"Believe nothing, o monks,
merely because you have been told it ...
or because it is traditional,
or because you yourselves have imagined it.

Do not believe what your teacher tells you
merely out of respect for the teacher.

But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis,
you find to be conducive to the good,
the benefit, the welfare of all beings ³
that doctrine believe and cling to,
and take it as your guide."

Gautama Buddha

"Bear always in mind what it is that I have not elucidated, and what it is that I have elucidated. And what have I not elucidated? I have not elucidated that the world is eternal; I have not elucidated that the world is not eternal; ... I have not elucidated that the soul and the body are identical; I have not elucidated that the monk who has attained (the arahat) exists after death; I have not elucidated that the arahat does not exist after death; ... I have not elucidated that the arahat neither exists nor does not exist after death. And why have I not elucidated this? Because this profits not, nor has to do with the fundamentals of religion; therefore I have not elucidated this.
And what have I elucidated? Misery have I elucidated; the origin of misery have I elucidated; the cessation of misery have I elucidated; and the path leading to the cessation of misery have I elucidated. And why have I elucidated this? Because this does profit, has to do with the fundamentals of religion, and tends to absence of passion, to knowledge, supreme wisdom, and Nirvana."

Gautama Buddha

No one saves us but ourselves,
No one can and no one may.
We ourselves must walk the path,
But Buddhas clearly show the way.

The Dhammapada, 165.


The Buddha did not claim to be in any way divine, nor does Buddhism involve the idea of a personal god.

The Buddha suggested that it was fear that produced the religious impulse in humanity.

Gripped by fear men go to the sacred mountains, sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines, but these are not a secure kind of refuge.
Dhammapada, 188

The way to cure this fear is not by believing in a God who will protect you, but by coming to a proper understanding and acceptance of the way things are.

Local gods
In many cultures Buddhism co-exists with local gods.
Sometimes the local gods are seen as having adopted Buddhism, while in other places the local gods are regarded as manifestations of various buddhas. Often a particular local deity will be given responsibility for a particular temple or place of devotion.
These "gods" are very different from the eternal God(s) of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They are not eternal and unchanging, but are go through the process of death and rebirth, just as human beings do.

Most Buddhists, especially western Buddhists, don't spend much time worrying about whether gods exist or not - it's just not an important question.

Buddhism is essentially about living one's life so as to gain enlightenment; there may or may not be some gods or spirits around, but they're not of any real importance.
The soul

Nor do Buddhists technically believe in a permanent individual soul that keeps being reborn into new bodies in the process of reincarnation.

For Buddhists nothing is permanent. A person changes continuously, there is no element of a person that is permanent...

...And just as there is a causal connection between the events that make up a person's life, so there is a causal connection between each of their lives.

Ahoj hm vies v anglitcine nie som az tak dobry aby som tomu porozumel....rad by som vsak oznamil ze poslednu dobu sa vela zmenilo co som tu malo chodil resp. sa az teraz objavil. Ide o to ze som sa zacal zaoberat budhizmom,premyslat a dost k nemu inklinujem a je mozne ze sa to stane mojou filozofiou uvidime.Kazdopadne isti ludia zasa to na inom fore nebudu radi citat.