Is China Really an Atheistic Country?

[MineralMan]

It is, but only if you only are referring to the major world religions, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Officially, the Communist Party is atheistic, but the Chinese people are not necessarily without religious beliefs. Chinese folk religions are still part of everyday life for most Chinese. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it, with references:

Because many, perhaps most, Han Chinese do not consider their spiritual beliefs and practices to be a "religion" and in any case do not feel that they must practise any one of them exclusively, it is difficult to gather clear and reliable statistics. According to scholarly opinion, "the great majority of China's population of 1.4+ billion" takes part in Chinese cosmological religion, its rituals and festivals of the lunar calendar, without belonging to any institutional teaching.[9] National surveys conducted in the early 21st century estimated that some 80% of the population of China, which is more than a billion people, practice some kind of Chinese folk religion or Taoism; 10–16% are Buddhists; 2.53% are Christians; and 0.4% are Muslims. Folk religious movements of salvation constitute 2–3% to 13% of the population, while many in the intellectual class adhere to Confucianism as a religious identity. In addition, ethnic minority groups practise distinctive religions, including Tibetan Buddhism, and Islam among the Hui and Uyghur peoples.

Now, Chinese folk religions are not really theistic religions. From the same source: "Basically, Chinese religion involves allegiance to the shen, often translated as "spirits", defining a variety of gods and immortals. These may be deities of the natural environment or ancestral principles of human groups, concepts of civility, culture heroes, many of whom feature in Chinese mythology and history."

Theistic religions developed later in human history, it seems. Since China has had a continuous civilization for thousands of years, and since it has historically been relatively isolated from western cultures, it's folk religion developed without the influence of monotheistic western cultures.

From this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_culture#Religion

A large part of Chinese culture is based on the notion that a spiritual world exists. Countless methods of divination have helped answer questions, even serving as an alternative to medicine. Folklores have helped fill the gap between things that cannot be explained. There is often a blurred line between myth, religion and unexplained phenomenon. Many of the stories have since evolved into traditional Chinese holidays. Other concepts have extended to the outside of mythology into spiritual symbols such as Door god and the Imperial guardian lions. Along with the belief of the holy, there is also the evil. Practices such as Taoist exorcism fighting mogwai and jiangshi with peachwood swords are just some of the concepts passed down from generations. A few Chinese fortune telling rituals are still in use today after thousands of years of refinement.

Also from the link above:

Taoism is a religious or philosophical tradition of Chinese origin which emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao (道, literally "Way", also romanized as Dao). The Tao is a fundamental idea in most Chinese philosophical schools; in Taoism, however, it denotes the principle that is the source, pattern and substance of everything that exists.[23][24] Taoism differs from Confucianism by not emphasizing rigid rituals and social order.[23] Taoist ethics vary depending on the particular school, but in general tend to emphasize wu wei (effortless action), "naturalness", simplicity, spontaneity, and the Three Treasures: 慈 "compassion", 儉/俭 "frugality", and 谦 "humility". The roots of Taoism go back at least to the 4th century BCE. Early Taoism drew its cosmological notions from the School of Yinyang (Naturalists), and was deeply influenced by one of the oldest texts of Chinese culture, the Yijing, which expounds a philosophical system about how to keep human behavior in accordance with the alternating cycles of nature. The "Legalist" Shen Buhai may also have been a major influence, expounding a realpolitik of wu wei.[25] The Tao Te Ching, a compact book containing teachings attributed to Laozi (Chinese: 老子; pinyin: Lǎozǐ; Wade–Giles: Lao Tzu), is widely considered the keystone work of the Taoist tradition, together with the later writings of Zhuangzi.

Those traditions, which many in the west do not really classify as religion, persist in Chinese culture today. All are part of Chinese traditional religion and philosophy, which continues to affect the 80% of the population referred to above. Not theistic religion, but neither is Buddhism. Religion, nonetheless.

For more information, you can visit this article. It is very long, heavily footnoted, and includes links to many more resources. Clearly, China does not suppress its traditional religious beliefs in any real way. It does, however, put restrictions on other religions, particularly theistic western religions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_China

[mr_lebowski]

1. As far as I'm concerned if you believe in supernatural shit, you're religious ...

I don't care if it's Gods, Devils, Angels, Souls, Spirits, Ghosts, Afterlives, Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Reincarnation, Karma, 'ENERGIES', Auras, Crystals, Voodoo Dolls, Curses, Remote Viewing, Telekinesis, ESP, Psychics, Mediums, or friggin' Witches and Leprechauns.

If you believe in any of the sorts of magical nonsense listed above ... you're religious, in my book.

More basically, you either live in reality, or you don't.

[Major Nikon]

4. Religious, yes, theistic, maybe

Most of the world with the exception of the far east is heavily invested in monotheism. As such it's hard for some to grasp the concept of religion without theism. One of the frequent posters here routinely conflates those two things even when talking about people from the far east. The world is filled with people who subscribe to metaphysical ideas without the omnipotent sky daddy add-on feature.

[Voltaire2]

8. Irreligious and atheist are overlapping sets.

[marylandblue]

2. The equation of theism with religion is a Western concept.

Outside the Abrahamic faiths, religion and the various related categories like ancestor worship, superstition, philosophy, magic, cultural practice etc. are much more fluid and non-exclusionary. Unlike Western religion, there was never an idea of One True Belief, with all others being evil. So people were much likely to integrate different beliefs than be intolerant of them.

The Chinese Communists did come in and tried to suppress religion. But this was something they got from Lenin and Stalin rather than a Chinese tradition.

The way Eastern religions work make me feel more positive on religion as a whole. If we could learn to do religion the Eastern way, there would be less religious intolerance in the future.

[MineralMan]

3. Yes, it is. And, as westerners, we often think that

unless theism is involved, there is no religion. That's why someone might think that China is trying to wipe out religion. It's not, really, but it is skeptical, with good reason, about western religions. Culturally, they are not really a good match for Eastern cultures, and China is certainly one of those.

Theistic religions tend to promote authoritarianism, and lend to it a deity that has the last word. In China, the last word is given by the government. Once, that was a chieftain or emperor. Today, it is a tyrannical regime. There is little difference, except that an over-riding deity makes tyranny more difficult in some ways.

Some claim that China is intolerant of religion. In reality, China is intolerant of monotheistic, rule-based religions. It's fine with it's own ancient folk religions, as is shown by the fact that 80% of its population still maintains some relationship with those folk religions.

Some of us think we're smart. We're not that smart, really, when it comes to cultures that aren't the same as our own.

[Major Nikon]

5. I'm not so sure

The problem with that approach is it leaves you wide open for intolerant religions to worm their way into your society. The reason why Islam is the fastest growing religion is because it's exploding in the East and with it all the problems that come with intolerant religion.

When religionists speak of religious "tolerance", what they really mean is you are supposed to tolerate their religion. It never seems to work that well the other way around.

[marylandblue]

6. Yes, this is how Christianity won out over syncretistic Roman religions

Though we may recognize the evils of intolerance, it actually can work as a vehicle for gaining and keeping power.

[Major Nikon]

7. Intolerant religions do remarkably well in depressed economies with an uneducated population

The formula for that success really hasn't changed in thousands of years. Prey on people looking for hope and then keep them isolated and fearful of outside influence. Once dominance starts to establish you can start taking direct action against any dissent.

[Igel]

9. It's a poorly phrased question. Sorry, but it is.

Xians claim that the US is ("was"?) a Xian country.

The response is that "the United States is in no way founded on the Christian religion," so of course not. There's even a Constitutional amendment interpreted to build a "wall of separation" between church and state!

Of course, both are ("were"?) true.

The US was not founded on Xianity nor does it have explicitly and avowedly Xian precepts as part of its organic law, so it's not a Xian country. That's "US as governmental system." The US population was self-described as Christian, so therefore it is a Christian country. The majority of the population was Christian, and to the extent a country has citizens those citizens were Xians.

Making such an obvious distinction--no matter how much it's a "minor nuance of no importance"--seems butt-obvious.

Is China a religious country?

Of course not, it's atheist. Of course, most of the population is religious.



Of course, then there's the second "nuance"--what's a "religion," since many of religions lack an obvious or explicit deity (or deities). Much of animism, Taoism, Confucianism (damned, almost misspelled that "Confusionism&quot , etc., etc., aren't "religions"--but adherents still want the symbols to be their religious identifiers on things like gravestones. (It's just that once you say a religion doesn't need a deity, it starts looking like a set of values + doctrines + rituals + organization + adherents, and some pretty religion-like secular organizations start serving the same roles with the same structures, and people start talking about them as 'secular religions,' which really pisses off those who insist that religions are evil but their own person values + doctrine + rituals + organization are in no way religions because religions are evil.)