Can an atheist be a Buddhist?

 

This man (above) is Doug Smith. In the video I've put at the top, he's a bit headlong, and full of references to Buddhist scriptures which mindfulnessistas with no spiritual or religious attitudes may find a bit tedious. However, the question seems important to me, and he really gets a lot into ten minutes!

Some people who talk to me about meditation "and stuff" describe Buddhism as "just another religion."

Well, it is and it isn't. Or, it can be if you want to worship, but it doesn't have to be if you don't. Ideally flexible, perhaps, for our uncertain times?

This man:

as you can see, profiles practice; Buddhism as something you do to liberate yourself and live more fully and more compassionately, not Buddism as a set of metaphysical beliefs. This book:

 I found really helpful- concise, and mercifully free of complicated Pali/Sanskrit terms. (I'm grateful to all those scholars/writers who have used their tremendous scholarship to interpret ancient Buddhist texts and teachings so we can benefit from them without needing to learn ancient languages and understand polysyllabic terminology! The Interpreters.)

There's no real reason why you can't follow Buddhist precepts and also follow one of the Religions of the Book; there's no reason why you can't do so and be an atheist. Suit yourself.  It's what you do that really matters. (Though in some of the less tolerant versions of the Religions of the Book, you'd best keep quiet about your Buddism - they get very excitable about "heresy.")

This bloke's 

teachings are available to all of us, thanks to the Interpreters. You can worship him, if it suits you - or not. He said to his followers when he was close to death:

"Think not for me. I am gone. Work out diligently your own salvation. Each one of you is just what I am. I am nothing but one of you. What I am today is what I made myself" (i.e. enlightened, liberated, awakened.) 

At least, that's one version, reportedly, of what he said. After all, it was four or five hundred years before Jesus, and there's enough scholarly argument about what Jesus said. In some versions, Buddha said "light your own lamp" or "be your own lamp." Same thing.

But above all, it seems, no claims of supernaturalismo: "I am nothing but one of you." That'll do for me!