Repudiating the Supernatural

I recently posted on my Facebook timeline a rather bold statement. I said:

Buddha did not believe in ghosts, devas, spirits, the afterlife, or reincarnation. Buddha was essentially a modernist living in ancient times. If we are to put his worldview into modern terms, then Buddha would fall into the camp of the “materialists” and “atheists.”

Perhaps it was my Confucian mind speaking. Confucius almost never talked about supernatural matters. He said, “Since we don’t even know enough about the living, why talk about what happens after death?” We have Confucius to thank for the this-worldly orientation of Chinese culture. In this aspect, the Chinese mind is totally different from the Indian mind. The Indian mind has a tendency to focus on the afterlife.

Some of my Buddhist friends were up in arms when they saw my statement about Buddha being “materialist” and “atheist.” That is understandable. My statement contradicts what they have learned in popular Buddhism. Some of them asked me to provide evidence to justify my claim. In terms of Buddha’s view regarding the afterlife and rebirth/reincarnation, Ajahn Buddhadasa already wrote an excellent treatise in which he obliterated the conventional “Buddhist” view on past lives, future lives, and transmigration. Buddhadasa’s position is that the conventional Buddhist view on rebirth and transmigration is…