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Full Idea
The Buddha believed implicitly in the gods because they were part of his cultural baggage, but they were involved in the cycle of rebirth, and would eventually disappear; the ultimate reality of Nirvana was higher than the gods.
Gist of Idea
The Buddha believed the gods would eventually disappear, and Nirvana was much higher
Source
report of Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) (reports [c.540 BCE]) by Karen Armstrong - A History of God Ch.1
Book Ref
Armstrong,Karen: 'A History of God' [Mandarin 1993], p.42
A Reaction
We might connect this with Plato's Euthyphro question (Ideas 336 and 337), and the relationship between piety and morality on the one hand, and the gods on the other.
Related Ideas
Idea 336 Is what is pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because they love it? (the 'Euthyphro Question') [Plato]
Idea 337 It seems that the gods love things because they are pious, rather than making them pious by loving them [Plato]
| 7600 | The Buddha believed the gods would eventually disappear, and Nirvana was much higher [Buddha, by Armstrong,K] |
| 7601 | Life is suffering, from which only compassion, gentleness, truth and sobriety can save us [Buddha] |
| 7900 | Speak the truth, yield not to anger, give what you can to him who asks [Anon (Dham)] |
| 7904 | The first stage of trance is calm amidst applied and discursive thinking [Ashvaghosha] |
| 7905 | The Buddha sought ultimate reality and the final goal of existence in his meditations [Ashvaghosha] |
| 7909 | The Eightfold Path concerns morality, wisdom, and tranquillity [Ashvaghosha] |
| 7607 | Nagarjuna and others pronounced the world of experience to be an illusion [Nagarjuna, by Armstrong,K] |
| 18990 | Nirvana means safety from sense experience, and hindus and buddhists are just afraid of life [James] |
| 7901 | 'Buddha' just means a person who is fully enlightened about life [Conze] |
| 21832 | Buddhists reject God and the self, and accept suffering as key, and liberation through wisdom [Flanagan] |
| 23058 | Buddhism has no divinity or souls, and the aim is to lose the illusion of a self [Gray] |
| 20766 | Four Noble Truths: life is suffering, caused by attachment, it is avoidable, there is a path [Aho] |