Please don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to offend anyone by asking this, but merely trying to increase my understanding of Buddhism. My question is what is it that makes buddhism a religion and not simply a philosophy about how one should go about leading their life? It seems to me that with all of the world's other major religions, the only thing that separates them from other moral/ethical philosophies is the existence of a diety. A divine creator, from whom the religion was spawned. Buddhism lacks this divine being, as Buddha is rightfully seen as a great philosopher but a human philosopher. So how is it that it is any different from Kantian ethics or other codes of conduct?
Well, a lot of Buddhists would say it's NOT a religion. "Religion" in its original latin root (correct me if I'm wrong) is "religare", an obligation or some such. Therefore Buddhism isn't a religion. I'd call it a way of life, we make a conscoius choice to be Buddhists, there's no evangelism. We give information when asked, yes, but we don't go "Join us or go to HELL!"
Technically a religion has three parts. Ontology (theory of being - raison d'etre), epistimology (methods), and ethics. Buddhism has all three of these, so it's a religion. Philosophies do not necessarily have all these three parts. They may just be a series of projections about -being- without having developed a method, or an associated ethics.
As usual when words are used an exact meaning must be specified; it depends upon how you define religion. http://www.religioustolerance.org/rel_defn.htm
As far as Kant goes, one does one's duty. But Kant missed the boat as it relates to existential experience, specifically noumonea or noumon (a state where thinking does not exist). Buddhism starts with one premise: You are what you think. It is more 'a self reflection' type of philosophy where one continuously examines one's own thought processes, sees the thoughts emerging and traces them back to their origin, thereby identifying one's conditioning. One therefore sees that one shouldn't have a violent thought to another since the other is not affected; one's own body goes through changes when hormones released through hate. We get angry. We feel the effects. We are affected. Why be affected? Then iot becomes a choice of whether or not to be affected. One can decide not to be affected. Then one doesn't suffer.
