Buddha once said something akin to ‘have the gods ever prevented you from getting a cold’ yet I believe he was still religious while pointing out that god has pretty much never done anything for anyone. I notice animism doesn’t seem to mention any kind of deity.
The closest description I can find is pantheism because they believe in the concept of spirituality and reject the idea of a deity.
So is there a term for a religious belief that believes in religious concepts (spirituality, afterlife, karma, reincarnation, heaven/hell, etc) but believes a deity either doesn’t exist or is an impotent non-creator (as opposed to deism which states a deity both exists and created the universe but chooses not to intervene)?
Azathothianism should fit the bill. What’s more impotent and unaccessible than a non-sentient deity? Of course, you’d have to get used to the shrill, wild piping…
Depending on how you define religion, if you believe that Buddhism is a religion, then you’ve answered your own question. It is a religion, but it has no deity. I’m defining religion as a set of beliefs that relate to the larger issues of human origins, afterlife, morality, purpose of life, and so forth. And usually, I think that religions also entail some degree of ritualistic behaviors. In those ways, a “religion without a deity” is still a religion.
My first response was Buddhism and after a little bit of thought, my second response is Buddhism, as well. In fact, it can be argued (as CC did so well) that Buddhism is the very definition of a religion without a deity.
It was a joke…but Azathoth wasn’t invented by jayjay. If you Google “Azathoth” and not “Azathothianism” you will find – ah – far more information than you may wish. Basically, it’s a fictional “God” invented by H.P. Lovecraft.
For fun, I went to BeliefNet’s BeliefOMatic. I answered the key questions about belief in a God/Gods in the negative, but generally upholding to a vague religious view with Secular Humanist-type answer on the hot button issues. They allow rating how important an issue is, so I rated the no-God one’s high, the secondary beliefs low.
It came back Unitarian Universalism. Note that UU’s are a divergent group, to say the least, which includes nontheists. So if someone actually wanted to particjpate in a nontheistic church, wander over to your local UU chapter. But be prepared to meet, umm, non-nontheists (?).
Only semantically. I can’t think of any meaningful definition of atheist that doesn’t include disavowal of religious precepts along with a deity. But conceded that the term can be read that way.
