Not having a God to lean on whenever you feel down might be scary, at first. Then you learn to take responsibility for your own life, to perceive this world as it really is than to hang on to delusion, however satifying and securing. To understand Buddhism is to break through this delusion, to escape sufferings even in the midst of pain. Buddhism, like all religions, is the ways to explain the world; yet it is at heart an experiential religion which encourages active investigation by your own experience than pure blind faith. With this in mind, one can follow Buddha's teaching as a philosophy to seek peace and enlightenment without labeling oneself as a Buddhist.