Ch’an Buddhists renounce the desire to achieve Nirvana, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t believe in it. To say that Ch’an is to Buddhism is what atheism is to Christianity is not accurate. Ch’ans don’t go around telling everybody that they don’t believe in Nirvana as atheists go around telling everybody they don’t believe in God.
Sh’am Buddhists have much the same attitude to God. We find that it is not necessary to have a belief about He/She/It. This is not atheism.
Sh’am Buddhists, in common with most world religions, believe that God is unknowable, so what’s the point of worrying. To say that you know that God doesn’t exist seems incredibly arrogant – just as arrogant as saying that you know that God exists, and know precisely what is on his mind.
It depends on your definition of God, of course. The God that atheists don’t believe in is the same God that believers do believe in – flip sides of the same coin.
Religions, it has been said, are invented to keep people from knowing God.
Having renounced the necessity of God, Sh’am Buddhists are open to experience God. We can choose to believe that there is an ultimate order to the universe, and that this order is what people call God, in accordance with what they experience.
Observation is revelation.
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