The Kalama Sutta

The Kalama Sutta presents a vision of the Buddha's teaching that goes against the grain of much of Buddhist orthodoxy. Rather than deference to tradition and lineage, it celebrates self-reliance; rather than belief in doctrine, it stresses the importance of testing ideas to see if they work; and rather than insisting on a metaphysics of rebirth and karma, it suggests that this world might indeed be the only one there is.

---Stephen Batchelor, in Confession of a Buddhist Atheist---