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[quote=Anonymous]In the "can christians do yoga?" thread, a self-proclaimed "Buddhist Christian" jumped in and asserted that Buddhism isn't a religion, it's a philosophy. This is one of the most widespread misconceptions about Buddhism in the West, and it's especially promoted by evangelical/militant atheists like Sam Harris. It's fine to practice Buddhism and be an atheist, but it's incorrect to state that Buddhism itself is atheistic - as a friend of mine (who is an actual sworn Buddhist nun) says, "Buddhism isn't atheistic, it's un-theistic." So if you think "Buddhism isn't a religion", this public service announcement is for you.

Buddhism and Hinduism are both vulnerable to an extremely Abrahamic-centric view of religion, which Westerners often use as justification for selectively appropriating or for outright saying that Buddhism or Hinduism aren't religions. It's based on an inherent, biased, chauvinistic assumption that the gold standard for defining religion is the standard by which monotheistic, Abrahamic religions are defined: one God, one prophet, one central religious text, one unifying doctrine.

[i]A religion can be a religion without having these things.
[/i]
Buddhism is about achieving a state of transcendence. This does not require belief in a creator deity, but it does require belief in consciousness being separate from the mind - an eternal consciousness that transcends physical reality, that reincarnates from body to body, that eventually dissolves in the void of nirvana. Buddhists speak of attaining nirvana in exactly the same way that a God-worshipping person speaks of attaining heaven, or union with God. This is a belief that exists in both Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism (the two big categories of Buddhism, each of which contains multiple schools - for example, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the leader of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Mahayana Buddhism). As an aside, the fact that the Dalai Lama is addressed as "His Holiness" and has the status equivalent to the Pope in Tibetan Buddhism is itself an argument in favor of Buddhism being an actual religion.

From the Buddha Zen Tumblr:

[quote]According to giants in the field of religion, like Ninian Smart and Huston Smith, Buddhism very much is a religion.  It fits perfectly with the traditional Smartsian model of a religion.

All religions are composed of more than a mere belief system.  Indeed, a belief system is only one of the total seven components of religion, according to the Smartsian model.  All religions have: 1) ritual, 2) myth (sacred stories), 3) doctrine, 4) ethic, 5) social structure or institution, 6) materials–e.g. churches, sacred objects, iconography, etc., and finally and most importantly 7) experience–whether or not a religion is meaningful to the individual, and deeply strikes him emotionally [1].
Buddhism possesses every single of these qualities.  Here are some examples:

1) Ritual - meditation, chanting, praying, holidays like Vesak (Buddha’s Birthday)
2) Myth (Sacred Stories) - the story of the Buddha’s life and path to enlightenment.
3) Doctrine - metaphysical concepts like rebirth and karma
4) Ethics - some of which are laid out in the Eightfold Path [1][2], particularly Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, etc.
5) Social Structure and/or Institution - clearly exemplified by the Sangha, which is the community of monks and lay people.
6) Materials - from structures like stupas, which are said to house sacred objects in Buddhism, to everyday objects like mandalas, prayer beads, statues, etc.
7) Personal Experience - devotees from all over the world can attest to the emotional comfort and efficacy that this 2,500+ religion provides.
So now you know!  Buddhism has a lot more to offer than mere metaphysical speculation and an ethics system.  It’s much more than that.  It’s a religion that can be a way of living and make your life meaningful.[/quote]

Further reading:
[url=http://buddhazen101.tumblr.com/post/25350068069/why-buddhism-is-a-religion-not-just-a]Why Buddhism is a religion, not just a philosophy[/url]

As a social construct, Buddhism has evolved as a religious way of life in India and Nepal (where it was born) and in the countries where it spread to. Traditional Buddhists - as opposed to Westerners who are recently beginning to appropriate the teachings of the Buddha - have always considered their faith a religion. Even Zen Buddhists, who in the nineteenth century attended the World Parliament of Religions along with Swami Vivekananda, a famous Hindu monk. The Zen Buddhists of 1893 didn't plonk themselves down in Chicago with the disclaimer: "We're just here to talk about the mind and a way of life, we're not actually a religion." Their argument was actually the opposite - they were of the opinion that Japanese Mahayana Buddhism was a great world religion, and they saw the spread of Christianity in Japan as a religious threat to Buddhism.

Traditional South Asian Buddhism has always honored deities, many of whom are closely interlinked with Hindu deities. It is an integral part of traditional Buddhist cosmology (by the way, [i]Buddhism has a cosmology[/i]). Deities are explicitly acknowledged to exist in a polytheistic sense of, although worship of these deities is not encouraged - with certain exceptions, of course. These deities are not considered creators of the universe, and these deities are also considered to be on their own path of spiritual evolution - in Buddhism, even gods are just souls like us on a more advanced level as they move towards nirvana. However, despite Buddhism never requiring worship of these deities, they nevertheless [i]are[/i] prayed to. Some of the most beautiful prayers to the goddess of learning and knowledge, Saraswati, were written by Buddhists of the Gelugpa school. Yama, the death god, is honored in both Hinduism and Buddhism. Devotional activity therefore exists in traditional Buddhism, not only in India but also in China and Japan - especially in Japan, where often the Shinto religion and Buddhism bleed together. Belief and faith, the two foundational stones of any religious practice, are also foundations in Buddhism.

By the way, if you this socio-cultural context isn't relevant to whether or not a set of teachings can be considered a religion, be prepared to acknowledge that Christianity, Islam and Judaism aren't religions either.

Buddhism believes in six realms of reincarnation, in traditional Buddhist cosmology: the realm of hell, the realm of ghosts, the realm of animals, the realm of asuras, and the realm of heaven. Heaven is still a place of reincarnation, it is not nirvana but merely a very enjoyable place for rebirth. You move between realms of existence based on your karma, your actions, and your movement is conceptualized as the wheel of samsara that is common to all the Dharma religions - Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism.

To say that Buddhism isn't a religion is to show a very infantile understanding of what religion is, and it also shows a certain cultural arrogance that presumes only an Abrahamic model can adequately define a religion.[/quote]

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