Chinese Religions

1. Chinese Religions

2. Confucianism • Confucianism was started by a man named Confucius • Confucius believed that China was full of dishonest and rude people; he wanted to see a change. • Confucius believed that the Chinese people needed to follow ethics (moral values) • What are some examples of ethics? • Honesty • Loyalty • Dependable • Polite

3. Some ideas of Confucianism • Fathers should have high moral values and set good examples for their families • Children should respect and obey their parents • All family members should be loyal to each other • Moral leadership, not laws, should rule China • A king should lead by example and inspire his people to behave • The lower classes would learn how to behave by following the example of the people in higher classes • All of Confucius’ ideas were passed down from person to person and were eventually written down in The Analects, a book of Confucius’ ideas.

4. Confucianism • Was it really a “religion” or just a way of thinking? • It was both….the followers of Confucianism don’t worship Confucius, they just believe that the beliefs and ideas he had were true and should be followed. • Confucius believed that heaven expected people to behave well and have good morals.

5. Daoism • Daoism comes from the word “Dao”, which means “the way” • Daoism taught that everyone should live in harmony with the Dao (which was the guiding force of all reality) • Laozi (pronounced Lowd-zuh) was the most famous Daoist teacher. He wrote The Way and Its Power, which was the main book of Daoism.

6. Beliefs of Daoism • Daoism was just the opposite of Confucianism: • They believed that the government should stay out of people’s lives • People should avoid interfering with each other to avoid conflict • Everyone should just “go with the flow” • The universe is a balance between opposing forces (light and dark, man and woman, low and high) and the opposites should get along with one another • Focus on nature

7. Legalism • Legalism was the belief that people are bad and need to be controlled • Legalism was not really a religion, but was a political philosophy (idea about how people should be ruled) • Legalists (people that followed Legalism) felt that people needed strict laws to keep them in line and that punishments should fit the crime (like an “eye for an eye”, kind of like Hammurabi’s Code) • Legalists believed that people are responsible for each other’s behavior • For example, a person’s relatives should also be punished if their relative does something wrong. • They believed that punishing relatives would encourage everyone to obey the rules