It’s been awhile since I’ve studied Chinese History, but I wouldn’t say that Confucianism is a religion. It’s much more a set of protocols and etiquette regarding the ways to be successful in an extremely complicated society. For sake of ease and without knowing the author being cited, I offer this (from Wikipedia’s entry on Confucianism under the section relating to religion and the mention of the Chinese concept of Tian:)
The scholar Ronnie Littlejohn warns that Tian was not to be interpreted as personal God comparable to that of the Abrahamic faiths, in the sense of an otherworldly or transcendent creator.[36] Rather it is similar to what Taoists meant by Dao: “the way things are” or “the regularities of the world”,[33] which Stephan Feuchtwang equates with the ancient Greek concept of physis, “nature” as the generation and regenerations of things and of the moral order.
Alexgieg, from your reply to ChristianKl:
Confucianism is extremely political.
I would strongly agree, but add that I believe it is much more of a politcal/social institution, and dislike the connotation of saying it’s a religious institution. I even wince a little to think of it as being ‘spiritual’.
Yes to all. To add an attributable citation for the concept of tian 天, here is a comment I wrote six months ago.
天 refers to material things which affect you but which you yourself lack the power to significantly influence. The standard and most poetic translation of 天 is “heaven”, but 天 also includes the gods, fate, sky, weather, climate and all the other material things far above you. To the median person living today, 天 includes everything from the Federal Reserve to the orbit of Jupiter.
Many readers of Less Wrong come from a Western intellectual tradition where “heaven” is a moral immaterial Christian concept. I’m trying to draw attention to the fact that 天 is an amoral material relationship.
Note the link I use for “the gods”. These are contradictory polytheistic gods, not coherent monotheistic gods.
Whether to describe Confucianism as spiritual depends on what you mean by “Confucianism” and “spiritual”. Consider this scene from Mulan. It has spiritual elements but I would hesitate to describe it as “spiritual”. It is related to Confucianism but the religious parts come from ancestor worship.
First, I believe I can appreciate the subtlety and nuance, as well as the sublimity of a concept like ‘Tian’ although I don’t speak Chinese. I can also appreciate the difficulty of trying to describe a concept like that, and especially the difficulty of translating from an Eastern language into a Western language.
I’m trying to draw attention to the fact that 天 is an amoral material relationship.
I do think this is an especially important point as it relates to Confucianism. It’s the amoral aspect of this philosophy/tradition/practice which results in a society, social structure and hierarchy based on tradition, ritual, etiquette and proper protocol, instead of on passion, emotion, and individual expression.
It’s this traditional Chinese Culture which is at risk of being lost to the Contemporary Western world, and possibly to a fair amount of the Eastern world as well. This is why it is important to study, as so much of the ‘effects’ we experience around the world today, have their ‘causes’ in this incredibly long and important history of China and it’s neighbors.
As it pertains to governing, Confucianisms concern with the materiality of the world, and it’s correct organization sets it apart from Western Tradition as well. In Judeo-Christian tradition, Man has dominion over nature, and is favored by a Monotheistic God over all other life. It is the paganistic sin filled, base human desires of the animal part of humans which corrupts society.
In Eastern Tradition, I believe it’s the case that Man is considered only one part of Nature, and it is humanities skill at noticing and correctly interpreting the patterns of the world (the world of the gods) which define success or failure, and it is actually the man-made society which corrupts human nature.
I haven’t seen Mulan, and I’m honestly curious to hear the true thoughts and feelings of Chinese regarding the Disneyfication of that part of Chinese history. That was definitely an attempt at acknowledging a spiritual tradition of a non-Judeo-Christian civilization on Disney’s part.
As for the imagery, I do wonder why she was praying at the foot of a dragon statute. I honestly don’t know if that’s a realistic portrayal of the circumstances or not, but knowing Disney, I’m pretty sure it’s not.
I honestly appreciate the Interesting nod to pop culture though; well played.
However, all seriousness aside, I think we can add that to Americanized Chinese Food and Kung-Fu Flicks to round out a majority of the Western Cultures ideas about Eastern Culture. Why should we bother to learn about Chinese Culture and History when the Chinese spend so much of their time learning English and Western History and Culture? s/
If we go for a very technical take, the term “religion” refers only to Christianity. That’s because the term was adopted during the Reformation era, and later expanded during the Enlightenment, to make some sense of what was going on between the different Nation States going for this or that version of Christianity, and then by contrasting all of those takes with the novel alternatives of Deism, Agnosticism, Atheism, of political power grounded on the people vs. on God etc., all the while “back porting” it to the question of the earlier disputes between Christendom’s (the original term) original great schism and earlier heresies, and between those as a whole vs. Judaism, Islam, and so-called Paganism. As such, any attempt of extending it to anything beyond primarily Christianity internal disputes, and secondarily Abrahamic disputes, is fraught with complications, since one’s operating more on the basis of analogies than on a strictly defined conceptual axis. For more details, check Catholic philosopher Edward Feser’s blog post What is religion?
Given that, taking Confucianism to be a religion, or taking it not to be a religion, are both arguably valid, since it comes down to which aspects one’s emphasizing and deemphasizing in their analogical approach.
Now, I consider Confucianism a religion because it had and has a priesthood, rites, temples, and presented itself as a continuation and development of ancient Chinese beliefs. Confucius himself, for instance, was a well regarded and accomplished expert in the art of ritual animal sacrifices, and it’d be very odd to try and disengage his religious piety from his intellectual work, when both in fact complement each other. It’d be akin to thinking of the Neoplatonic philosophers, and Neoplatonism, as non-religious despite many of them being pious worshippers of several Greek deities, deities who in turn can be taken to be as abstract as Confucianism’s Tian. In fact, the very Physis referred to by the scholar mentioned in the Wikipedia article was a duly worshipped primordial goddess in the Orphic tradition in Greece.
Other polytheistic and/or ancestor-worshipping belief systems have similar traits. In fact, in the set of human belief systems, it’s modern Western ones that stand out as somewhat weird—or rather WEIRD—in their sharp distinction between secular and religious spheres of influence and action. Most everyone else doesn’t do that. Hence, maybe it’d be more accurate to say neither that Confucianism is a religion, nor that Confucianism isn’t a religion, but rather that Confucianism, Neoplatonism, Hinduism and others are all holistic paths (that they’re “daos”), and that both Western religions and non-religions alike are, all of them, so many daos.
Not sure of the preferred method of making qualifications to previous posts, so I guess I’ll just make another post.
After doing a little due diligence to the discussion by following up on Wikipedia, I think I understand better the points being made. I was unaware of the more modern developments of Contemporary Confucianism, and my comments relate only to what the Wikipedia entry refers to as Official Confucianism which ended in 1905.
The abolition of the examination system in 1905 marked the end of official Confucianism. The intellectuals of the New Culture Movement of the early twentieth century blamed Confucianism for China’s weaknesses.
After 1905, the cultural revolution changed China. At this point, I would say that Contemporary Confucianism has become a religion. Were it up to me, I believe a rebranding would be in order.
Hence, maybe it’d be more accurate to say neither that Confucianism is a religion, nor that Confucianism isn’t a religion, but rather that Confucianism, Neoplatonism, Hinduism and others are all holistic paths (that they’re “daos”), and that both Western religions and non-religions alike are, all of them, so many daos.
I agree and disagree. As it pertains to Confucianism, I agree it is more of a holistic concept than is acknowledged by a term like religion.
From the Blog you linked to:
So, the definition is telling us that doctrines, rituals, and moral principles are among the key elements of religion.
I would argue that Confucianism is a tradition not of morals, but of ethics; that the primary concern is not with ‘feeling’ that something is right or wrong, but ‘thinking’ about whether something is right or wrong, and doing the ‘correct’ thing regardless of how you feel about it.
It’s been awhile since I’ve studied Chinese History, but I wouldn’t say that Confucianism is a religion. It’s much more a set of protocols and etiquette regarding the ways to be successful in an extremely complicated society. For sake of ease and without knowing the author being cited, I offer this (from Wikipedia’s entry on Confucianism under the section relating to religion and the mention of the Chinese concept of Tian:)
Alexgieg, from your reply to ChristianKl:
I would strongly agree, but add that I believe it is much more of a politcal/social institution, and dislike the connotation of saying it’s a religious institution. I even wince a little to think of it as being ‘spiritual’.
Yes to all. To add an attributable citation for the concept of tian 天, here is a comment I wrote six months ago.
Note the link I use for “the gods”. These are contradictory polytheistic gods, not coherent monotheistic gods.
Whether to describe Confucianism as spiritual depends on what you mean by “Confucianism” and “spiritual”. Consider this scene from Mulan. It has spiritual elements but I would hesitate to describe it as “spiritual”. It is related to Confucianism but the religious parts come from ancestor worship.
Alot going on here.
First, I believe I can appreciate the subtlety and nuance, as well as the sublimity of a concept like ‘Tian’ although I don’t speak Chinese. I can also appreciate the difficulty of trying to describe a concept like that, and especially the difficulty of translating from an Eastern language into a Western language.
I do think this is an especially important point as it relates to Confucianism. It’s the amoral aspect of this philosophy/tradition/practice which results in a society, social structure and hierarchy based on tradition, ritual, etiquette and proper protocol, instead of on passion, emotion, and individual expression.
It’s this traditional Chinese Culture which is at risk of being lost to the Contemporary Western world, and possibly to a fair amount of the Eastern world as well. This is why it is important to study, as so much of the ‘effects’ we experience around the world today, have their ‘causes’ in this incredibly long and important history of China and it’s neighbors.
As it pertains to governing, Confucianisms concern with the materiality of the world, and it’s correct organization sets it apart from Western Tradition as well. In Judeo-Christian tradition, Man has dominion over nature, and is favored by a Monotheistic God over all other life. It is the paganistic sin filled, base human desires of the animal part of humans which corrupts society.
In Eastern Tradition, I believe it’s the case that Man is considered only one part of Nature, and it is humanities skill at noticing and correctly interpreting the patterns of the world (the world of the gods) which define success or failure, and it is actually the man-made society which corrupts human nature.
I haven’t seen Mulan, and I’m honestly curious to hear the true thoughts and feelings of Chinese regarding the Disneyfication of that part of Chinese history. That was definitely an attempt at acknowledging a spiritual tradition of a non-Judeo-Christian civilization on Disney’s part.
As for the imagery, I do wonder why she was praying at the foot of a dragon statute. I honestly don’t know if that’s a realistic portrayal of the circumstances or not, but knowing Disney, I’m pretty sure it’s not.
I honestly appreciate the Interesting nod to pop culture though; well played.
However, all seriousness aside, I think we can add that to Americanized Chinese Food and Kung-Fu Flicks to round out a majority of the Western Cultures ideas about Eastern Culture. Why should we bother to learn about Chinese Culture and History when the Chinese spend so much of their time learning English and Western History and Culture? s/
If we go for a very technical take, the term “religion” refers only to Christianity. That’s because the term was adopted during the Reformation era, and later expanded during the Enlightenment, to make some sense of what was going on between the different Nation States going for this or that version of Christianity, and then by contrasting all of those takes with the novel alternatives of Deism, Agnosticism, Atheism, of political power grounded on the people vs. on God etc., all the while “back porting” it to the question of the earlier disputes between Christendom’s (the original term) original great schism and earlier heresies, and between those as a whole vs. Judaism, Islam, and so-called Paganism. As such, any attempt of extending it to anything beyond primarily Christianity internal disputes, and secondarily Abrahamic disputes, is fraught with complications, since one’s operating more on the basis of analogies than on a strictly defined conceptual axis. For more details, check Catholic philosopher Edward Feser’s blog post What is religion?
Given that, taking Confucianism to be a religion, or taking it not to be a religion, are both arguably valid, since it comes down to which aspects one’s emphasizing and deemphasizing in their analogical approach.
Now, I consider Confucianism a religion because it had and has a priesthood, rites, temples, and presented itself as a continuation and development of ancient Chinese beliefs. Confucius himself, for instance, was a well regarded and accomplished expert in the art of ritual animal sacrifices, and it’d be very odd to try and disengage his religious piety from his intellectual work, when both in fact complement each other. It’d be akin to thinking of the Neoplatonic philosophers, and Neoplatonism, as non-religious despite many of them being pious worshippers of several Greek deities, deities who in turn can be taken to be as abstract as Confucianism’s Tian. In fact, the very Physis referred to by the scholar mentioned in the Wikipedia article was a duly worshipped primordial goddess in the Orphic tradition in Greece.
Other polytheistic and/or ancestor-worshipping belief systems have similar traits. In fact, in the set of human belief systems, it’s modern Western ones that stand out as somewhat weird—or rather WEIRD—in their sharp distinction between secular and religious spheres of influence and action. Most everyone else doesn’t do that. Hence, maybe it’d be more accurate to say neither that Confucianism is a religion, nor that Confucianism isn’t a religion, but rather that Confucianism, Neoplatonism, Hinduism and others are all holistic paths (that they’re “daos”), and that both Western religions and non-religions alike are, all of them, so many daos.
Not sure of the preferred method of making qualifications to previous posts, so I guess I’ll just make another post.
After doing a little due diligence to the discussion by following up on Wikipedia, I think I understand better the points being made. I was unaware of the more modern developments of Contemporary Confucianism, and my comments relate only to what the Wikipedia entry refers to as Official Confucianism which ended in 1905.
After 1905, the cultural revolution changed China. At this point, I would say that Contemporary Confucianism has become a religion. Were it up to me, I believe a rebranding would be in order.
I agree and disagree. As it pertains to Confucianism, I agree it is more of a holistic concept than is acknowledged by a term like religion.
From the Blog you linked to:
I would argue that Confucianism is a tradition not of morals, but of ethics; that the primary concern is not with ‘feeling’ that something is right or wrong, but ‘thinking’ about whether something is right or wrong, and doing the ‘correct’ thing regardless of how you feel about it.