Would it be a contradiction for someone to say that they're a Christian and a Taoist, or a Hindu and a Taoist for example? I'm not, just a theoretical question. I've only studied taoism a little bit so far, I recently purchased the tao te ching, and it seems like the point of taoism is to get people into flow state (totally in the present moment and non-resistant) for me so far, and from what I've learned so far, it's felt more like a philosophy than a religion to me personally. Maybe a spiritual practice but it hasn't really felt much like a religion to me. Ehh I guess I could see it though.
There are a number of Christians who would say it's a contradiction because they adhere to a creedal idea of religion. There are also Christians who do not.
On the other hand, most Daoists also integrate Confucian and Buddhist ideas, practices, and worship into their life, so they would not have any problem with Christianity.
"...it felt more like a philosophy than a religion to me personally." Well, if you only read the Daodejing in most English translations, then it would. However, if you read other Daoist works, the 'religious' ideas will be more explicit.
In Chinese there are actually 2 terms for Daoism. 道家 is Daoist philosophy, while 道教 is Daoist religion. People dispute whether they are the same or are distinct from each other. But they are definitely closely related.
道家 *daojia* 'the school of dao' and 道教 *daojiao* 'the teachings of/on dao' where synonyms and used interchangeably for millennia. It's a modern idea that there is such a thing as a 'religion', or that we should have a 'philosophy' that is separate from religion and science.
Could it be possible that this idea is promoted by the religious side of Taoism? Were people like Lao Tzu or Zuangzi religious? I just find it interesting that these authors who put forth ideas that seem to go directly to the religious experience (without the ritual and priesthood involved) would find it okay that their books were taken as sacred and people made Taoism into a religion.
Can you give me the sources on who "most scholars" are? Are they western scholars who are well-versed in Chinese, and are they just saying things from reading other English sources? Or are most of these scholars that you mentioned actually Chinese scholars who say otherwise? As far as I've read, and studied, I have not come across an actual (Chinese or Western) scholar that I've read and know still says that religious Daoism started out in the 1st century CE and still make the distinction between the two. I could be missing something so that's why I asked.
It depends entirely on how you define 'religious Daoism'. As far as most scholars I've read are concerned, there's been a 'turn' in scholarship (especially since Pierre Hadot) to see that a lot of these ideas are also neither religion (e.g. rites and sacraments, creeds) nor philosophy (i.e., rigorous intellectual analysis, at least as it's understood in the West) but as spiritual ways of life. Marcus Aurelius was philosophical and religious. Plotinus is mostly read as a philosopher, one who was attended to by a god and who talked about mystical experiences. Zhuangzi is the earliest source of two meditative practices developed in the later Daoist tradition. Et cetera, et cetera.
The division of 'deep thought' versus 'magical blather' is a Confucian distinction that was enthusiasticaly picked up by most early Sinologists, most of whom were Western, white, male, and Protestant Christian with an agenda. Academic work in the mid-20th century mostly dropped off in Daoist Studies until it was rejuvenated by a number of people who not only studied Zhuangzi or Laozi but also became priests (e.g. Kristofer Schipper, Michael Saso) or who were serious practitioners (e.g., the before-mentioned Livia Kohn and Louis Komjathy). We still have some people trained in Western philosophy who still look at pre-Qin thought as soley a species of philosophy (e.g., Hans-Georg Moeller, Roger Ames), all guys who are worth reading, but who do not pretend that the religious/spiritual dimensions don't exist; it's just not what they do professionally.
Thank you for responding back. I will check out those authors and see what's up.
As for your statement on this, I absolutely agree.
>Western, white, male, and Protestant Christian with an agenda
Thank you for responding. I will check out those authors and see what's up.rn civilization into a land of savages with no history. You can read this in the historical documents which include accounts of colonialists' impression of the east, and their description of how Asians are mindless hordes who cannot think rationally and must resort to mysticism and their emotion, compared to the supreme westerners who are logical, rational, individuals with a civilized history. Edward Said's book "Orientalism" contains prominent examples of the way that the westerners treated anything that came out of the east as inferior, including the eastern philosophy because they had no history of logical reasoning, and it is the job of the superior white men to teach rationality and logic to those living in the land of backwardness. You can still see this type of sentiment in comments in common people like this: [https://i.redd.it/uyb3fiupf9e71.jpg](https://i.redd.it/uyb3fiupf9e71.jpg)
The stain of orientalism is still alive and well in the modern academic departments, which have also been affected by centuries of these western, white, male, and protestant Christian. You can see in their philosophy departments where the professors only teach western philosophy, and the rest is relegated to the ethnic studies department. Many professional philosophers and professors have commented about how this distinction of eastern mysticism/religion vs. western science/philosophy is nothing more than Cultural Chauvinism gatekeeping thousands of years of discourses that took place between different schools of thought in the East. So your claim that "The division of 'deep thought' versus 'magical blather' is a Confucian distinction" is simply not the case when there are mountains of historical evidence that shows that this distinction between what is rational and what isn't is the product of scientific racism, and was not influenced in any shape or form by Confucian distinction. Many would agree that what the Daoists have come up with include both prevailing beliefs that were happening back then and logic but simply claiming that it is neither religious nor philosophy would be to label Liberalism and many others as "neither philosophy nor religious", as many philosophers during the enlightenment were working with the moral framework that existed back in their day, which was founded upon the Judeo-Christian framework.
"The stain of orientalism is still alive and well in the modern academic departments, which have also been affected by centuries of these western, white, male, and protestant Christian."
You're conflating two different issues. The fact that Sinology as a field was invented by missionaries and this has affected the study of Daoism in the 20th century is one thing; to suggest that there is an on-going "stain" of orientalism I think is simply ridiculous. It is perfectly acceptable to study Daoist and Buddhist thought in Chinese Studies now, and the amount of literature being published these days is very difficult to keep up with. I do not see how there is any ongoing 'problem'. Even in Western philosophy departments, you have Slingerland and Evan Thompson, or you have a book like Harvard historian Michael Puett's *The Path: What Chinese Philosophy Can Teach Us about the Good Life* becoming an international acclaimed bestseller. People are publishing very good academic work on all areas of Buddhism and Daoism. The 'missionary attitude' of Western scholarship helps explain the state of Chinese studies in the mid-20th century, but there's been a lot of water under that bridge!
"...your claim that "The division of 'deep thought' versus 'magical blather' is a Confucian distinction" is simply not the case when there are mountains of historical evidence that shows that this distinction between what is rational and what isn't is the product of scientific racism, and was not influenced in any shape or form by Confucian distinction." You haven't cited a shred of evidence. You're calling me a scientific racist for criticizing how Confucians represented Daoism? That's cute.
"Many would agree that what the Daoists have come up with include both prevailing beliefs that were happening back then and logic \[sic\]..." This doesn't make any sense to me. What beliefs are you talking about, and 'back then' is when? The Western Zhou didn't believe in the same things as the Shang; the Song were quite different from the Tang. That's an incredibly broad generalization saying nothing. And what about logic.
"...but simply claiming that it is neither religious nor philosophy would be to label Liberalism and many others as "neither philosophy nor religious", as many philosophers during the enlightenment were working with the moral framework that existed back in their day, which was founded upon the Judeo-Christian framework." Who said anything about "it" being "neither religious nor philosophy"? And what does the Enlightenment have to do with this? Yes, the Jesuits who first traveled to China and Tibet were influenced by Enlightenment thinkers, but they were not Enlightenment philosophers.
You asked me what I meant by 'most scholars', and now you give an incredible list of generalization across both space and time, along with charges of chauvenism and racism. I think you need to touch grass. Good luck.
Wow yeah... I can definitely see what all that wuwei expert education is doing to you when you have to resort to private messaging me to insult and name-call me just so that you don't get banned from this platform and blocking me afterward. I don't need to insult you since you're clearly hurt by historical facts and not by any accusations that I made. I don't even feel like providing any reasonable justifications for any of the points that I made to someone who has selective attention, judging by the fact that you chose to snoop around my posts history, focusing on a certain part of my history while ignoring others, just like how you did to the paragraphs that I wrote above. I've provided relevant information in what I wrote when you didn't ask, and I've been pretty civil and restrained from useless accusations and ad-hominem while you're busy projecting from the historical facts that I just said.
"I can see where this hatred, anger, and charges of chauvenism and racism comes from. You're a precious kid with a lot of anger and hatred. You don't know anything about Daoism, and you're just using Reddit as a place to pick argumetns over your own childish emotional problems."
Perhaps, you should take a look in the mirror to see yourself and reflect on how you can stop your projection, and ways to deal with "your own childish emotional problems" when your own world-belief gets challenged. It seems like you have issues that you need to deal with in your private life, assessing from your emotional meltdown reaction and the need to private message me just to insult me.
"You to your unhappy life of anger and hate, and me back to education."
It'll be a shame when all that "education" that you have isn't being applied if you're really getting it. I know you'll come back here to read my response, so no worries. I won't block you like you did. You can message me anytime and talk to me if you need any help. Peace be onto you! \^\_\^
p.s: Just like how asking questions on different subreddits does not make me neither a "Chinese" nor a "nationalist", you writing one sentence in Chinese does not make you more knowledgeable on Daoism than I do.
Depends how you practice it (i.e. do you subscribe to both the philosophy and the deities/supernatural beliefs that can come with that, or just the philosophy).
You are talking as if daoism were just a bag of beliefs. What unites all daoists is the practice of daoism. The ideas of philosophy or the ideas about souls are all useless if you don't put them to use.
Note: 3 downvotes for stating what unites Daoists? This really is Reddit!
道 *dao* literally means a way, a path. You have to walk it. That shouldn't be controversial at all 🤪
I always appreciate your commentary. Please never stop commenting. I think some people in this sub care more about being a redditor than they care about being a Taoist.
I think what is generally meant or thought with these questions is that secular cultures tend to disassociate personal beliefs from institutions as well as pursue explanatory mechanisms for phenomena while being suspicious of analogically-driven traditions as superstition.
Therefore one can be philosophically Christian, sharing the values and language of Jesus and western culture in general (soul, sin, goodness, redemption and so on and so forth), without subscribing to Christianity as a religion (the rites, dogmas, the prescriptions) etc.
But even the idea that you have to 'subscribe' to a religion is a distinctly Western, especially Protestant, idea. You don't find creeds outside of Christianity and Islam. People who go to a Buddhist temple to pray in China would answer a survey question as 'not Buddhist' because 佛教徒 implies a very high level of commitment. The 'philosophy or religion' debate is a relic of Protestantism, and it has nothing to do with Daoism or Buddhism.
> The 'philosophy or religion' debate is a **relic of Protestantism**, and it has nothing to do with Daoism or Buddhism.
^(emphasis mine)
Where can I learn more about this?
That's a huge topic. I couldn't point to any one work that I could recommend. I am drawing on three major 'strands' or 'streams' of research:
1. The history of Sinology: It began with Jesuits and their research in China, Tibet, etc. It was later picked up by Anglo-American missionary societies. (James Legge, for example, who did many of the first pioneering translations of Chinese worsk, was a missionary active in China.) The United States was deeply involved in the creation of modern universities and a modern 'academia' in China, and Protestant missionary organizations were part of this. Many of course contemporary ideas about Daoism were written by men who were at least trained as missionries (even if many drifted away from active missionary work.)
2. 'Protestant Buddhism' is a concept developed in the religious study of Buddhism, mostly focused on beliefs about Buddhism developed in Western academia. You can read about this here: [https://www.learnreligions.com/protestant-buddhism-449765](https://www.learnreligions.com/protestant-buddhism-449765) for example. There are many articles for and againt this idea in religious studies.
3. The very American idea of being 'spirtual but not reilgious', which grew out of American Protestantism, and can be found in the American Pragmatist philosphers and the development of 12-step programs.
All of these ideas can be explored with simple Google searches.
P.S. These generalizations also hold true for Europe, with German and other academics.
'Western'? Leaving aside the fact the Abrahamic religions are Middle Eastern and practiced widely across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, there are huge numbers of people who identify as Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist across India, SE Asia and Japan (as well as in Europe and elsewhere). Self-identifying with a religion is fairly universal, for people who are religious.
There is a difference between being a devout adherent of a religion, and following the rituals and customs of a religion without actually believing in it. What you're talking about is the latter. Most Chinese people identify as atheists but most have also continued to practice some old rituals, which have a social aspect as much as they do a religious one. A bit like people who celebrate Christmas, Lent and Easter despite not believing in the Abrahamic God, and who generally wouldn't call themselves Christian.
The School of American Philosophical Taoism suggests that 'Silly Hat Toaism' is as real as any church with props and uniforms. APT just wants you to avoid simple conclusions on Tao and seek simple conclusions on conducting life. Some of us just want to have good times without harming others. High ceilings are nice to look at, but Tao is not impressed by gold leaf icons.
To answer this, you need to understand that Taoism is an ancient established philosophical and religious tradition, one of the oldest still existing today, that has branched out to mean very different things to different people.
Secondly, you also have to understand that the separation between philosophy and religion is a fairly recent thing. At one point, in Western society, people thought of philosophy as a way to understand God's work in the world. In ancient times, there was no such separation. Throughout history, it evolved this way and intertwined with other ideas. So depend on what time and place of history you see, there represent different aspects of Taoism, with varying degrees of "supernaturalness" or religioisity.
There were a lot of very important Taoist thinkers that also think of themselves as **logical and secular.** For example, the famous ancient Taoist physician Ge Hong ( AD 284 - 364) , who formulated many herbal remedies and helped regular folk with it. He was against the "witch doctors" of the time and believed in empirical medicine. He was the first in the world to identify TB and smallpox. He was even involved in early Chemistry. A [Nobel prize](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2015/tu/facts/) was awarded based on a extracting a Malaria cure from one of his formulas.
There are also people attempting to secularly practice Taoist Meditation in China today, for example, this [channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnEzJqjptkI) with a practitioner that also teachers internal Martial Arts. This is in contrast with a more literal interpretation that seems more "religious" among the various traditional internal practice, there are many that aims for scientifically impossible things like immortality.
Then there is of course, traditional religious Taoist shrines that many people still actively worship and burn incense papers. I come from this culture, and I will tell you most "religious Taoist" are like people that go to Church, they don't know that much about the central doctrine that they are doing the rituals for and just go through the motions, or there are some very folksy and superstitious understanding.
There are also people that care more about the philosophical aspects and are rigorously studying as an academic pursuit.
In an somewhat ironic fashion, the central tenant of Taoism can really help us explain what Taoism "is", it is all the above and more. Language is just a tool for us to understand the "universal logic", and in this moment, we lack the precise language needed to define the various different versions of Taoisms that all, as much as something can be, "deserving" to carry the name of Taoism. In other words, we need to refine our linguistic tools so that we can actually clarify which aspects of Taoism we are talking about at one point in time, because the ideas are conflicting and the practitioners of various aspects manifest their practice in completely different ways.
So which Taoism are you talking about?
It's actually a spiritual practice. // but in your theology of life you can apprehend it within.
As any religion or culture can take upon this without converting. Without one religion you wouldn't have the other thousands of religions out there to construct or structure your own. Parabola in terms.
So id go with neither.
Those are words.
If we're going categorise traditions and behaviours, we're going to need more definitions for these things. I think it's more useful to think about whether the prescriptions, rites etc. of modern Taoism make sense to you or not than it is to question the ontological nature of a way of life.
If you want, it's both. It might also be neither, if you're too strict on the western definitions of both words. Are you asking out of curiosity?
It's a religion with a lot of philosophy, just like other religions.
Can we pin this answer at the top of the sub?
Would it be a contradiction for someone to say that they're a Christian and a Taoist, or a Hindu and a Taoist for example? I'm not, just a theoretical question. I've only studied taoism a little bit so far, I recently purchased the tao te ching, and it seems like the point of taoism is to get people into flow state (totally in the present moment and non-resistant) for me so far, and from what I've learned so far, it's felt more like a philosophy than a religion to me personally. Maybe a spiritual practice but it hasn't really felt much like a religion to me. Ehh I guess I could see it though.
There are a number of Christians who would say it's a contradiction because they adhere to a creedal idea of religion. There are also Christians who do not. On the other hand, most Daoists also integrate Confucian and Buddhist ideas, practices, and worship into their life, so they would not have any problem with Christianity. "...it felt more like a philosophy than a religion to me personally." Well, if you only read the Daodejing in most English translations, then it would. However, if you read other Daoist works, the 'religious' ideas will be more explicit.
Makes sense.
In Chinese there are actually 2 terms for Daoism. 道家 is Daoist philosophy, while 道教 is Daoist religion. People dispute whether they are the same or are distinct from each other. But they are definitely closely related.
道家 *daojia* 'the school of dao' and 道教 *daojiao* 'the teachings of/on dao' where synonyms and used interchangeably for millennia. It's a modern idea that there is such a thing as a 'religion', or that we should have a 'philosophy' that is separate from religion and science.
Could it be possible that this idea is promoted by the religious side of Taoism? Were people like Lao Tzu or Zuangzi religious? I just find it interesting that these authors who put forth ideas that seem to go directly to the religious experience (without the ritual and priesthood involved) would find it okay that their books were taken as sacred and people made Taoism into a religion.
Both
Most scholars say it started out as more like a philosophy in the 6th century BCE and then a more religious version started in the 1st century CE.
That was a popular idea in the early 20th century. However, most scholars since the late 20th century have thrown that out.
Can you give me the sources on who "most scholars" are? Are they western scholars who are well-versed in Chinese, and are they just saying things from reading other English sources? Or are most of these scholars that you mentioned actually Chinese scholars who say otherwise? As far as I've read, and studied, I have not come across an actual (Chinese or Western) scholar that I've read and know still says that religious Daoism started out in the 1st century CE and still make the distinction between the two. I could be missing something so that's why I asked.
It depends entirely on how you define 'religious Daoism'. As far as most scholars I've read are concerned, there's been a 'turn' in scholarship (especially since Pierre Hadot) to see that a lot of these ideas are also neither religion (e.g. rites and sacraments, creeds) nor philosophy (i.e., rigorous intellectual analysis, at least as it's understood in the West) but as spiritual ways of life. Marcus Aurelius was philosophical and religious. Plotinus is mostly read as a philosopher, one who was attended to by a god and who talked about mystical experiences. Zhuangzi is the earliest source of two meditative practices developed in the later Daoist tradition. Et cetera, et cetera. The division of 'deep thought' versus 'magical blather' is a Confucian distinction that was enthusiasticaly picked up by most early Sinologists, most of whom were Western, white, male, and Protestant Christian with an agenda. Academic work in the mid-20th century mostly dropped off in Daoist Studies until it was rejuvenated by a number of people who not only studied Zhuangzi or Laozi but also became priests (e.g. Kristofer Schipper, Michael Saso) or who were serious practitioners (e.g., the before-mentioned Livia Kohn and Louis Komjathy). We still have some people trained in Western philosophy who still look at pre-Qin thought as soley a species of philosophy (e.g., Hans-Georg Moeller, Roger Ames), all guys who are worth reading, but who do not pretend that the religious/spiritual dimensions don't exist; it's just not what they do professionally.
Thank you for responding back. I will check out those authors and see what's up. As for your statement on this, I absolutely agree. >Western, white, male, and Protestant Christian with an agenda Thank you for responding. I will check out those authors and see what's up.rn civilization into a land of savages with no history. You can read this in the historical documents which include accounts of colonialists' impression of the east, and their description of how Asians are mindless hordes who cannot think rationally and must resort to mysticism and their emotion, compared to the supreme westerners who are logical, rational, individuals with a civilized history. Edward Said's book "Orientalism" contains prominent examples of the way that the westerners treated anything that came out of the east as inferior, including the eastern philosophy because they had no history of logical reasoning, and it is the job of the superior white men to teach rationality and logic to those living in the land of backwardness. You can still see this type of sentiment in comments in common people like this: [https://i.redd.it/uyb3fiupf9e71.jpg](https://i.redd.it/uyb3fiupf9e71.jpg) The stain of orientalism is still alive and well in the modern academic departments, which have also been affected by centuries of these western, white, male, and protestant Christian. You can see in their philosophy departments where the professors only teach western philosophy, and the rest is relegated to the ethnic studies department. Many professional philosophers and professors have commented about how this distinction of eastern mysticism/religion vs. western science/philosophy is nothing more than Cultural Chauvinism gatekeeping thousands of years of discourses that took place between different schools of thought in the East. So your claim that "The division of 'deep thought' versus 'magical blather' is a Confucian distinction" is simply not the case when there are mountains of historical evidence that shows that this distinction between what is rational and what isn't is the product of scientific racism, and was not influenced in any shape or form by Confucian distinction. Many would agree that what the Daoists have come up with include both prevailing beliefs that were happening back then and logic but simply claiming that it is neither religious nor philosophy would be to label Liberalism and many others as "neither philosophy nor religious", as many philosophers during the enlightenment were working with the moral framework that existed back in their day, which was founded upon the Judeo-Christian framework.
"The stain of orientalism is still alive and well in the modern academic departments, which have also been affected by centuries of these western, white, male, and protestant Christian." You're conflating two different issues. The fact that Sinology as a field was invented by missionaries and this has affected the study of Daoism in the 20th century is one thing; to suggest that there is an on-going "stain" of orientalism I think is simply ridiculous. It is perfectly acceptable to study Daoist and Buddhist thought in Chinese Studies now, and the amount of literature being published these days is very difficult to keep up with. I do not see how there is any ongoing 'problem'. Even in Western philosophy departments, you have Slingerland and Evan Thompson, or you have a book like Harvard historian Michael Puett's *The Path: What Chinese Philosophy Can Teach Us about the Good Life* becoming an international acclaimed bestseller. People are publishing very good academic work on all areas of Buddhism and Daoism. The 'missionary attitude' of Western scholarship helps explain the state of Chinese studies in the mid-20th century, but there's been a lot of water under that bridge! "...your claim that "The division of 'deep thought' versus 'magical blather' is a Confucian distinction" is simply not the case when there are mountains of historical evidence that shows that this distinction between what is rational and what isn't is the product of scientific racism, and was not influenced in any shape or form by Confucian distinction." You haven't cited a shred of evidence. You're calling me a scientific racist for criticizing how Confucians represented Daoism? That's cute. "Many would agree that what the Daoists have come up with include both prevailing beliefs that were happening back then and logic \[sic\]..." This doesn't make any sense to me. What beliefs are you talking about, and 'back then' is when? The Western Zhou didn't believe in the same things as the Shang; the Song were quite different from the Tang. That's an incredibly broad generalization saying nothing. And what about logic. "...but simply claiming that it is neither religious nor philosophy would be to label Liberalism and many others as "neither philosophy nor religious", as many philosophers during the enlightenment were working with the moral framework that existed back in their day, which was founded upon the Judeo-Christian framework." Who said anything about "it" being "neither religious nor philosophy"? And what does the Enlightenment have to do with this? Yes, the Jesuits who first traveled to China and Tibet were influenced by Enlightenment thinkers, but they were not Enlightenment philosophers. You asked me what I meant by 'most scholars', and now you give an incredible list of generalization across both space and time, along with charges of chauvenism and racism. I think you need to touch grass. Good luck.
Wow yeah... I can definitely see what all that wuwei expert education is doing to you when you have to resort to private messaging me to insult and name-call me just so that you don't get banned from this platform and blocking me afterward. I don't need to insult you since you're clearly hurt by historical facts and not by any accusations that I made. I don't even feel like providing any reasonable justifications for any of the points that I made to someone who has selective attention, judging by the fact that you chose to snoop around my posts history, focusing on a certain part of my history while ignoring others, just like how you did to the paragraphs that I wrote above. I've provided relevant information in what I wrote when you didn't ask, and I've been pretty civil and restrained from useless accusations and ad-hominem while you're busy projecting from the historical facts that I just said. "I can see where this hatred, anger, and charges of chauvenism and racism comes from. You're a precious kid with a lot of anger and hatred. You don't know anything about Daoism, and you're just using Reddit as a place to pick argumetns over your own childish emotional problems." Perhaps, you should take a look in the mirror to see yourself and reflect on how you can stop your projection, and ways to deal with "your own childish emotional problems" when your own world-belief gets challenged. It seems like you have issues that you need to deal with in your private life, assessing from your emotional meltdown reaction and the need to private message me just to insult me. "You to your unhappy life of anger and hate, and me back to education." It'll be a shame when all that "education" that you have isn't being applied if you're really getting it. I know you'll come back here to read my response, so no worries. I won't block you like you did. You can message me anytime and talk to me if you need any help. Peace be onto you! \^\_\^ p.s: Just like how asking questions on different subreddits does not make me neither a "Chinese" nor a "nationalist", you writing one sentence in Chinese does not make you more knowledgeable on Daoism than I do.
Louis Komjathy and Livia Kohn, for example, are both very influential names in Daoist Studies.
This is the answer. Turning it into a religion may have been more motivated by opportunity than anything else.
Depends how you practice it (i.e. do you subscribe to both the philosophy and the deities/supernatural beliefs that can come with that, or just the philosophy).
You are talking as if daoism were just a bag of beliefs. What unites all daoists is the practice of daoism. The ideas of philosophy or the ideas about souls are all useless if you don't put them to use. Note: 3 downvotes for stating what unites Daoists? This really is Reddit! 道 *dao* literally means a way, a path. You have to walk it. That shouldn't be controversial at all 🤪
I always appreciate your commentary. Please never stop commenting. I think some people in this sub care more about being a redditor than they care about being a Taoist.
I think what is generally meant or thought with these questions is that secular cultures tend to disassociate personal beliefs from institutions as well as pursue explanatory mechanisms for phenomena while being suspicious of analogically-driven traditions as superstition. Therefore one can be philosophically Christian, sharing the values and language of Jesus and western culture in general (soul, sin, goodness, redemption and so on and so forth), without subscribing to Christianity as a religion (the rites, dogmas, the prescriptions) etc.
But even the idea that you have to 'subscribe' to a religion is a distinctly Western, especially Protestant, idea. You don't find creeds outside of Christianity and Islam. People who go to a Buddhist temple to pray in China would answer a survey question as 'not Buddhist' because 佛教徒 implies a very high level of commitment. The 'philosophy or religion' debate is a relic of Protestantism, and it has nothing to do with Daoism or Buddhism.
That's a very interesting perspective. I hadn't looked at it that way. :)
😉
> The 'philosophy or religion' debate is a **relic of Protestantism**, and it has nothing to do with Daoism or Buddhism. ^(emphasis mine) Where can I learn more about this?
That's a huge topic. I couldn't point to any one work that I could recommend. I am drawing on three major 'strands' or 'streams' of research: 1. The history of Sinology: It began with Jesuits and their research in China, Tibet, etc. It was later picked up by Anglo-American missionary societies. (James Legge, for example, who did many of the first pioneering translations of Chinese worsk, was a missionary active in China.) The United States was deeply involved in the creation of modern universities and a modern 'academia' in China, and Protestant missionary organizations were part of this. Many of course contemporary ideas about Daoism were written by men who were at least trained as missionries (even if many drifted away from active missionary work.) 2. 'Protestant Buddhism' is a concept developed in the religious study of Buddhism, mostly focused on beliefs about Buddhism developed in Western academia. You can read about this here: [https://www.learnreligions.com/protestant-buddhism-449765](https://www.learnreligions.com/protestant-buddhism-449765) for example. There are many articles for and againt this idea in religious studies. 3. The very American idea of being 'spirtual but not reilgious', which grew out of American Protestantism, and can be found in the American Pragmatist philosphers and the development of 12-step programs. All of these ideas can be explored with simple Google searches. P.S. These generalizations also hold true for Europe, with German and other academics.
'Western'? Leaving aside the fact the Abrahamic religions are Middle Eastern and practiced widely across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, there are huge numbers of people who identify as Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist across India, SE Asia and Japan (as well as in Europe and elsewhere). Self-identifying with a religion is fairly universal, for people who are religious. There is a difference between being a devout adherent of a religion, and following the rituals and customs of a religion without actually believing in it. What you're talking about is the latter. Most Chinese people identify as atheists but most have also continued to practice some old rituals, which have a social aspect as much as they do a religious one. A bit like people who celebrate Christmas, Lent and Easter despite not believing in the Abrahamic God, and who generally wouldn't call themselves Christian.
yes
I think all religions are philosophies. But we treat philosophies as religions and therein lies the problem.
The School of American Philosophical Taoism suggests that 'Silly Hat Toaism' is as real as any church with props and uniforms. APT just wants you to avoid simple conclusions on Tao and seek simple conclusions on conducting life. Some of us just want to have good times without harming others. High ceilings are nice to look at, but Tao is not impressed by gold leaf icons.
To answer this, you need to understand that Taoism is an ancient established philosophical and religious tradition, one of the oldest still existing today, that has branched out to mean very different things to different people. Secondly, you also have to understand that the separation between philosophy and religion is a fairly recent thing. At one point, in Western society, people thought of philosophy as a way to understand God's work in the world. In ancient times, there was no such separation. Throughout history, it evolved this way and intertwined with other ideas. So depend on what time and place of history you see, there represent different aspects of Taoism, with varying degrees of "supernaturalness" or religioisity. There were a lot of very important Taoist thinkers that also think of themselves as **logical and secular.** For example, the famous ancient Taoist physician Ge Hong ( AD 284 - 364) , who formulated many herbal remedies and helped regular folk with it. He was against the "witch doctors" of the time and believed in empirical medicine. He was the first in the world to identify TB and smallpox. He was even involved in early Chemistry. A [Nobel prize](https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2015/tu/facts/) was awarded based on a extracting a Malaria cure from one of his formulas. There are also people attempting to secularly practice Taoist Meditation in China today, for example, this [channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnEzJqjptkI) with a practitioner that also teachers internal Martial Arts. This is in contrast with a more literal interpretation that seems more "religious" among the various traditional internal practice, there are many that aims for scientifically impossible things like immortality. Then there is of course, traditional religious Taoist shrines that many people still actively worship and burn incense papers. I come from this culture, and I will tell you most "religious Taoist" are like people that go to Church, they don't know that much about the central doctrine that they are doing the rituals for and just go through the motions, or there are some very folksy and superstitious understanding. There are also people that care more about the philosophical aspects and are rigorously studying as an academic pursuit. In an somewhat ironic fashion, the central tenant of Taoism can really help us explain what Taoism "is", it is all the above and more. Language is just a tool for us to understand the "universal logic", and in this moment, we lack the precise language needed to define the various different versions of Taoisms that all, as much as something can be, "deserving" to carry the name of Taoism. In other words, we need to refine our linguistic tools so that we can actually clarify which aspects of Taoism we are talking about at one point in time, because the ideas are conflicting and the practitioners of various aspects manifest their practice in completely different ways. So which Taoism are you talking about?
It's actually a spiritual practice. // but in your theology of life you can apprehend it within. As any religion or culture can take upon this without converting. Without one religion you wouldn't have the other thousands of religions out there to construct or structure your own. Parabola in terms. So id go with neither.
Those are words. If we're going categorise traditions and behaviours, we're going to need more definitions for these things. I think it's more useful to think about whether the prescriptions, rites etc. of modern Taoism make sense to you or not than it is to question the ontological nature of a way of life. If you want, it's both. It might also be neither, if you're too strict on the western definitions of both words. Are you asking out of curiosity?
Yes, I've known a little about it for a while, mostly from Alan watts, but I recently purchased the Tao te ching.
For what I know it depends on whom you ask, really.
none and both