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Comment by eellpp | Hacker News Reader

Well one difference is that Gautama was an atheist. That makes it different almost all other major religions. Another difference is that he kept on emphasising on practice and self experience (to improve one's life) than theory/intellectual-discussion and blind belief. Also self observing and believing only that much which one experiences himself and take it step by step. This is unlike asking someone to just believe and accept something as a fact.

>I just wish people recognized Buddhism for what it is - a religion.

There was no one ordained by him or any religion proclaimed by him on his name. Around his words later there is a whole religion of buddhism that came up with many different kind of practices and rituals. You could follow none of that (this religion and its rituals) and just live by the principles by which Gautam Buddha "lived" himself and could have a better life.

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You're engaging in some very slippery semantics.

To say Gautama was an atheist is to push onto history a distinction that had yet to be invented. He was very much a participant in the spiritual / religious frameworks of the time, and rejection of certain aspects of those frameworks does not necessarily make you an apostate or unreligious or atheistic.

> There was no one ordained by him or any religion proclaimed by him on his name.

Jesus ordained nobody either. Nor did he ever proclaim a religion. All that came later.

If Buddhism isn't a religion, Christianity isn't either. Buddhism has teachings, mythology, places of worship, specific means of prayer, (meditation, anybody who says meditation isn't prayer has never really prayed) holy books, priests, and a thriving metaphysical dialogue. It walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, water rolls down its back like a duck.

> Jesus ordained nobody either

Well, catholics say differently. "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church."

So, Jesus ordained 0 or 1 people, depending on your choice of tradition.

A brief search also pointed me to a thread where Catholics believe Jesus ordained all 12 apostles. To me it seems like after-the-fact justifications, but you have to learn to live with this kind of non-rigor when studying religion.

One of the important differences between Christianity and Buddhism is the concept of monotheism in Christianity. According to Christianity, there is only one god and to accept Christianity, one has to reject rest of all. The way Buddhism was received in far East, without replacing their existing belief system shows the tolerant nature of the religion. This is why many Japanese claim to follow multiple religion - the idea unimaginable in the Christian countries.

I don't think it's fair to say Guatama was an atheist, at least in the common-use definition of the word. He doesn't teach about an almighty creator God, but there are plenty of unimaginably powerful, vast, supramundane beings that he interacts with in the Buddhist canon that your average atheist would deny the existence or possibility of.

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