Quote: (05-23-2013 10:59 PM)Wutang Wrote:
*SNIP*
First things first: the Tibetan theocracy was a nightmarish hyper religious slave owning shit-hole version of North Korea that would make the Spanish Inquisition piss their pants in terror. If there was anything that the Chinese communists did that was good, it was to take down the Dalai Llamas. Anyways, it's a historically defunct outlier to our discussion.
Like I said earlier, the lines are really blurry in regards to philosophy and religion in East Asia.
For Confucianism: The texts do make reference to Tian, and heaven and declare the Emperor as a divine Son of Heaven. However, the entire point of Confucianism is a focus on worldly or secular matters like family and obedience to the Emperor and authority. The existence of an after life and Gods is almost completely irrelevant in Confucianism. This is why people call it secular.
For Buddhism: I agree that it is treated as a divinity in a folk sense by many Asians. However, I would like to point out that Buddhism is again focused on worldly affairs because you get reincarnated rather than running off to 72 virgins or heaven or whatever. The older of the big three sects, the Thereveda sect is also pretty agnostic and not too big on supernatural shit either.
For Daoism: Like Confucianism, is pretty secular. Its essentially a troll, paradoxical discussion of nature and how we can adapt our minds and lifestyles to not get chewed up and shat out by life's challenges. There's a lot of local fol deities and shit that people added on to the philosophy but its secular at its heart.
Note that all of these are different from western monotheism because at their core, despite all the fun, weird shit that Asians have tacked on over the years, they are still concerned with the secular affairs of THIS LIFE. They don't really care or acknowledge and after life and don't place too much stock in faith in divine gods. The main point of these religions/philosophy is to change how you, as a person can change to live harmoniously with nature, not how praying to God will make everything better. That's why I compared them with secular self help movements, because they focus on human experiences in this life, the real world.
Also, a lot of these religions are pretty chill with worship of other deities and non-confrontational at heart hence the whole polytheism thing. I never really liked how Christianity and Islam were essentially built around "ASSIMILATE OR BURN IN HELL" thinking. [/quote]