beliefreligion in the Rig Veda (2.12; 8.89). According to the historical Buddha,
gods are part of the world of appearance, are not all-powerful, are imper-
manent, and are reborn just like humans, which leads some scholars to
characterize the Buddha as an atheist. The Buddha teaches that no god
can save a person from the world of suffering because liberation must
be achieved by a person’s own efforts.
Modern atheism is given impetus by the German philosopher Ludwig
Feuerbach (1804–1872) who influences Karl Marx (1818–1883), German
social and political theorist and father of Communism. Using the dialec-
tic of his philosophical mentor Hegel, Feuerbach argues that God is a
projection of humanity’s own self-alienation. By worshiping God,
humans are actually worshiping themselves. The best example is Jesus,
a man worshiped as a God.
Some postmodern thinkers embrace the atheist position with their
proclamation that God is dead. Mark C. Taylor is an excellent example
because he thinks that the death of God results in the self-devaluation of
the highest values. Criticizing what he calls humanistic atheists for lack-
ing intellectual courage, Taylor asserts that the death of God also signals
demise of the self. In other words, if God is dead the self must also be
dead because the self needs something with which to relate in order to
find its identity and meaning. Taylor’s radical sense of the death of God
involves death becoming the absolute master because God is experienced
as death itself.Further reading: Feuerbach (1967); Taylor (1984)BELIEF
From indigenous to international religions, beliefs are convictions, asser-
tions, and habitually accepted unquestioning viewpoints that define a
religious culture’s worldview, its way of life, its social structure, the
nature of human existence and its problems, the solution to the problems
of life, and an often concise statement of the fundamental agreed upon
religious claims. Statements of belief unite a people and differentiate
them from outsiders. From a cross-cultural perspective, beliefs can prove
to be very durable over a long period of time. This does not imply that
beliefs are static once they are established because they continue to be
altered and refined according to historical circumstances by religious
thinkers.