My last article on secularism in China stirred quite the debate, which genuinely surprised me given that I was under the impression that the secular nature of China had been settled knowledge for centuries.
Excellent piece, and I'd argue your central point is even more fundamental than the theological dimension suggests.
You write that many people don't understand China. True. But the deeper problem is that most Western analysts don't even register why they don't understand it. They apply their own conceptual framework – built on God, on transcendence, on universal truth – and then wonder why China's behavior seems irrational or opaque.
Here's one example that rarely gets mentioned: until very recently, classical Chinese had no real equivalent for the Western concept of "I" – the autonomous, self-contained individual subject that Descartes placed at the center of Western philosophy. The Chinese self has always been relational: defined by its position within family, society, and the cosmic order – never as an isolated unit standing apart from the collective.
Think about what that means epistemologically. Western political analysis rests on two foundational pillars: God (or its secular derivatives – universal rights, absolute truth, moral absolutes) and the individual. China built an equally sophisticated civilization without either.
This is why Western attempts to understand China so consistently fail. You cannot decode a civilization's behavior using conceptual tools it never employed. When China acts to preserve "face" or social harmony, Western observers see irrationality. When China prioritizes collective stability over individual freedom, Western observers see oppression. They're not seeing China – they're seeing the shadow their own framework casts onto China.
Add to this the historical dimension you touched on: China was humiliated, invaded, and exploited by Western powers twice in living memory. The Century of Humiliation is not ancient history for the Chinese – it is the foundational trauma that explains everything from Xi Jinping's rhetoric to Beijing's absolute red lines on sovereignty. Any serious analysis of China's current geopolitical behavior has to start there.
Pascal crossed out his own question because he sensed it would unravel his entire edifice. Western China analysts should ask themselves the same uncomfortable question: what if the framework I'm using to understand China is the very thing preventing me from doing so?
Your article is excellent Arnaud. It reflects a thorough understanding of China's history and culture. I am as surprised as you are that it should stir up a heated debate. Anyway, you've said all that need be said on the subject. The secular nature is hand-in-hand with a faith in HUMANITY, if that's what makes China "secular". I need not repeat what you said already. I just wanted to say thank you for a wonderful piece.
Yes, this is similar to my thought process that "Atheist societies progress faster" and the best example is China. Eventhough China can be thought of as a Buddhist society, Buddhism puts the individual human as the most powerful in bringing about change in the society.
My take on India, never an atheist society, is that it is sliding faster towards a full theocratic society and will struggle to recover.
When Buddhism arrived in China it rapidly took on Chinese characteristics and became Chan Buddhism. It's then went off to Japan and became Zen Buddhism.
It hasn't played much of a role in China since forever and only 4% of Chinese say they are Buddhists.
China isn't even atheist really. As being a-theist requires the idea of a theist. And as Arnaud has tried to make clear in this article the Chinese tradition doesn't have the concept of god so it can't do no-god.
She didn’t say it was, quite the opposite, only “4% of Chinese say they are Buddhists” and the fundamentals of Chinese culture and society is non- theist
Agree. With a small % identifying as Buddhists, it cannot be generalized as Buddhist society. What do we identify the Chinese then ? Or do they follow Buddhist principles ?
Their society isn't really labelled in this way. They are Chinese. Some may say Han Chinese I think. What matters is their culture which is grounded in Confucianism. But like all cultures it develops and changes and adapts.
Confucianism is mainly a moral and ethical grounding. Daoism is more metaphysical (not transcendent .... that's more the territory of god and religion). Metaphysics is beyond the physical so to do with cosmology ie existence, time, space, reality etc.
I think neo-Confucianism is traditional Confucian thought as adapted over time with cosmological thought given some prominence. I'm no expert though.
As I understand it you can be what you want in terms of your beliefs (Buddhist, Christian, Daoist, nothing etc) as long as you are also Chinese.
Their culture is the thing that brings social cohesion and this is very important. So you need to speak Mandarin and abide by cultural norms. Norms, of course, are not written in concrete ...... they change (usually slowly) and the culture changes and adapts as time never stops.
Excellent, yes, exactly the lines along which I have been thinking lately. As it happens, my own religious attitude had already been evolving in this direction for quite some time, but it took contact with the Chinese language to make this explicit. That’s to say, the Jesus I follow and revere was / is only the “Son of God” in the sense that we all are — or, at least, could be if we would only stop misinterpreting His Teachings! To me, “知其不可奈何而安之若命，德之至也。” has exactly the same meaning as “Father, if it be Thy Will.” It’s almost a word-for-word translation!
The claim “China didn’t need religion to build a civilization” only works if you quietly redefine religion as “belief in a single personal God plus an exclusive, church-like institution.” That’s basically equating religion with a specific Western monotheist template, then declaring China “non-religious” because it didn’t center itself around that template.
But in comparative history and sociology, religion is not synonymous with “God.” It includes ritual systems, institutions, cosmology, sacred authority, moral formation, practices around death and ancestors, communal worship, and symbolic order. Using that broader, standard definition, the idea that China “had no religion” falls apart.
China had (and has) multiple overlapping religious layers, for example:
Popular/folk religion: local temples, city gods, protective rites, festivals, divination, spirit-medium practices.
Ancestor veneration: not just “respect for elders,” but a full ritual and ontological system about death, continuity, and reciprocity between living and dead.
Daoism: priesthood, liturgy, canon, temples, pantheon, long institutional continuity.
Confucianism: whatever label you prefer, it clearly functions as a “civil religion” sociologically through state ritual, rites (礼), moral cultivation, sacrifice, and political legitimation.
And then there’s Heaven (天) and the Mandate of Heaven (天命). It isn’t a personal God, but it operates as a transcendent legitimating principle: dynastic authority is morally conditional, and disorder or calamity can be read as loss of mandate. That’s theology of power, just not Western-style theism.
So the accurate point isn’t “China didn’t need religion.” It’s that China didn’t build civilization around an exclusive monotheist creed with a centralized church structure. Instead it developed a plural, non-exclusive religious ecology, with emphasis on orthopraxy (correct practice/ritual) more than orthodoxy (correct belief/dogma). That’s a meaningful distinction, but it’s not “no religion.” When someone collapses religion into God, it’s not insight about China; it’s a category error that can’t handle non-theistic or practice-centered traditions.
I thought the main points were that China didn't need God in the way Western civilization did, and that religion never held much sway over their polity. I'm sure religion played a large part in their civilisation pre 1949. One of the big differences is the East has generally been far more tolerant of religion whereas the Western Abrahamic religions have always battled for supremacy. Indeed many religions (and cultures) of antiquity have been lost through centuries of (Christian) colonisation.
Thank goodness someone wrote a sensible and informed reply.
To add, so common to see "Western" people falling into a kind of idealization of China and "the East."
Living in Taiwan back in the day I noticed the opposite tendency among some Taiwanese. Things they liked such as plumbing were "modernization," while unpleasant things like plastic garbage were "Americanization." (I'm not American btw.)
It's understandable, no one is satisfied with their own society.
There's a lot both good and bad with Chinese society and culture, but discussing the bad is more or less not considered to be in good taste. An example is "involution," (neijuan) meaning, competition with diminishing returns, which is a prevalent feature on the education system and therefore in society as a whole. Is that "humanism"?
A lot of Chinese nowadays believe in spiritual stuff such as reincarnation and the ongoing influence of ancestors. Would that be "secular"?
I decry the decay of occidental civilisation not to inherent philosophical weakness but rather to the persistent and sustained attack and parasitism of the rule for centuries of the Epstein class.
Jullien says it rather well in my view when he states that Western philosophy is all about being (or Being) and Chinese philosophy is about living.
This article has also created a bit of a stir Arnaud but thanks for writing it. I read the last one and I'm pleased you attempted this clarification, but it's difficult for people brought up within one tradition to wholly get another and it certainly shows here in the responses you are getting!
I didn't get to read the original article, unfortunately, because it was paywalled. I probably would have agreed with it given the preview.
My hypothesis for a while has been that China has a unique advantage in that their society has been based for millenia on a personal and political philosophy that doesn't rely on a diety/dieties. Confucianism is amazing.
In contrast, the West is based on a personal diety. While Western philosophy iterates, even the secular iterations are foundationally Abrahamic: "my personal god" just becomes "my personal truth". This is a sandy foundation that has lead the West to become a "prisoner's dilemma" "society" of me first/all against all.
What a brilliant insight. Clearly, the concept of God goes beyond that of the Abrahamic God(s). However, the true believers, like Pascal, will never be able to accept the Truth.
There is something missing when the anointed experts of a culture, like Jullien, aren’t themselves members of that culture. I know that shouldn’t be the case, but human lived experience within is always richer than observation from without. There are subtleties that an outsider can never understand, no matter how much they believe they do.
This is especially true of westerners who have lived a significant part of their lives in East Asian lands and/or families (as I have). I never deluded myself that I understood culture to anywhere near the degree that they did. To do so is just hubris.
Jullien actually taught at two of China's best universities: Beida (Peking university) and Shanghai University, so at least the Chinese themselves seem to be under the impression he has a pretty decent grasp of the country...
Not doubting his bona fides, but he did not grow up there, was not raised in a Chinese family, and would always have been viewed as an outsider while there. His two years teaching there would certainly have given him some insights, but I suspect not to the level of contemporary Chinese philosophers who are actually themselves Chinese.
I get he has studied long and hard on this matter, not denying that.
This is just unintellectual, Chinese always had their own religion (culture and philosophy) just without the semitic, Abrahamic God. Is it secularism when the communist China started their Olimpics on 2008-08-08, at 8:08:08? Ancient Chinese had their own spirituality
The Olympic factoid is fascinating! The number eight is considered to represent eternity. The eternal loop and union of all things.... according to my studies of the I Ching.
Starting international games to coincide with that number is auspicious.
You may have misunderstood Chinese spirituality. It has nothing to do with gods or religion. It's a word that, like tian translated as heaven is seen as something to do with transcendence when read by Westerners, that translates badly.
It's more to do with personhood and that encompasses such things as existence, activity, morality, emotions, intention etc. It's quite complex.
Claiming that China has always been secular while all other nations, cultures and civilisations had their own religion is nonsense. Why do you think communist, modern China started their Olimpics on 2008-08-08, at 08:08:08 if not for some religious or transcendent reason?!
Agree. I sense China today experiences a mix of Taoism, Confucianism, superstition and Buddhism (4-30% of population depending of what qualify factors you include). For example the goddess Guanyin is quite popular, there is also the God of Wealth 财神 and Laotianye 老天爷 which many in China will gladly make offerings to and there are other cultural / superstitions/ fengshui/ I-ching which show up during certain major events such as buying a home, weddings, birth of child, new year etc. Outside the big cities you will find animistic practices. In the big cities discussions around astrology and fengshui are common in relation to business. Astrology is also commonly discussed in relation to match making.
Who was claiming "China has always been secular"? You're missing the point made; their political system has remained secular. My guess is there are many, many overlays of both religion and spirituality woven through Chinese history. One only need a little understanding of Lao Tzu or Confucius to see this. And when Buddhism arrived many centuries later it no doubt entered a very sophisticated ontological environment.
Does it matter? In the case of the Mandate, legitimacy was couched in moral performance and cosmic order, and in many Western religious traditions legitimacy was tied to divine appointment backed by the clergy. Both types of narratives have historically been invoked to justify rule and consolidate authority. Both systems are elite-justifying structures. Every civilisation builds metaphysical scaffolding around power. Moses, Mandate, Roman law, constitutionalism, Marxism, even modern democracy. They all provide moral language that makes rule appear necessary and justified. P.s - My comment is aimed at Religion and not a person's personal faith.
All the Christian warriors coming out of the woodwork, I see.
Seems to me a simpler differentiation can be made between an anthropomorphic God, and Heaven as a principle of Physics adjacent force.
Christian doctrine says man was made in the image of God from clay and vivified by God's breath. (Paraphrasing).
The Yin Yang Symbol is basically a graphic design of the swirling forces of atoms, or planets, or the little swirly tadpole like optic phenomena most people can experience looking at a blue sky with an open focus gaze.( I can't remember what it was named scientifically).
A gross simplification for the scholars, but I think a useful way to think about it without getting mired in scripture from either side of the continent.
The problem here is that you create a false binary between being monotheistic and being secular. Chinese states were not secular. They engaged in religion (state cults), they regulated and patronized religions (buddhisim, daoism), and they controlled orthodox interpretations, including persecuting heterodox perspectives. So yeah, Chinese states were (almost) never monotheistic (it can be discussed if this applies to the Shang Dynasty). But that does not mean that they were not religious.
No I don't, I'm clear that those are two separate questions and my claim is BOTH that the Chinese state was historically largely secular in the sense that religion never held independent political power (there was never a priestly class that could challenge or constrain the ruler the way the Catholic Church, the Brahmins, or the ulama could in their respective civilizations), AND - like I argue here - that the notion of God, in the Abrahamic sense, didn't deploy in China. Secularism doesn't necessarily mean that the government doesn't involve itself in religion: for one thing secularism actually necessitate that the state ensures religion doesn't become political.
Thanks for you answer. The problem then remains what definitions of secularism we are using. For example here you are saying "religion never held independent political power". I don't believe this is a correct definition of secular, but it is also arguably wrong. In the Tang dynasty, for example, Buddhist temples had achieved so much "independent power" that in the Song dynasty the state closed hundreds of temples. Buddhist monks were a distinct class, and were subjected to huge amounts of regulations: both temples and the teaching lineages had to be registered (this topic is developed in the book "how zen became zen"). The idea that monks were a special group persisted in later jurisprudence, both in Ming and Qing (see for example Soulstealers).
Besides this, Confucian scholars were also religious officials in many senses: they were in charge of taking care of the Confucian temples, they were the keepers of the ritual ceremonies that belonged to the state cult, etc.
If we think of secularism as a state of separation between the government and religious institutions, this mostly did not exist in Chinese History.
And if you had read the article you'd see that I write about this, which I call a constant "tug of war" between religion and the state. Come on, you argue with me, accusing me of not writing about something without even reading the article, what kind of attitude is this?
I am not saying that you didn't write about something. What I was trying to say is that "secularism" doesn't fit as a description of long stretches of Chinese history. That is why I said the problem was one of definitions. Not of facts, but about how we interpret and define them.
Nice follow-up to the original article. The problem is that many concepts originated from the west are simply not applicable. Take the word “atheist”, Kungzi said: 六合之外圣人存而不论. This wasn’t a denial of the existence of “god” but for Kungzi it simply didn’t matter. When asked about afterlife, he said: 未知生焉知死.
Excellent piece, and I'd argue your central point is even more fundamental than the theological dimension suggests.
You write that many people don't understand China. True. But the deeper problem is that most Western analysts don't even register why they don't understand it. They apply their own conceptual framework – built on God, on transcendence, on universal truth – and then wonder why China's behavior seems irrational or opaque.
Here's one example that rarely gets mentioned: until very recently, classical Chinese had no real equivalent for the Western concept of "I" – the autonomous, self-contained individual subject that Descartes placed at the center of Western philosophy. The Chinese self has always been relational: defined by its position within family, society, and the cosmic order – never as an isolated unit standing apart from the collective.
Think about what that means epistemologically. Western political analysis rests on two foundational pillars: God (or its secular derivatives – universal rights, absolute truth, moral absolutes) and the individual. China built an equally sophisticated civilization without either.
This is why Western attempts to understand China so consistently fail. You cannot decode a civilization's behavior using conceptual tools it never employed. When China acts to preserve "face" or social harmony, Western observers see irrationality. When China prioritizes collective stability over individual freedom, Western observers see oppression. They're not seeing China – they're seeing the shadow their own framework casts onto China.
Add to this the historical dimension you touched on: China was humiliated, invaded, and exploited by Western powers twice in living memory. The Century of Humiliation is not ancient history for the Chinese – it is the foundational trauma that explains everything from Xi Jinping's rhetoric to Beijing's absolute red lines on sovereignty. Any serious analysis of China's current geopolitical behavior has to start there.
Pascal crossed out his own question because he sensed it would unravel his entire edifice. Western China analysts should ask themselves the same uncomfortable question: what if the framework I'm using to understand China is the very thing preventing me from doing so?
– Michael Hollister
Incisive analysis!
Your article is excellent Arnaud. It reflects a thorough understanding of China's history and culture. I am as surprised as you are that it should stir up a heated debate. Anyway, you've said all that need be said on the subject. The secular nature is hand-in-hand with a faith in HUMANITY, if that's what makes China "secular". I need not repeat what you said already. I just wanted to say thank you for a wonderful piece.
Yes, this is similar to my thought process that "Atheist societies progress faster" and the best example is China. Eventhough China can be thought of as a Buddhist society, Buddhism puts the individual human as the most powerful in bringing about change in the society.
My take on India, never an atheist society, is that it is sliding faster towards a full theocratic society and will struggle to recover.
When Buddhism arrived in China it rapidly took on Chinese characteristics and became Chan Buddhism. It's then went off to Japan and became Zen Buddhism.
It hasn't played much of a role in China since forever and only 4% of Chinese say they are Buddhists.
China isn't even atheist really. As being a-theist requires the idea of a theist. And as Arnaud has tried to make clear in this article the Chinese tradition doesn't have the concept of god so it can't do no-god.
Agree with your take on India.
China is not a buddhist society, sorry
She didn’t say it was, quite the opposite, only “4% of Chinese say they are Buddhists” and the fundamentals of Chinese culture and society is non- theist
Agree. With a small % identifying as Buddhists, it cannot be generalized as Buddhist society. What do we identify the Chinese then ? Or do they follow Buddhist principles ?
Their society isn't really labelled in this way. They are Chinese. Some may say Han Chinese I think. What matters is their culture which is grounded in Confucianism. But like all cultures it develops and changes and adapts.
Confucianism is mainly a moral and ethical grounding. Daoism is more metaphysical (not transcendent .... that's more the territory of god and religion). Metaphysics is beyond the physical so to do with cosmology ie existence, time, space, reality etc.
I think neo-Confucianism is traditional Confucian thought as adapted over time with cosmological thought given some prominence. I'm no expert though.
As I understand it you can be what you want in terms of your beliefs (Buddhist, Christian, Daoist, nothing etc) as long as you are also Chinese.
Their culture is the thing that brings social cohesion and this is very important. So you need to speak Mandarin and abide by cultural norms. Norms, of course, are not written in concrete ...... they change (usually slowly) and the culture changes and adapts as time never stops.
Confucianism.
Excellent, yes, exactly the lines along which I have been thinking lately. As it happens, my own religious attitude had already been evolving in this direction for quite some time, but it took contact with the Chinese language to make this explicit. That’s to say, the Jesus I follow and revere was / is only the “Son of God” in the sense that we all are — or, at least, could be if we would only stop misinterpreting His Teachings! To me, “知其不可奈何而安之若命，德之至也。” has exactly the same meaning as “Father, if it be Thy Will.” It’s almost a word-for-word translation!
That's a very beautiful way of seeing it, Thomas, thank you for this 🙏
The claim “China didn’t need religion to build a civilization” only works if you quietly redefine religion as “belief in a single personal God plus an exclusive, church-like institution.” That’s basically equating religion with a specific Western monotheist template, then declaring China “non-religious” because it didn’t center itself around that template.
But in comparative history and sociology, religion is not synonymous with “God.” It includes ritual systems, institutions, cosmology, sacred authority, moral formation, practices around death and ancestors, communal worship, and symbolic order. Using that broader, standard definition, the idea that China “had no religion” falls apart.
China had (and has) multiple overlapping religious layers, for example:
Popular/folk religion: local temples, city gods, protective rites, festivals, divination, spirit-medium practices.
Ancestor veneration: not just “respect for elders,” but a full ritual and ontological system about death, continuity, and reciprocity between living and dead.
Daoism: priesthood, liturgy, canon, temples, pantheon, long institutional continuity.
Buddhism: monasteries, ordination, karma/rebirth soteriology, and massive civilizational impact (education, art, philanthropy, economic networks).
Confucianism: whatever label you prefer, it clearly functions as a “civil religion” sociologically through state ritual, rites (礼), moral cultivation, sacrifice, and political legitimation.
And then there’s Heaven (天) and the Mandate of Heaven (天命). It isn’t a personal God, but it operates as a transcendent legitimating principle: dynastic authority is morally conditional, and disorder or calamity can be read as loss of mandate. That’s theology of power, just not Western-style theism.
So the accurate point isn’t “China didn’t need religion.” It’s that China didn’t build civilization around an exclusive monotheist creed with a centralized church structure. Instead it developed a plural, non-exclusive religious ecology, with emphasis on orthopraxy (correct practice/ritual) more than orthodoxy (correct belief/dogma). That’s a meaningful distinction, but it’s not “no religion.” When someone collapses religion into God, it’s not insight about China; it’s a category error that can’t handle non-theistic or practice-centered traditions.
I thought the main points were that China didn't need God in the way Western civilization did, and that religion never held much sway over their polity. I'm sure religion played a large part in their civilisation pre 1949. One of the big differences is the East has generally been far more tolerant of religion whereas the Western Abrahamic religions have always battled for supremacy. Indeed many religions (and cultures) of antiquity have been lost through centuries of (Christian) colonisation.
Thank goodness someone wrote a sensible and informed reply.
To add, so common to see "Western" people falling into a kind of idealization of China and "the East."
Living in Taiwan back in the day I noticed the opposite tendency among some Taiwanese. Things they liked such as plumbing were "modernization," while unpleasant things like plastic garbage were "Americanization." (I'm not American btw.)
It's understandable, no one is satisfied with their own society.
There's a lot both good and bad with Chinese society and culture, but discussing the bad is more or less not considered to be in good taste. An example is "involution," (neijuan) meaning, competition with diminishing returns, which is a prevalent feature on the education system and therefore in society as a whole. Is that "humanism"?
A lot of Chinese nowadays believe in spiritual stuff such as reincarnation and the ongoing influence of ancestors. Would that be "secular"?
I decry the decay of occidental civilisation not to inherent philosophical weakness but rather to the persistent and sustained attack and parasitism of the rule for centuries of the Epstein class.
what you call religeon others may call it culture. It is indeed blurring the lines of ritual, customs and taboos, is it religeon or culture?
Jullien says it rather well in my view when he states that Western philosophy is all about being (or Being) and Chinese philosophy is about living.
This article has also created a bit of a stir Arnaud but thanks for writing it. I read the last one and I'm pleased you attempted this clarification, but it's difficult for people brought up within one tradition to wholly get another and it certainly shows here in the responses you are getting!
Yes the being vs living is a wonderful way of summarizing it!
I didn't get to read the original article, unfortunately, because it was paywalled. I probably would have agreed with it given the preview.
My hypothesis for a while has been that China has a unique advantage in that their society has been based for millenia on a personal and political philosophy that doesn't rely on a diety/dieties. Confucianism is amazing.
In contrast, the West is based on a personal diety. While Western philosophy iterates, even the secular iterations are foundationally Abrahamic: "my personal god" just becomes "my personal truth". This is a sandy foundation that has lead the West to become a "prisoner's dilemma" "society" of me first/all against all.
https://open.substack.com/pub/robertm698764/p/from-abraham-to-my-truth-the-lineage
I love the effort you put into educating us about Chinese culture. Thank you! xx
🙏🙏🙏
Absolutely true Arnaud ! ❤️👍💯
Thank you!
What a brilliant insight. Clearly, the concept of God goes beyond that of the Abrahamic God(s). However, the true believers, like Pascal, will never be able to accept the Truth.
There is something missing when the anointed experts of a culture, like Jullien, aren’t themselves members of that culture. I know that shouldn’t be the case, but human lived experience within is always richer than observation from without. There are subtleties that an outsider can never understand, no matter how much they believe they do.
This is especially true of westerners who have lived a significant part of their lives in East Asian lands and/or families (as I have). I never deluded myself that I understood culture to anywhere near the degree that they did. To do so is just hubris.
Jullien actually taught at two of China's best universities: Beida (Peking university) and Shanghai University, so at least the Chinese themselves seem to be under the impression he has a pretty decent grasp of the country...
Not doubting his bona fides, but he did not grow up there, was not raised in a Chinese family, and would always have been viewed as an outsider while there. His two years teaching there would certainly have given him some insights, but I suspect not to the level of contemporary Chinese philosophers who are actually themselves Chinese.
I get he has studied long and hard on this matter, not denying that.
This is just unintellectual, Chinese always had their own religion (culture and philosophy) just without the semitic, Abrahamic God. Is it secularism when the communist China started their Olimpics on 2008-08-08, at 8:08:08? Ancient Chinese had their own spirituality
Pascal being "unintellectual" is quite the claim!
The Olympic factoid is fascinating! The number eight is considered to represent eternity. The eternal loop and union of all things.... according to my studies of the I Ching.
Starting international games to coincide with that number is auspicious.
You may have misunderstood Chinese spirituality. It has nothing to do with gods or religion. It's a word that, like tian translated as heaven is seen as something to do with transcendence when read by Westerners, that translates badly.
It's more to do with personhood and that encompasses such things as existence, activity, morality, emotions, intention etc. It's quite complex.
Claiming that China has always been secular while all other nations, cultures and civilisations had their own religion is nonsense. Why do you think communist, modern China started their Olimpics on 2008-08-08, at 08:08:08 if not for some religious or transcendent reason?!
Agree. I sense China today experiences a mix of Taoism, Confucianism, superstition and Buddhism (4-30% of population depending of what qualify factors you include). For example the goddess Guanyin is quite popular, there is also the God of Wealth 财神 and Laotianye 老天爷 which many in China will gladly make offerings to and there are other cultural / superstitions/ fengshui/ I-ching which show up during certain major events such as buying a home, weddings, birth of child, new year etc. Outside the big cities you will find animistic practices. In the big cities discussions around astrology and fengshui are common in relation to business. Astrology is also commonly discussed in relation to match making.
Who was claiming "China has always been secular"? You're missing the point made; their political system has remained secular. My guess is there are many, many overlays of both religion and spirituality woven through Chinese history. One only need a little understanding of Lao Tzu or Confucius to see this. And when Buddhism arrived many centuries later it no doubt entered a very sophisticated ontological environment.
Does it matter? In the case of the Mandate, legitimacy was couched in moral performance and cosmic order, and in many Western religious traditions legitimacy was tied to divine appointment backed by the clergy. Both types of narratives have historically been invoked to justify rule and consolidate authority. Both systems are elite-justifying structures. Every civilisation builds metaphysical scaffolding around power. Moses, Mandate, Roman law, constitutionalism, Marxism, even modern democracy. They all provide moral language that makes rule appear necessary and justified. P.s - My comment is aimed at Religion and not a person's personal faith.
All the Christian warriors coming out of the woodwork, I see.
Seems to me a simpler differentiation can be made between an anthropomorphic God, and Heaven as a principle of Physics adjacent force.
Christian doctrine says man was made in the image of God from clay and vivified by God's breath. (Paraphrasing).
The Yin Yang Symbol is basically a graphic design of the swirling forces of atoms, or planets, or the little swirly tadpole like optic phenomena most people can experience looking at a blue sky with an open focus gaze.( I can't remember what it was named scientifically).
A gross simplification for the scholars, but I think a useful way to think about it without getting mired in scripture from either side of the continent.
The problem here is that you create a false binary between being monotheistic and being secular. Chinese states were not secular. They engaged in religion (state cults), they regulated and patronized religions (buddhisim, daoism), and they controlled orthodox interpretations, including persecuting heterodox perspectives. So yeah, Chinese states were (almost) never monotheistic (it can be discussed if this applies to the Shang Dynasty). But that does not mean that they were not religious.
No I don't, I'm clear that those are two separate questions and my claim is BOTH that the Chinese state was historically largely secular in the sense that religion never held independent political power (there was never a priestly class that could challenge or constrain the ruler the way the Catholic Church, the Brahmins, or the ulama could in their respective civilizations), AND - like I argue here - that the notion of God, in the Abrahamic sense, didn't deploy in China. Secularism doesn't necessarily mean that the government doesn't involve itself in religion: for one thing secularism actually necessitate that the state ensures religion doesn't become political.
Thanks for you answer. The problem then remains what definitions of secularism we are using. For example here you are saying "religion never held independent political power". I don't believe this is a correct definition of secular, but it is also arguably wrong. In the Tang dynasty, for example, Buddhist temples had achieved so much "independent power" that in the Song dynasty the state closed hundreds of temples. Buddhist monks were a distinct class, and were subjected to huge amounts of regulations: both temples and the teaching lineages had to be registered (this topic is developed in the book "how zen became zen"). The idea that monks were a special group persisted in later jurisprudence, both in Ming and Qing (see for example Soulstealers).
Besides this, Confucian scholars were also religious officials in many senses: they were in charge of taking care of the Confucian temples, they were the keepers of the ritual ceremonies that belonged to the state cult, etc.
If we think of secularism as a state of separation between the government and religious institutions, this mostly did not exist in Chinese History.
And if you had read the article you'd see that I write about this, which I call a constant "tug of war" between religion and the state. Come on, you argue with me, accusing me of not writing about something without even reading the article, what kind of attitude is this?
I am not saying that you didn't write about something. What I was trying to say is that "secularism" doesn't fit as a description of long stretches of Chinese history. That is why I said the problem was one of definitions. Not of facts, but about how we interpret and define them.
Nice follow-up to the original article. The problem is that many concepts originated from the west are simply not applicable. Take the word “atheist”, Kungzi said: 六合之外圣人存而不论. This wasn’t a denial of the existence of “god” but for Kungzi it simply didn’t matter. When asked about afterlife, he said: 未知生焉知死.