Yusheng (2011-05-02)

Abstract: Confucius’s attitude towards ghosts and spirits differed from that of Laozi before him and Mozi after him. Laozi represented a philosophical elevation of traditional Chinese religious culture, while Mozi represented a departure from this tradition. Only Confucius was a direct inheritor of Chinese religious culture. Dividing human society into a genetically encoded primitive society and a man-made secondary society reveals that Chinese civilization remained at the primitive society level for a long period, only undergoing a fundamental change during the Warring States period. Furthermore, because Confucianism and Taoism, the mainstream philosophies of China, both envisioned the primitive society as their ideal, Chinese religious culture retained many characteristics of primitive religious societies. These include: a lack of a unified theory of deities; the deities not forming a system; deities existing at the same level as humans, lacking significantly superior qualities; and major deities such as Heaven, Earth, Sun, and Moon not having developed into anthropomorphic gods. Among the world’s six original civilizations, even those in less developed regions have established beliefs in deities. The primitiveness of Chinese religious culture is truly an exception, similar to that of Australia and North America, which are far removed from civilization. Because Confucianism held official status, religious culture in vast rural China remained largely animistic for a long time. The relatively intact family structures of rural communities made it difficult for any secondary social religion to take root. Looking at rural community life, Mohist religious culture disappeared after the Qin and Han dynasties. Taoism, established under the influence of Daoist thought, like Buddhism, provided religious services to rural communities, but unlike ancient Greece and medieval Europe, it did not make religious belief a direct organizer of social life. The author’s personal experiences in rural northern China in the 1950s perfectly align with these conclusions.

Keywords: religious culture, pantheism, anthropomorphic gods, primordial society, secondary society

I. The attitudes of Confucianism, Taoism, and Mohism towards ghosts and spirits, and the religious views of the Mohists

The three earliest Chinese philosophical systems—Taoism, Confucianism, and Mohism—held drastically different attitudes towards ghosts and spirits. Taoism denied their existence, Mohism worshipped them, and Confucianism offered a compromise. Taoism used the philosophical concept of “Tao” to govern both humanity and the world of ghosts and spirits, replacing the personal God of religious belief. To be fair, Laozi, Confucius, and Mozi themselves did not believe in the existence of ghosts and spirits; their knowledge and experience allowed them to transcend the misconceptions of superstition. Mozi said, “I have the will of Heaven, like a wheelwright’s compass and a carpenter’s square. The wheelwright uses his compass and square to measure the squares and circles of the world, saying: ‘What is in the middle is right; what is not in the middle is wrong.'” He likened Heaven, equivalent to the Western God, to the wheelwright’s tool. As for the will of Heaven, he said, “Therefore, Heaven desires life and abhors death, desires wealth and abhors poverty, desires order and abhors chaos.” This is simply a common will that everyone can accept. Mozi further proposed three standards for verification: first, to examine the deeds of ancient sage kings; second, to observe the realities seen and heard by the common people; and third, to observe their benefit to the nation and its people. (Mozi: The Will of Heaven, Part 1; Against Fatalism, Part 1) Mozi did not confine his views on the will of Heaven and spirits to the teachings of the divine realm. He proposed that a centralized system headed by the emperor should execute this public will, but the emperor should be chosen: “Choose the virtuous, wise, and discerning people of the world to be established as emperors, so that they may engage in the righteousness of unifying the world.” (Shang Tong Zhong)

Mozi’s approach of interpreting the will of Heaven and spirits through human desires and needs is an old Chinese tradition, not his invention. As the *Zuo Zhuan* states: “The people are the masters of the gods; when a state is about to prosper, it listens to the people; when a state is about to perish, it listens to the gods.” However, Mozi recognized something his predecessors hadn’t: the qualitative change in Chinese society during the Warring States period, the emergence of different schools of thought and social directions, and the conflict of local interests. Therefore, Mozi saw that to promote the benefit of the world and eliminate its harms, a unified understanding and unified action were essential. This foundation of consensus could not be built on specific individuals; people are untrustworthy. Thus, Mozi introduced the will of Heaven and spirits, external to human beings, requiring the emperor to be chosen and then examined through three methods. Mozi clearly recognized that the will of Heaven and spirits here must be interpreted by humans, the emperor’s choice must be made by humans, and the results of the three methods must be judged by humans, and humans are untrustworthy. To prevent these problems, Mozi combined the human virtues of justice and responsibility with the solemnity and piety of religious rituals, much like how in Western courts one would place their hand on the Bible and swear to God that they would not lie.

Mozi said, “Therefore, the ancient sage kings understood the desires of the spirits and avoided what they disliked, in order to promote the benefit of the world and eliminate its harms.” Although Mozi linked natural disasters with the will of Heaven and spirits, his intention was to strengthen reverence for Heaven, Earth, and the spirits. Therefore, he continued, “In serving the spirits, one must not be negligent in offering wine, liquor, and sacrifices; one must not be negligent in sacrificial offerings; one must not be negligent in the quantity of jade, precious stones, and silk; one must not miss the appointed time for spring and autumn sacrifices; one must not be negligent in hearing cases; one must not be unequal in distributing wealth; and one must not be negligent in one’s dwelling. If one acts with such uprightness and responsibility, then the blessings of Heaven and the spirits can be obtained. If one can diligently engage in what is beneficial to the people, then the affection of the people can be obtained.” Here, Mozi juxtaposes the piety of sacrifices with the fairness and responsibility of handling affairs, emphasizing the effect of obtaining affection from the people, without mentioning whether the spirits are satisfied with the sacrifices.

Formally, Mohist religious culture is no different from that of the West, relying on solemn religious rituals to sanctify the existing social order and make religion a pillar of social life. The difference lies in that Mohism neither provides rigorous logical and philosophical arguments for the existence of Heaven’s will and spirits, nor emphasizes the sanctity of faith itself, nor does it regard a firm and unified belief as the foundation for universal harmony. Thus, Mohism cannot escape the influence of ancient Chinese theistic teachings and still tends to treat religion as a tool.

II. Confucius’s attitude towards ghosts and spirits was an inheritance of the traditional religious culture of the Three Dynasties.

Laozi and Mozi’s attitudes toward ghosts and spirits represented changes and developments of the traditional religious culture of the Three Dynasties, while only Confucius’s attitude toward ghosts and spirits was a direct inheritance of this cultural tradition. Although the *Analects* contains few of Confucius’s pronouncements on ghosts and spirits, they are sufficient to depict his attitude and stance. These are: 1) Respect ghosts and spirits, but keep them at a distance; 2) If you do not know life, how can you know death? If you cannot serve men, how can you serve ghosts? The Master did not speak of strange phenomena, physical prowess, disorder, or spirits; 3) When offering sacrifices, act as if the spirits are present; when offering sacrifices to spirits, act as if the spirits are present; if I do not participate in the sacrifice, it is as if I did not offer sacrifices; to sacrifice to spirits that are not one’s own is flattery. (6:22, *Analects*, Chapter 6, Section 22, hereinafter the same; 11:11; 7:20; 3:12; 2:24). Furthermore, the silk manuscript *Yao* mentions that Confucius said, “The superior man seeks blessings through virtue, therefore he offers few sacrifices; he seeks good fortune through benevolence and righteousness, therefore he consults divination rarely.”

Confucius adopted a pragmatic attitude towards spirits and deities, with practical considerations limited to the individual, society, and the Confucian tradition of morality and ritual. Judging from this extremely pragmatic attitude, Confucius himself did not believe in the existence of personal spirits and deities, but he did not deny their usefulness. Because many people in society believed in spirits and deities, Confucius advocated respecting them while keeping a distance, that is, respecting others’ traditions and beliefs while minimizing involvement. His practice of worshipping spirits as if they were present demonstrates his dedication and piety towards sacrificial rituals. Piety was a component of Confucius’s moral practice, and dedication represented his aesthetic pursuit of sacrificial rituals—an independent aesthetic value unrelated to any other personal or social values; this is the essence of Confucius’s idea of ​​finding joy in ritual. In other words, Confucius’s religious and cultural practices did not conflict with his unspoken atheism.

From today’s scientific perspective, “The Master did not speak of strange phenomena, physical prowess, disorder, or spirits” can be interpreted in several ways: 1) Confucius did not discuss superstitious matters, either out of respect for superstitious people or because he considered superstition to be a gray area of ​​debate; 2) Confucius was not interested in or concerned with extraordinary so-called spiritual powers; 3) Confucius refused to enter what is now called pseudoscience, that is, “science” that cannot be falsified, and he ignored it.

The *Liezi*, in the chapter on Zhongni, records that Kang Cangzi could see and hear without using his eyes and ears. He said, “My body is in harmony with my heart, my heart with my qi, my qi with my spirit, and my spirit with nothingness. Anything that exists, any sound that is heard, whether far beyond the eight directions or close at hand, that comes to affect me, I will know. Yet I do not know that it is perceived by my seven orifices and four limbs, or known by my heart and six internal organs; it is simply self-knowledge.” The Duke of Lu later told Confucius about this, and Confucius smiled but did not reply. Kang Cangzi’s words could be considered a sixth sense, or perhaps the wisdom eye of Buddhism, but they cannot be verified by science.

Confucius’s pragmatic attitude towards spirits and deities was a direct inheritance of the religious culture of the Three Dynasties period. The *Shangshu* (Book of Documents) begins, “Emperor Yao said to Fangxun, ‘He was respectful, wise, cultured, thoughtful, and peaceful. He was truly courteous and modest, his virtue shining upon the four corners of the earth, reaching all above and below. He clearly understood virtue and thus brought harmony to his nine clans. With the nine clans in harmony, he governed the people peacefully. With the people enlightened, he harmonized all nations. The common people lived in peace and prosperity.'” This means that governing a vast country, harmonizing all nations, and achieving a state of peace and prosperity relied entirely on the power of personal morality, without any thought of relying on divine mandate or spirits. This is the so-called “governing the world by simply wearing clothes,” relying on the virtue of non-action, not divine mandate or spirits. The *Shangshu: Gaotao Mo* continues, “Heaven is wise, and so are the people; Heaven is awe-inspiring, and so are the people.” This equates divine mandate and spirits with humanity, and considers the people more important than divine mandate and spirits. This idea became a traditional teaching in ancient China, repeatedly emphasized. King Wu of Zhou’s “Tai Shi” states, “Heaven cherishes the people; what the people desire, Heaven will surely grant.” The word “cherish” implies reverence and respect, meaning Heaven reveres and respects the people. Therefore, King Wu further points out, “Heaven sees as the people see, Heaven hears as the people hear.” This idea, transmitted to the *Zuo Zhuan*, is expressed as, “The people are the masters of the gods.” The *Guoyu: Zhouyu* quotes the *Tai Shi*’s statement, “What the people desire, Heaven will surely grant,” illustrating the people’s paramount importance. It further states, “Human nature is such that it overshadows those above; it cannot be concealed,” and “The people can be approached, but not placed above them.” There can be no gods, Heaven, or Supreme Deity above the people—another expression of the people being the masters of the gods. Naturally, there would be no true ruling class above the people; the three dynasties were close to anarchy.

From these words, we can clearly see that the ruling class in ancient China clearly recognized that the stability of the country depended on the support of the people for the ruling class, and that worshipping ghosts and gods could not replace the support of the people. However, this does not deny the act of worship and piety, namely the Confucian concept of “worshipping gods as if the gods were present.” With this understanding and historical background, we can comprehend the unique concept of “God” in ancient China. The *Tai Shi* states, “Heaven sees as the people see, Heaven hears as the people hear,” and uses the term “God” three or four times. The term “God” appears frequently in Shang Dynasty oracle bone inscriptions, and even Confucius spoke of Heaven and destiny. These all remain within the framework of the aforementioned traditional Chinese concept of ghosts and gods. Mr. Guo Moruo believed that the Heaven Confucius spoke of referred to the natural Heaven. In *The Progress of the Pre-Qin View of Heaven*, he said: “The Heaven Confucius spoke of is actually just nature; so-called destiny is the natural number or the inevitability of nature.” Mozi criticized Confucius’s view of ghosts and gods, saying, “…” The Confucian scholars consider Heaven to be unenlightened and ghosts to be undivine. If Heaven and ghosts are not pleased, this is enough to destroy the world. (Gong Meng)

After Western Christianity spread to China, translators used the term “上帝” (Shangdi) to translate the Jewish and Christian God. English translates the Christian God as “God” in capital letters without a definite article. English treats the Christian God as a proper noun, that is, as the name of God. The Christian God also has another name, Jehovah, and the meaning of the three characters Jehovah has been debated since ancient times. Egyptian hieroglyphs were the first to invent an alphabet, but Egyptian letters only had consonants and, like Chinese phono-semantic characters, were used in combination with other hieroglyphs. Borrowing the Egyptian alphabet, the earliest Jewish alphabet only had consonants. In ancient Jewish texts, God is represented by three consonant letters, yhw, without pronunciation. This is completely different from the Jewish belief that God is on a different level from humanity, like the relationship between letters and writing, emphasizing that God has no form; that God cannot be perceived by sight, hearing, or touch, and that what can be perceived by sight, hearing, or touch is no longer God. Just as the Daoist concept of “道” (Dao) has no name, words like “道,” “大一,” “无,” and “独” (Du) are merely temporary substitutes used by humans in speech. The most popular explanation is that the three letters yhw are also substitutes, indicating that God has no name. Calling God by name or drawing His image is considered blasphemy, and blasphemers could be stoned to death. In English translation, yhw is translated as Jehovah. Strictly speaking, yhw, Jehovah, and God are all substitutes used in speech; human language cannot describe God.

The discussion of the name of God in the West reveals that Western religious beliefs have strict doctrines, and not a single word can be used casually. They have a strict distinction between the sacred and the secular, and blurring the lines between the sacred and the secular is punishable, even by death. King Wu of Zhou, in his “Tai Shi” (Great Oath), however, treats Heaven, God, and the people as equal entities, and from a practical perspective, considers the people to be of paramount importance. In short, the religious culture of Chinese civilization depicted in ancient texts such as the *Shangshu* (Book of Documents), *Zuo Zhuan* (Zuo Commentary), and *Guoyu* (Discourses of the States) is consistent with and remarkably similar to the religious thought of Confucius. The Bible stipulates that on the seventh day, people should be worshipped, and on this day, laborers should be stoned to death. China has consistently lacked similarly strict religious taboos. In 136 BC, the Han Dynasty established Confucianism as the official philosophy, a position it held for two thousand years. As a result, Chinese religious culture neither followed the atheistic direction of pre-Qin Daoism nor the path of Mohism’s veneration of Heaven and spirits, but rather took the Confucian compromise route: respecting spirits and gods while keeping them at a distance. The Chinese bureaucratic class, while respecting spirits and deities, keeps them at a distance. This respect extends only to the county level, and the animistic beliefs prevalent in rural communities are similarly kept at a distance. Buddhism and Taoism have had minimal influence on the government and have not penetrated the daily lives of rural communities. Strictly speaking, both Buddhism and Taoism are atheistic. The author argues that the failure of Buddhism and Taoism to develop into organizers of grassroots social life, as Christianity has, is largely due to the official status of Confucianism and its attitude towards spirits and deities. In the process of modernization, China does not need to undertake a religious revolution, second only to the two World Wars in scale and brutality, like those in Europe, to loosen the shackles of religious culture.

III. The Concept of a Two-Tier Society and the Multi-Level Operation of the World

As mentioned above, Lao Tzu’s Dao and the Jewish God and humanity exist on different levels; we cannot understand or describe the Dao and God. This is similar to how Chinese characters and writing belong to different levels of things. The meaning of writing derives from the arrangement and combination of Chinese characters, belonging to another world beyond the characters themselves. If humanity were merely a collection of Chinese characters, we would have no way of understanding or describing the meaning of writing.

Here, we first introduce the concepts of primordial society and secondary society, and then place them within the broad perspective of cosmic evolution. This will help us understand the concepts of religion and God. It will also help us understand why the religious thoughts of Lao Tzu and Mozi differ from those of Confucius, and why Eastern and Western religious cultures differ.

If we divide all human societies from ancient times to the present into the original society based on genetic coding and the artificial secondary society, and examine Eastern and Western cultures based on this social stratification, it shows that ancient Chinese civilization was based on the original society based on genetic coding, while the West took the path of artificial secondary society from the very beginning.

From the definitions, we can deduce many fundamental differences between these two types of societies. The genetically encoded primitive society is the society that humans are born into. Human nature is clearly the pillar of harmony and function in this society; human nature itself is sufficient to make it stable. Because it is determined by heredity, there is only one type. Anthropological research shows that this primitive society has about 150 people, based on face-to-face interaction and the principles of equality and reciprocity. Because they live together face-to-face and daily, they have psychological and emotional communication. At a deep level of psychological and emotional consciousness, the primitive society is a unified whole, and each member is a part of this whole. The primitive society is governed by a leader who does not have the ability to force others to accept his intentions. He can only rely on persuasion and compliance with the will of the masses, which is the Daoist principle of non-action. He has no reliable means of punishment for those who disobey the leader.

A secondary society, being a man-made society, has a goal, namely, its ideological system. Simultaneously, the society has corresponding social structures adapted to this goal. If we consider the current secondary society as one where wealth accumulation is the goal, then the degree of wealth becomes the measure of social rewards and punishments, thus forming numerous classes and strata marked by the amount of wealth. Since a secondary society is a human creation, it naturally has countless possible forms; a society can only choose one form, blocking other possibilities. To prevent members of society from unrestrainedly seeking other possibilities, legally mandated institutions of force such as the military, police, and courts are indispensable. In a secondary society, imposing predetermined intentions on people becomes possible and a necessary means of organizing large-scale social projects. In a secondary society, its members cannot engage in psychological and emotional communication with society. The unity of a secondary society depends on the consensus of all members regarding the society’s predetermined goals and direction.

The different mindsets of primordial societies and secondary societies in perceiving the surrounding world, especially the human world, lead to different cognitive paths and results. Primitive societies lack the goals and utilitarianism of secondary societies. People don’t perceive the rabbit they chase as part of the world around them. They observe the world in their leisure time, combining their own feelings and past memories to form their understanding. Therefore, they see the entire world, including themselves. Just as a two- or three-year-old child puts their small pillow next to their large pillow and says, “The pillow wants to find its mother!”—that is, seeing the large pillow as the mother of the small pillow—this is the child inferring the surrounding world from their own experience, and understanding themselves through observing the surrounding world, which is the unity of man and nature. The religious culture formed in this social environment can only be one where humans and gods are on the same level, without interference between them. At the deep level of psychological and emotional consciousness, the holistic nature of primordial societies can encompass the surrounding world, which is what Western social science calls pantheism.

Secondary societies have their own purposes, forming ideologies that are compatible with these purposes, and the cognitive subject of individuals is influenced by social ideologies. The cognitive process guided by purpose relies on the interaction between subject and object, leading to the situation where the object harms the subject, that is, the betrayal and transformation of human nature itself. Western civilization, which started with secondary societies, holds negative criticisms of Chinese culture, including: Chinese thought does not focus on the pure rational analysis and reflection of epistemology; the core value of Chinese culture and thought is human feelings; and the Chinese language and script, as the basic material or formal norm of culture and thought, are better at lyrical poetry than at reasoning prose. [1] Ancient Chinese traditional visual art depicts landscapes, flowers and birds, and also includes figures, while Western visual art, starting from ancient Greece, has long only used figures as its subject matter, until landscape paintings appeared in two coastal countries, the Netherlands and England, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [2] The only explanation for this is that the diverse tradition of secondary societies leads to wars and conflicts between people, forcing human attention to focus on the people they are fighting with. The development of modern navigation enabled the Netherlands and Britain to expand outwards, come into contact with other traditional cultures, and have the possibility of escaping the military threat from the European continent by sea. This led them to return to the leisurely mentality of prehistoric society and broaden their horizons.

The human brain is divided into left and right hemispheres. People who have half of their brain removed in childhood due to illness can have normal intelligence. Because the connections between the two hemispheres are limited, impressions and feelings obtained by the right brain may need to be encoded before they can be transmitted to the left brain. The language center is located in the left brain, and rational thinking is also a function of the left brain. The author speculates that the division of labor and connections between the left and right hemispheres of the human brain may be the neurological basis for the construction of a two-tier society in humans, in order to explain the differences between different levels of the two-tier society. [3]

Cosmic Evolution Table

Physical World

life

culture

consciousness

1. None

2. Yes

3. Elementary particles

4. Atom

5. Molecules

DNA

6. Objects

cell

7. Planet

organize

8. Galaxy

organ

9. Universe

personal

10

primitive society

culture

subconscious

11

Secondary society

civilization

consciousness

12

Rational cognitive system

13

Spiritual and Aesthetic Pursuits

As can be seen from the table above, Level Two society is one of the many levels in the evolution of the universe. There are insurmountable and non-communicable aspects between different levels; that is, gods, the Tao, and humanity exist at different levels. Humans can only speculate about gods and the Tao, and cannot truly understand or describe them. If humans are born as primitive social animals, Level Two society has a god-like world effect on humans, stimulating their need for religion within Level Two society and their fantasies about gods.

IV. Secondary Social and Religious Beliefs

There is no consensus in academia regarding the definition and scope of religion, and there are many opinions on the periodization of human religious history, which is difficult to unify. John Lubbock (1834-1913) divided it into periods of atheism, fetishism, nature worship, totemism, shamanism, anthropomorphism, and monotheism. Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) divided it into periods of animism, fetishism, devil worship, polytheism, and monotheism. Animism also includes ancestor worship. The author has argued that funeral rites and ancestor worship represent the emergence of subjective consciousness, and that subjective consciousness has an insurmountable obstacle in understanding death. [4] For the convenience of this article, the above periodization is simplified to three periods: animism, polytheism, and monotheism. Polytheism is anthropomorphism, and animism includes fetishism, totemism, shamanism, and other religious forms before anthropomorphism.

Marxism argues that religion is a phenomenon of class society. Steve Taylor said that religion was the result of the fall of mankind six thousand years ago, and this fall refers to the beginning of modern civilization, namely the beginning of patriarchal society and armed struggle. [5] Marxist class society is roughly equivalent to Taylor’s fall of mankind.

The novel concept of a two-tiered society proposed in this article may not necessarily align with class society. Class society views the issue from a social perspective, while the concept of a two-tiered society views it from a cosmic perspective, closer to the essence of things, encompassing biological, social, cultural, psychological, and spiritual aspects, and is more helpful in understanding the history of human religion. Lao Tzu, in Chapter 29 of the *Tao Te Ching*, says, “The divine instruments of the world cannot be manipulated, nor can they be grasped. Those who try to manipulate them will fail, and those who grasp them will lose them.” Lao Tzu’s statement that the divine instruments of the world cannot be manipulated or grasped refers to the unmanipulable nature of a two-tiered society. The masters of the original society are humans, not gods; the masters of the two-tiered society are gods, not humans. The distinction between the original and two-tiered societies is insurmountable. Here, “gods” can be understood as nature and creation. As Marxism demonstrates, the evolution of the two-tiered society follows objective laws, largely unrelated to the will of historical figures: they are at most the masters of their own destiny, far from the masters of the two-tiered society.

Steve Taylor called the six thousand years of civilization the Fall of Man. He used a book to describe the essential difference between the Fallen and the Unfallen (pre-civilization humans and modern tribal peoples scattered around the world). [5] Because he focused on psychological analysis, which is different from the Marxist perspective, the Fallen and Unfallen humans he described are roughly equivalent to the Secondary Society and the Primitive Society in this article. He said that the religious beliefs of the Unfallen are animism, that is, all things have spirits. The Unfallen can feel this spirit of all things. The Fallen have lost this ability and have to invent religion and the concept of human gods to fill this gap. This coincides with the ideas in this article, only from a different perspective. This article talks about the holistic nature of psychology and emotion in the Primitive Society. In childhood, this holistic nature covers the surrounding things, that is, there is psychological and emotional communication with the surrounding things, that is, the idea of ​​the unity of heaven and man. The holistic nature of the Secondary Society depends on the unity of goals and cognition. This unity of the Secondary Society is theoretically impossible: if everyone can get rid of the constraints of the existing culture and become a truly free person, hundreds of millions of people will have hundreds of millions of ideas of the Secondary Society, which is difficult to unify. God and dictatorship are inevitable results.

Lao Tzu proposed the concept of Dao, believing it to be the origin of the universe. Today, we can interpret Lao Tzu’s Dao as purely materialistic. Lao Tzu himself proposed Dao from a comprehensive perspective of primordial society, encompassing biological, social, cultural, intellectual, spiritual, and cosmic levels. If Dao includes spiritual content, Daoist doctrine is essentially a philosophical manifestation of animism in primordial society. Dao exists in all things; the Dao existing in humans is the same as the Dao in other things, meaning that humans have a spiritual connection with their surroundings. Another philosophical expression of this idea is the concept of the unity of heaven and humanity, first proposed by Zhuangzi.

Why is traditional Chinese thought similar to the animism proposed by Western scholars? Because during the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, Chinese society remained largely at the primitive social level, only entering the secondary social level during the Warring States period. Therefore, the philosophies of Laozi and Confucius in the late Spring and Autumn period were still based on the primitive social level. [4, 6] Mozi proposed different religious ideas because of the qualitative changes that occurred in Chinese society during the Warring States period. These included: the breaking down of the ruling family, the military strength of the feudal states reaching the point of controlling the territory and monopolizing all land, and the loss of farmers’ ability to migrate freely. These changes made it possible to control the economic resources and thus control a large population. As a result, the petty people who were despised by Confucius and Mencius became the basis of the social power structure. They built a power network with material rewards and punishments and the deprivation of the right to life, and had the ability to impose their predetermined intentions on people. This is a complete artificial secondary society. Interestingly, influenced by the thought of Confucius, Chinese religious culture remained at the primitive stage for a long time and had a clear tendency towards animism. The oldest religious tradition of a nation is based on the myths and legends of that nation, such as the ancient Greek myths recorded in Homer’s epics. Ancient Chinese mythology and legends remain in a state of numerous fragmented pieces, as exemplified by the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*. This characteristic is quite rare in China. The author speculates that this is related to the primitive social traditions of ancient China.

V. The Primitive Nature of Chinese Religious Culture

In her book *The History of God*, the famous British nun Karen Armstrong wrote: “When people created their myths and worshipped their gods, they were not seeking written explanations for natural phenomena. These symbolic stories and prehistoric rock paintings were ancient attempts to express their inner wonder and to connect the mystery of the world around them with their own lives; today’s poets, artists, and musicians are often driven by the same desire.” [7]

The religious culture of primitive societies differs fundamentally from that of secondary societies, with ancient Chinese religious culture exhibiting more characteristics of primitive society religious culture. In other words, art, religion, and philosophy all originate from humanity’s wonder at the inner and outer worlds, but differ in their direction and methods of expression, all ultimately reaching a state of perfection that transcends reality. Primitive society religious culture, like art, remained at this level of expression and self-transcendence. The integrative function of religious culture in primitive societies can be understood as an expression of the holistic nature of the deep consciousness of primitive societies. Secondary societies, on the other hand, have many different functions, deriving numerous meanings from the individual to all aspects of society, while simultaneously creating a divine world superior to humanity.

Both Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi discussed the phenomenon of the coexistence of humans and gods in primordial society. Lao Tzu, in Chapter 60 of the *Tao Te Ching*, says, “The spirits are not divine; the spirits do not harm people; the sage also does not harm people.” Zhuangzi, in his chapter “Cultivating Nature,” says, “When Yin and Yang are in harmony, the spirits do not disturb.” This can be interpreted as the coexistence of humans and gods, meaning that gods are not superior to humans. Lao Tzu further states, “When neither harms the other, virtue returns to them.” This can be understood as an emotional connection between humans and the spirits of their surroundings; that is, the primordial society, at a deep level of psychological and emotional consciousness, encompassed all things around it. The rational thinking of secondary societies has caused us to lose this emotional connection with our surroundings.

Because early Chinese civilization lacked a typical two-tiered society, Chinese religious culture largely remained at the primitive stage, exhibiting significant primitiveness. This serves as strong evidence of the absence of a typical two-tiered society in ancient China. For example, Christianity believes in a God who oversees all things on earth; Buddhism teaches how to escape human suffering; and collective religious rituals teach people how to rediscover the sense of unity at the deeper level of consciousness in a primitive society—these are characteristics of religions in two-tiered societies. Ancient Chinese religious belief culture lacked these characteristics. For instance, the Chinese people still lack the kind of collective religious rituals found in Christianity, such as weekly worship services. The ancestor worship still prevalent in my country today is a remnant of prehistoric totem culture.

During the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties in China, people worshipped heaven, earth, mountains, rivers, clouds, rain, wind, snow, the sun, the moon, and stars. Two thousand years later, the Qing dynasty capital of Beijing built the Temple of Heaven, the Temple of Earth, the Temple of the Sun, and the Temple of the Moon in four directions to worship heaven, earth, the sun, and the moon—all manifestations of animism. The long-standing Chinese worship of mountain gods, land gods, and city gods is simply a form of respect for one’s own dwelling place, treating them as equals to oneself. It is said that when Europeans first arrived in the Americas, they asked the Native Americans to dig in early spring, to which they replied, “The land is pregnant; how can we disturb her?” This is similar to the Chinese worship of the land, stemming from the same concept. Most Chinese people do not distinguish between Buddhism and Taoism, simply believing that all deities are worthy of respect; and temple worship is mostly a personal act, lacking the collective religious rituals of the West. This indicates that the Chinese, influenced by animism, have not completely lost their deep-seated emotional connection with their surrounding society and natural environment. Zhuangzi believed that even excrement and urine contain Dao, which means that Daoist philosophy inherited this tradition and did not divide the world into two different levels of society.

In contrast to the ancient Chinese civilization, which was characterized by a primitive, superpower-like structure, other civilizations were primarily characterized by warfare. If we consider the Vedic civilization that arose after the Aryan conquest of India, the civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, Mexico, and Peru were all marked by conflict. The early stages of these war-driven civilizations required an all-powerful god as a source of social cohesion, and also a terrifying hell for those who challenged the god’s authority. Massive altar-like structures centered around the god became the hallmark of these war-driven civilizations; in this intensely religious atmosphere, humans, manipulated by the secondary social machinery, could only offer worship and praise.

VI. Ancient Chinese religious traditions are similar to those of North America.

Religion can be defined as different interpretive systems, each imbuing life with different meanings and values ​​through its interpretation of life experiences. It is conceivable that, due to differences in source material and focus, studies of religion are diverse and difficult to compare meaningfully. Consequently, descriptions of different regions by the same author are more valuable for comparison.

I have a religious encyclopedia with 29 major articles listed at the beginning. These are organized by region, including Australian religions, American religions, Greek religions, etc. Some are represented by their original religious traditions, such as Hinduism representing the oldest religious tradition in India, Judaism representing the religious tradition of Israel, and this also includes Shintoism in Japan. The only exception is China. Without describing China’s oldest religious tradition, it directly lists Confucianism and Taoism, suggesting: 1) Confucianism and Taoism are inheritances and advancements of ancient traditions; 2) Ancient Chinese religious culture was so primitive as to be negligible. After Buddhism entered China, Taoism was established, still venerating Laozi and Zhuangzi as its founders. Besides Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the Chinese people have their own traditions, exhibiting a pantheistic tendency and lacking the more defined myths and legends found in other cultural traditions. The Jewish creation myth and the myths of Zeus in ancient Greece, with their fixed myths passed down through generations and becoming an important part of a cultural tradition, seem to be a global norm; even the indigenous peoples of Africa and South America have similar legends. According to the 29 major articles in this religious encyclopedia, only Australia and North America are similar to China. Australian Aborigines practiced hunting and gathering, and did not engage in agriculture. It is generally believed that the Native Americans came from Asia and migrated south through the White Collar Strait, that is, their culture migrated south, forming the Central American and Peruvian civilizations. As a result, the vast North American region was far from civilized areas and was less influenced by civilization, retaining more of the ancient cultural habits of the original Asian inhabitants. [8] Here, we only use North American religious culture as an example to illustrate this.

Native Americans often claim that their traditional way of life does not include religion. They find it nearly impossible to translate the word “religion” into their traditional language. The supernatural authority described in the West transcends visual imagery and human reasoning, and among most Native Americans, there is neither such a concept nor its opposite. They also conceive of other worlds beyond the real world, but these worlds are interconnected: there is bidirectional communication between heaven and earth, and between earth and the underworld. Therefore, there is no such thing as a “Native American religion”; only the following descriptions can be provided:

1) Religious cultural activities have fixed locations, and location is very important (the author uses the term “religious culture” here instead of “religion” to show respect for the North American indigenous people’s denial of religion). 2) Certain knowledge is restricted because it is so powerful and dangerous, and those who come into contact with it must receive prior instruction and baptism. 3) Participation is more important than faith. 4) The center is kinship obligations, how to treat relatives and others. 5) Generosity is both religious and social. 6) A community’s legends include human contact with other non-human forces, as well as family history, skills instruction, and humor. 7) Death is a turning point. 8) Even formal ceremonies include entertainment, intended to make people happy and relaxed, but can also be used to ridicule someone to prompt them to correct their behavior. 9) Important achievements and important stages of life are shared with relatives and the community, which is an important part of North American indigenous life. [8]

VII. Religious Beliefs of Chinese Peasants in the 1950s: Animism

For a long time, rural China remained in a quasi-primitive social stage. Because generations lived in the same village, family organizations were relatively intact, and this face-to-face interaction and kinship were at least a significant reason for the relatively small gap between rich and poor. During the land reform in mainland China in the late 1940s and early 1950s, most peasants were self-cultivating farmers with their own land; landless peasants and landlords were a minority. In the author’s northern rural hometown at the time of the land reform, there were about 300 people, all surnamed Li and belonging to the same clan. There were no landlords or landless farm laborers, but there were rich peasants and poor peasants. Chinese peasants primarily lived a self-sufficient, natural life, meaning the government did not directly intervene in peasant community life as it did in ancient Greece and modern Europe. Peasants were often called natural anarchists, showing little concern for the government above them. Since the government played no role in peasant community life, the divine realm imagined by peasants based on their community life experience would not have different human-shaped gods governing different aspects of life.

In the 1950s, the four traditional gods worshipped by every household in the author’s hometown were: Heaven and Earth, the Earth God, the God of Wealth, and the Kitchen God. On important festivals, such as the Lunar New Year, the Lantern Festival (January 15th), and the Mid-Autumn Festival (August 15th), every family would offer incense and occasionally food and burn paper money before these four deities. When disaster or illness struck, farmers would usually worship the Kitchen God, praying for protection. After the disaster or illness was cured, they would fulfill their vows by offering food and incense, and expressing their gratitude in person. The farmers knew nothing about the stories behind these four gods; they didn’t seem to care what kind of gods they were or what power they possessed. I later saw fragmentary descriptions in some books, but I suspect these were embellishments by writers, and the farmers didn’t take them to heart. Depending on the severity of the illness and the family’s resources, local farmers sometimes also worshipped local deities and performed rituals such as spirit possession or soul-summoning, which were considered local witchcraft.

Chinese farmers still practice ancestor worship. In my hometown, farmers visit cemeteries several times a year to pay respects to their ancestors. Generally, they only know their grandfather and great-grandfather generation; they know nothing beyond that. The worship is merely a formality; they don’t actually know who is buried in the grave. Farmers in my hometown don’t seek help from their ancestors when facing disasters or illnesses. The ancestor worship mentioned above is related to a fundamental obstacle in the subjective understanding of death. It shouldn’t be confused with religion in the general sense, but it can be categorized as a form of animism, that is, viewing the dead as sentient beings. The existence of funeral rites 50,000 years ago indicates that humans at that time possessed subjective consciousness, but it cannot be said that they had a true religion.

The area also has Buddhist and Taoist temples, but the generally illiterate farmers know nothing about the stories of the gods and Buddhas, yet this doesn’t hinder their devout worship. My hometown belongs to a small town of three or four thousand people. The largest temple in town is a Taoist temple dedicated to the “Grandma,” which was later used as a primary school, but a Taoist priest still lives there. Despite the annual temple fairs and the flourishing incense offerings, no one knows who the “Grandma” deity actually is. In recent years, after my father became one of the oldest people in the village, someone asked him, and I finally looked up the origin of the Grandma Temple online for him. And the person who asked my father was someone with some education, not an ordinary farmer.

Our county is the hometown of Ji Xiaolan, a famous scholar and official of the Qing Dynasty. A story about him circulates among the farmers: Once, when he was young and unknown, he was traveling when it rained and thundered. He found shelter, and suddenly a fox appeared, and the thunder stopped immediately. The story says that the thunder was chasing the fox, intending to kill it. Like other animals, the fox possessed a spirituality that humans lack; it knew that Ji Xiaolan would become an important figure, and the thunder dared not strike such a person, so it sought his protection. According to Western tradition, such thunder is driven by a thunder god like Zeus. However, Chinese farmers believe that thunder, like themselves, has thoughts and will, and does not need to be driven by others. Furthermore, this story places the fox, thunder, and a future important figure together, placing them in another world. This is precisely a characteristic of animism in early social religious beliefs. In a secondary social government, different officials governed different aspects of life; this bureaucratic system, projected into the human mind, became the concept of a dedicated god who controlled thunder, rain, and wind. Chinese farmers are indifferent to how the government operates and have a quasi-primitive family life, allowing their religious beliefs to remain at the animistic stage.

The author lived in the countryside in the 1950s. Aside from occasionally hearing farmers mention the names of Buddhism and Taoism, he heard no words suggesting any knowledge of these two religions, consistent with the fact that none of his 300 family members were religious. Conversely, they persistently recounted the aforementioned supernatural tale of Ji Xiaolan avoiding lightning strikes, constantly adding new supernatural stories based on villagers’ experiences. If someone were to collect all their supernatural stories, it would surely be a collection of countless fragments of legends, like the *Classic of Mountains and Seas*. In early society, there was no inherent need to systematize supernatural tales. Years of war and the Communist Party’s atheistic stance led to the disappearance of village temples. The farmers had no attachment to those temples; their lives were not diminished by their disappearance. However, stories circulated in the village of those who vandalized temple statues and met tragic ends. One story said that a farmer accidentally damaged a finger of a Buddha statue, and later, while working, he cut his own finger and bled to death in the field. They were unaware that such a legend contradicted the Buddhist doctrine of compassion. To be precise, farmers viewed temples and statues as spiritual entities, yet knew nothing about the religion they represented. In times of disaster and illness, seeking divine intervention was almost exclusively the domain of adult women, who, having lived almost their entire lives within their families, were largely unaware of anything outside their communities. I have an elder relative, a woman with an innate tendency towards free thinking. Because girls were not allowed to attend school at the time, she learned two or three hundred Chinese characters by standing outside the school window every day, enough for formal education, yet she became a self-taught amateur calligrapher and painter, and could even write poetry. For many years, she prayed with rituals to a pre-made coffin to accompany her in the future, and to her own spinning wheel to spin more thread for her, demonstrating her spontaneous animistic beliefs. However, in times of disaster and illness, she invariably sought help from the Kitchen God, and whether her prayers were answered or not did not affect her sincerity the next time she prayed. In other words, for her, the Kitchen God was sufficient to overcome all of life’s difficulties; other temples and deities were not necessary. The only collective religious cultural activity I’ve observed over the years was a rain-praying procession of dozens of people, including the Dragon King and the “Drought Turtle,” a symbol of drought. This cannot be explained by any religious tradition other than animism. Taoism, influenced by Daoism, remains superficial and hasn’t penetrated the community life of rural areas. The fact that farmers invite both monks and Daoists to funerals suggests that they view them as a form of animism and don’t care about their doctrines.

In short, until the 1950s, the quasi-primitive social family and neighborhood communities in rural China were largely intact. This made it difficult for the anthropomorphic deities invented by upper-class literati to take root in the minds of peasants. As for the widely circulated story of “The Heavenly Match,” it had a psychological effect on peasants, bringing the heavens down to earth. In my village, the three hundred members of the same clan still had a clan head, and a school and the ruins of a local temple served as venues for clan activities. The income from cemeteries and trees could cover the annual expenses for these activities. I remember that when the clan members gathered for a meal, they would first pay respects to the elderly widowed or widowed members of the clan. The guiding principles of these community activities, apart from family affection and equality and reciprocity, did not require the intervention of any secondary social ideology or religion, which was consistent with the aforementioned definition of primitive society. Among the clan members, there were two or three literate people, but I doubted that they had any understanding of Confucianism or Taoism, because they never said anything to me that indicated they understood Confucianism or Taoism. On the other hand, human nature and kinship were enough to maintain the harmony of a community, making the profound principles of benevolence and morality superfluous. Even if they were knowledgeable in Confucianism and Taoism, there was no need for them to tell me. The presence of these two or three people as school teachers did not change the widespread illiteracy among the community. This community life, which had continued for thousands of years in rural China, was later replaced by the Communist Party’s agricultural collectivization. After the individualization of agriculture in the 1980s, community life became a void, at least in my hometown. This created an opportunity for the spread of Christianity, because Christianity organizes community life based on religious belief.

VIII. Comparison with Western Religious Culture

Westerners who visit religious temples in China feel that they are somewhat like Disneyland, with their flamboyant red and green colors, seemingly trying to attract believers. However, compared to the West, they are not successful, as most Chinese people do not have a fixed religious belief. During the Republican era, a Western scholar mentioned his survey results when providing information and guidance to Westerners living in Guangdong: Buddhists, 14,000; Christians, 6,500; Muslims, 2,500; Confucianists, 1,500; Taoists, 1,000; and atheists, 1,099,000. That is, the number of atheists is more than forty times that of all religious believers combined. [9] Professor TH Barrett, who specializes in Chinese religions, repeatedly explained the insurmountable difficulties he faced before introducing Chinese religions at an international academic conference. It would be completely wrong to think that the aforementioned atheists in Guangdong truly have no religious belief. Barrett said that three thousand years ago, when the Shang king fell ill, he consulted the oracle, and Marco Polo saw the same situation in the 13th century: the first thing people did after falling ill was to go to witch doctors and sorcerers. In the 1930s, the first American anthropologist to enter Southwest China saw the same thing: the locals relied on shamanism to solve their illnesses. Europe had a long history of persecuting heretics, and the main targets of the persecution were witches and the like in the remote mountainous areas. Barrett said that most of Chinese religions were not expressed in language and writing, and as a scholar, he could only study and understand the parts that were expressed, even though it was only the tip of the iceberg. [10] In short, the Chinese people remained in the animistic stage for a long time and did not move towards the belief in anthropomorphic gods.

Compared with the West, Arab countries, and even India, the religious beliefs of the Chinese are close to anarchy. The government’s attitude toward religion is close to Confucius’s “respect the spirits and gods but keep them at a distance” and non-intervention, while the intellectual class uses poetry, books, music, painting and Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism to replace religion and seek spiritual comfort. Whether the anarchy of Chinese religion is less effective than opium is inconclusive. In fact, Chinese poetry is fundamentally different from that of the West[11], especially the poetry after the Tang Dynasty, which is detached from the secular landscape and pastoral charm, and combined with Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism, also has an analgesic effect. But whether it is higher or lower than the opium effect of religion is unknown.

Compared to Chinese peasants in the 1950s who were indifferent to the government and believed in pantheism, Western civilization originated from a typical two-tiered society. Government and its organizational structure were essential to people’s lives, and they imagined that the heavens and nature were governed by a group of gods, each with their own duties, personalities, and experiences. The earliest human civilization began in Mesopotamia, a type of urban civilization. According to the renowned anthropologist Jacobson, the development of religion in Mesopotamia can be divided into three stages, each corresponding to a “metaphor” that he believed embodied the characteristics of that stage. The first stage, roughly in the fourth millennium BC, focused on the forces of nature and other concrete natural phenomena crucial to economic life. Resurrected gods embodying life and abundance were typical figures in this stage. The second stage, roughly in the third millennium BC, was characterized by the concept of rulers and the desire for security when facing enemies. The “ruling god” in the Nippuric pantheon is a representative figure of this stage. The third stage roughly dates to the second millennium BC. In this stage, the importance of individual destiny was finally given equal importance to the collective economy and security. Protector gods were the typical deities of this stage. [12, 13] The gods in these three stages were all anthropomorphic. The first stage began around 4000 BC. The resurrection goddess was a female goddess who had entered hell and returned, hence the name. She was originally the local god of Uruk, the earliest city in Mesopotamia. This kind of anthropomorphic god was directly related to the city government’s involvement in the lives of citizens. The Chinese government never entered the lives of peasant communities, nor did it enter the lives of citizens. It only entered the lives of bureaucratic gentry families, and these people were deeply influenced by Confucianism. Their attitude was to respect ghosts and gods but keep them at a distance. Nevertheless, there were signs of anthropomorphic gods appearing in the City Gods, such as the worship of Lord Chunshen in Suzhou and Wen Tianxiang in Hangzhou, which meant that important local officials in history were worshipped as City Gods. There is even a story in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio that the position of City God was vacant and that the next City God was to be selected through the imperial examination. This was obviously a result of the influence of the lives of bureaucratic gentry. In comparison, even the local deity in “Journey to the West” appears pale and powerless, lacking personality. In the eyes of farmers influenced by animism, the land is always the great image that nourishes all things, and the invention of any human-shaped deity is superfluous.

literature

[1] Chen Qiyun (2010): “On the Prospects of Confucianism from Huntington’s Perspective on Civilization Consciousness”. Confucius2000 Website: http://confucius2000.com.

[2] Chi Ke (1983): A Brief History of Western Art. Beijing: China Youth Press.

[3] You-Sheng Li (2008): Julian Jaynes’ Theory of the Bicameral Mind and Different Pathways Leading to Subjective Consciousness in Human Historyō.

(website: http://taoism21cen.com)

[4] You-Sheng Li (2005): A New Interpretation of Chinese Taoist Philosophy. London, Canada: Taoist Recovery Centre.

[5] Steve Taylor (2005): The Fall: The Evidence for a Golden Age, 6000 years of Insanity, and the Dawning of a New Era. Winchester UK: O Books.

[6] You-Sheng Li (2010): The Ancient Chinese Super State of Primary Societies: Taoist Philosophy for the 21st Century. Bloomington, USA: Author House.

[7] Karen Armstrong (1994): A History of God. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994, p5.

[8] Wendy Doniger (1999): Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia of World Religions. Springfield, USA: Merriam-Webster.

[9] Holmes Welch (1968): The Buddhist Revival in China. Cambridge USA: Harvard University Press, p210.

[10] TH Barret (1990): Religious traditions in Chinese civilization: Buddhism and Taoism. In Paul S. Ropp eds, Heritage of China, Berkeley: University of California Press.

[11] You Sheng (2009): On the different artistic thoughts of the two societies from the different attitudes of Confucius and Plato towards the art of poetry. Xue Deng, No. 11 (http://www.confucius2000.com).

[12] Wang Xianhua (2008): Jakobson on historians and Sumerian polytheism. Xue Deng, No. 8 (http://www.confucius2000.com).

[13] T. Jacobsen (1976): The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976.

(Minor textual revisions made on May 2, 2011, by the author)

author By Dr. You-Sheng Li

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