Chinese virtue

Chapter 37 Polytheism and Atheism (1)
Chinese Confucianism is a very respectable ideological system, the crystallization of ancient Chinese wisdom, and has high academic achievements.Although Westerners feel that there are many empty contents in Confucian classics.But if you think deeply, you will find that these classics have a great influence on people, and they can change the thinking of many people.

China is the most populous country in the world, and the Chinese nation is also one of the greatest nations in the world.It is also one of the countries with the longest history in the world. The Chinese nation has never been driven from their homeland by invaders, nor has they been assimilated by foreign cultures, and their culture has not been destroyed so far.Everything about them is ancient.

How to answer the above situations?Why has this ancient ethnic group lived in the vast land of China without migrating since Pangu created the world?National decline is something that almost every country has experienced, but why hasn't such a thing happened in China?
What kind of mysterious power is protecting this ancient nation?These issues have been studied by many scientists, and there is no shortage of heated debates.However, scholars who have done in-depth research on such issues believe that when other nations and countries rely on material power to conquer territories, the Chinese nation has already known how to use moral power.Every person who studies history, or a traveler who has an insight into human thinking, admires the moral power of the Chinese nation, because this moral power is more binding than any force.Not only in ancient times, but even now, this moral constraint still exists.Dr. Wei Sanwei, the "father of Sinology" in the United States, once said: "Confucianism has a profound influence on the Chinese nation, especially in the pursuit of the goodness of human nature and the ideal of personality. The moral standards he put forward are still affecting a generation. The whole nation uses Confucian standards to measure people's virtue." Dr. James Legge, a British Sinologist, also said: "I very much appreciate Confucianism's statement about responsibility, which includes four aspects-writing, action, Faithfulness and faith. These three standards are consistent with the Law of Moses and the Gospel, and such standards can lead people to do good and make this world a better place.”

Every one of the ancient Chinese classics guides people to be good, and none of them have the content to make people degenerate.It is often said that this is the greatest feature of ancient Chinese classics.

There are also many ancient books in ancient India, ancient Greece, and ancient Rome, but the content is not as depraved as in China. This is the biggest difference between them.The British scholar Mr. Midi Le said: "From ancient times to the present, only China has such sacred books. It does not have any outrageous descriptions, and no language that tempts crimes. Every sentence and annotation of Chinese classics can be used anywhere. A Western family reads aloud without any taboos. In any country that does not believe in Christianity, worshiping idols is a degenerate and sinful behavior. But in Chinese classics, you will never see this.”

The emperor should manage his own country well and be responsible to heaven; the aspirations of the people are more important than the spirit of the ruler; the ruler must be virtuous and virtuous, and convince others with virtue; the theory of the five relationships between people; There is also the thought of "don't do to others what you don't want yourself to do to yourself" and so on.These Confucian ideas have taken root deeply in the hearts of Chinese people, and have also attracted the attention of scholars from various countries.Now, about the character of the Chinese people, we have already had a deep understanding in the previous articles.And this chapter will focus on the advantages of Confucianism. If you want to understand Chinese people more deeply, you must correctly understand the advantages of Confucianism.These advantages deeply infect the Chinese people and make them abide by the constraints of morality.In China's imperial examinations, students are required to quote ancient books to write articles, which unifies people's thinking.Let these candidates think that they will succeed only if the government is stable, so they become motivated, and these are important conditions for the development of the Chinese nation.

I believe that every Westerner will have a big question, whether the Chinese have ever believed in "God".Many scholars who study Chinese classics believe that Chinese people believed in "God".

But some people who claim to have unique judgment think that Chinese people have never believed.Even if the Chinese once believed in a certain "god", they have gradually forgotten it with the change of times.Just like the words on coins, after thousands of years, they have become rusty.Although these questioners think this question is important, as far as the current research is concerned, this is a completely dispensable topic.What we want to know now is not history and theory, but reality, that is, what is the relationship between the Chinese and their so-called "gods".

Through some materials, we found that the ancient heroes gradually turned from respect to commemoration through some renderings and literary works, and finally this commemoration turned into worship.

The Chinese so-called gods are all dead people.From the perspective of ancestor worship, all the dead in ancient China were their gods.The emperor approved the people to build temples for these famous people during their lifetime for people to commemorate.In the end, this kind of commemoration became an offering, and these dead people became like gods.Generally speaking, China is a polytheistic state.

It is obvious that human beings have a tendency to worship nature.Because the power of nature is magical and irresistible to human beings.For those unknown powers, people could not explain them, so they made them into human form, and then enshrined them in temples to worship as gods.Therefore, in China, temples named after natural elements such as Leishen Temple and Fengshen Temple can be seen everywhere.Polaris is also one of the "gods" in China.In Beijing, there are also altars related to the worship of emperors such as "Sun Temple" and "Yue Temple".In some places, the worship of the sun has been integrated into their lives, and they set a certain day in February as the "birthday" of the sun.On that day, the villagers will get up early in the morning, and then walk eastward to meet the sun, and in the evening, they will "escort" the sun all the way to the west, and then "worship" to the sun once a year can draw a complete picture. Full stop.

The most common form of nature worship is the worship of various trees, and worshiping trees is common in many provinces.Sometimes passing hundreds of trees of different sizes, you will find small flags hanging on these trees, which means that these trees are messengers of gods, and the land under your feet may be the residence of a certain god.Sometimes, there are some trees that don't have these marks, and people still worship them as gods.For example, there is a thatched hut with an old tree with luxuriant branches growing in front of it.

Then the owner of this house must not dare to cut down the tree, because he believes that the tree already has a soul.

The Chinese believe that only the emperor has the right to offer sacrifices to heaven.The ceremony of offering sacrifices to heaven is very unique, and only the emperor stands on the altar to hold the whole ceremony.For the common people who are not qualified to sacrifice to heaven, "Emperor's sacrifice to heaven" is a very interesting news.Almost every household in China has a small shrine enshrined on the south-facing front wall. In some places, this kind of shrine is called "heaven and earth shrine".These Chinese sacrificial activities are held on the first and fifteenth day of each month, and they will offer some food to express their gratitude to the kindness of the earth.But there is no prayer in their worship, and the offerings are put on for a while and then taken down, and people in some places will eat the food in front of the shrine.We once asked some Chinese people what they were sacrificing.Some of them answered that they offered sacrifices to "Heaven", while others said it was "God".

The appellation "Lao Tian Ye" makes people feel that Chinese people seem to be very fond of humanized gods, so "Lao Tian Ye" is a god that was created in opposition to "land woman".Once it is considered that these two gods are equal gods, then the problem arises.In some parts of China, people regard June [-]th as the birthday of "God".At this time, we will think, since "God" has a birthday, who is his father?In other words, when was "God" born?

Even if you ask this question to the people who worshiped the sun before, they don't know how to answer it.Maybe they didn't think about it, or they just didn't bother to think about it. In short, for Chinese people, such questions are meaningless.For them, these are traditions, and they will not question traditions.Occasionally, we meet people who know a little bit about the experience of "God" who knows that "God" manipulates the weather and affects their harvest.

But even though so many people worshiped "God", we did not find any temples, not even images, of this god.The items sacrificed to them are the same as "heaven and earth", which are left over from the early days, and their ancestors did not give any explanation for this.

In ancient Chinese books, the word "heaven" often appears.The "heaven" here does not refer to the sky above our heads, but refers to a kind of human will and desire, and sometimes refers to other meanings.Whenever we read the phrase "Heaven is Tao", we feel that its meaning is very vague.Not only in ancient books, but even in everyday language, its meaning is very vague, making people confused.If you ask a person who is always offering sacrifices to heaven what "heaven" means, you will usually get the answer that "heaven" is the blue sky above his head.This shows one thing, that is, this kind of worship is actually the same as nature worship, and it is only the difference between group worship and individual worship.American writer Emerson said about this belief: "Nature is not always pleasing to people in festive costumes. Yesterday, the same scene that was fragrant and bright and pleasing to the eye, like the scene set up for forest fairies, may be clouded today." A veil of sorrow." In other words, the man who worshiped heaven was a "pantheist."This kind of belief is the biggest shortcoming of Chinese worshiping "Heaven", because although they personify "Heaven", they do not have any clear and practical meaning.

Most of the lower class in China are "polytheists" and "pantheists", which is obviously different from the upper class, because the upper class in China advocates "atheism".Through the arguments of theological researchers, through some superficial signs, and some careful observations of "natural principles", we have come to some conclusions: the most thorough atheists and agnostics in the world are Chinese Confucianists, All of them have received good education and have been sublimated to a certain height in thought.The materialist scholars of the Song Dynasty put forward the idea of ​​"the cycle of heavenly principles", which had a profound impact on the Chinese intellectual circles.In this regard, the most authoritative one is Zhu Xi, an annotator of ancient Chinese classics. His ideas are very orthodox, and any ideas that question this will be included in the category of heresy.He interpreted ancient Chinese classics from a materialist perspective, completely free from theories and opinions about "God", and his annotations were even more influential than the original teachings in ancient books.

The Yellow River flows from west to east. Its source is in the valleys of Shanxi and Shaanxi. It flows for hundreds of miles along the way and finally flows into the sea.Over the years, the Yellow River has undergone many diversions, spanning six or seven latitudes from the mouth of the Yangtze River to the mouth of the Bohai Sea.But no matter where it flows, it will cause great disasters.The materialist views of the commentators in the Song Dynasty, like the endlessly surging Yellow River, continued to have a powerful impact on ancient Chinese thought.These materialist views have been flooding for more than 700 years, turning all the fertile soil in the soul of the nation into an atheistic desert, and there is no spiritual food anymore.Under the background of constant impact of this materialist view, the ancient Taoism has become a sorcery sect of catching ghosts and eliminating demons, although Taoism has drawn a lot of knowledge and experience from Buddhism to make up for its own shortcomings.Confucianism gradually became unable to meet people's spiritual needs, so China imported Buddhism from India.Then, various religions learned from each other in the form of beliefs, and people's beliefs have also undergone great changes.There are many people in China who like to do good deeds and accumulate virtue. They don’t mind donating money to various charities. They think that it is a very good thing to maintain the incense of faith and achieve the purpose of doing good deeds.As long as the so-called "gods" can bring benefits to people in a certain way, people will be very willing to worship them, just like pedestrians suddenly seeing an umbrella shop in front of them on a rainy day.

People who buy umbrellas don't ask the shopkeeper where it was made or when people first used umbrellas.Therefore, people who worship "gods" do not go deep into the origin of their "gods".

There are often lectures about how many Buddhists there are in China, how many Taoists are there in China, and so on.In this regard, we feel that this kind of thing is like counting how many people in Britain like to eat beans, and how many people smoke cigarettes a pack of tenpence.As long as he can afford it, he can smoke and eat, and no one cares about him.The same is true of Chinese "teachings".No matter which Chinese, as long as he can afford a monk and wants to do a ritual, he can spend money to invite him.In this way he became a "devout Buddhist believer".If he wants to invite a Taoist priest, he will also become a "Taoist follower".If he invites Taoist priests and monks to his home together, then he is a member of two religions as a matter of course, and such things do not conflict.In China, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, the thoughts and cultures of the three religions are constantly absorbing and merging with each other. Therefore, it is not surprising that the "three religions merge into one" in China.

If you want to explain the exact relationship between the Chinese and the "Three Religions", it is most appropriate to use the language composition of the Anglo-Saxons to explain it. When describing their own language structure, the Anglo-Saxons said: "Saxon, Danish, Norman Both are our languages, but we know who our ancestors are. It is our right to choose our own language and what to say, and this will not change because we are Saxons. On different occasions, or there are different We use different words when we think. Our peasants speak mostly Saxon, while the learned speak much of Latin mixed with Norman words. Saxon is the basis of our language, and the others It exists as a supplement.” Confucianism is the foundation of Chinese beliefs, and all people believe in Confucianism, just like all British people are Anglo-Saxons.Although Confucianism has also been influenced by some languages ​​and canons of Buddhism and Taoism, there is no contradiction in the integration of the "three religions", just like the Anglo-Saxons can use languages ​​​​of different nationalities.

The two different beliefs are to some extent mutually exclusive and cannot be assimilated.But obviously, it is very difficult to get the Chinese to understand this.The Chinese do not understand what a logical contradiction is, and of course, they are not interested in understanding.The Chinese can blend two different things together regardless of their relationship, whether they are the same in essence, and so on.Just like liquids can fuse with each other through "intravasation" and "extravasation", the Chinese way of thinking is the basic condition for the fusion of multiple beliefs.They never pay attention to "academic inclusiveness", they don't understand, even if you explain it to them, they still don't understand.

(End of this chapter)