration to supernatural beings. Men who are taught to bow ethically to a divine Teacher are not taught ethically to think. Any aspiration so evoked is factitious, verbal, emotional, not reached by authentic thought and experience. When the wisdom or unwisdom of the nameless thinkers in all ages is recognized for what it is--as human and not divine--the nations may become capable of working out for themselves better gospels than the best of those which turned to naught in their hands while they held them as revelations from the skies.

We can now make a critical assessment of Buddhist origins. The Teaching Buddha, considered as the wondrous sage who established a great Order in his lifetime, shrinks to vanishing point. The suspicion that Sakyamuni is an unreal being is finally justified. The Order probably originated among ascetic Brahmins who may have been led to rationalism as a result of renouncing the Vedas....

It is reasonable to wonder why so many scholars, while admitting the tissue of fable and unplausible history surrounding the origins of Buddhism, nevertheless still believe that Sakyamuni actually existed. They usually justify their attitude by the argument that every sect must have had a founder. This assumption can be allowed if it is merely taken to mean that someone must have begun the formation of any given group. It is clearly not true in the sense that every sect originates in the new teaching of a remarkable personage.

The Documentary Evidence

...Looking then, for a foothold among the shifting sands of Buddhist tradition we note the following clashing records:

(1) The Buddha is represented in ostensibly early and late tradition as speaking of the Gods with full belief in their existence.

(2) He is represented on the one hand as discouraging sacrifices, and on the other as prescribing for a whole tribe a strict adherence to ancient rites.

(3) King Asoka, who figured as a good Buddhist in the early vigor of the movement, about 250 B.C., habitually called himself "the delight of the Gods" as did his contemporary, the pious Buddhist king of Ceylon.

(4) The Buddha is represented as throwing his Order open to all classes and at the same time making the name "Brahmin" a term of honor for his Arahats and saints. Brahmins were among the most distinguished disciples.

(5) On the principle that Buddha delivered the whole cannon, much teaching that certainly did not come from him is ascribed to him.

(6) Much of the philosophy set forth as his teaching is identical with the Sankhya system, germs of which are admittedly pre-Buddhistic.
What doctrines, it must now be asked, were special to Buddhism? Not Karma, that was common property which Buddhism shared. Not in asserting that a right mind was superior to sacrifice, that was a primary doctrine of the Jains, and pre-Buddhistic, both within and without the pale of Brahmanism. Not in seeking a way to salvation independently of the Vedas, that had been done by many teachers in various sects. Not in the doctrine that defilement comes not from unclean meats but from evil deeds and words and thoughts; Buddhist writers themselves say that is derived from previous Buddhas. Not in the search for peace through self-control and renunciation; that was the quest of a myriad recluses and all previous Buddhas. Not in the view that there is a higher wisdom than that attained by austerities; that, too, is pre-Buddhistic. Not in the doctrine that non-Brahmans could join an Order and attain religious blessedness; other orders were open to men of low social status and even to slaves. Indeed, the rigid separation of caste was not yet established in the early days of Buddhism. Brahmin claims were exorbitantly high, but many Brahmins waived them and they did not apply to ascetics. Early Buddhists, like the early Christians, did not admit runaway slaves to the Order. The admission of women was not an innovation as it was practiced by the Jains, and even the tradition makes the Buddha accept it reluctantly in the twenty-fifth year of his preaching. There seems, in short, to be nothing on the face of the doctrine to account for the expansion of the Buddhist movement....

Is the world destined to be dominated by a single religion? Which one will it be? Who will be in charge of this theocracy?

Is religion is competition about whose god is superior to all the rest? Is faith facism to force others to believe in your god

Each of these ideologies is despotic and designed as a method to control the masses, as well as to pit them against each other.

Let's face it: Religion is merely competition. One person or group of people comes up with an interpretation of a giant being or beings, and then they try to convince themselves and others that such a god person is, ABSOLUTE REALITY, shoving their interpretation down everyone else's throats, or, as the case may be, into their minds. Competing books are written and/or compiled as to the nature and desires of this god person, and wars are fought in his name. So it goes, endlessly, as new interpretations are developed and new zealots created.

So the competition continues, because this group and that have varying interpretations of such noxiousness, most of which are far from being divine. From an anthropological perspective, or from that of someone not from this planet, all of this human quarrelling over who knows and represents the biggest and best god/godman appears completely savage and barbaric, like so many hyenas grunting and squealing as they pull apart a carcass. It would also appear quite insulting to the concept of the Infinite and Ineffable, were these qualities able to feel insult. To wit, when a God-cheerleader goes about trying to bludgeon others with his/her "superior" interpretation of the Divine, he or she looks depraved and idiotic to freethinkers who understand that the Infinite and Ineffable cannot be portrayed or represented with any degree of accuracy or beauty through such a mind and ego.