DAOISM, CONFUCIANISM, AND SHINTO

Daoism, Confucianism, and Shinto

Daoism, Confucianism, and Shinto

Confucianism and Taoism are the two main religious traditions of China. They represent the religious foundations of one of the oldest civilizations in the world and the origin of the pre-dating the Roman Empire and the foundation of Christianity. Over the centuries, Confucianism and Taoism has spread to other countries in East Asia: Confucianism was adopted Korean and Japanese civilizations as a model for non-governmental organizations, and as the main orientation of ourselves and the world, and the Taoist influence on these crops can be seen in the form of the Son / Zen Buddhism(Fisher, 2001).

Today, despite the turbulent century of civil war and reconstruction, and despite the enormous political, economic, social and influence from the West, Confucianism and Taoism are the most respect for cultural systems of China. In addition, Confucianism and Taoism are increasingly recognized as a viable alternative among the religious non-Chinese in the West. Traditionally, scholars have identified religion as "faith" or belief system. In particular, religion is a belief in spiritual beings, some - there is a God or gods or other spiritual entities, such as demonic spirits, ghosts, or souls, nature deities, spirits, ancestors, saints and so forth. In this sense, Judaism and Christianity are prototypes that everyone thinks that religion should be - the belief in the gods (in the case of Judaism and Christianity, one God) and lesser spirits. But there is a problem: First, religion does not limit itself to faith, of course, one of the elements of all religions, but religion also include many other definitions, the essential aspects of "faith.":

• prayer, worship, sacrifices and other religious ceremonies

• Pythology, biographies of saints and saviors, cosmology

• institutional organizations, churches and other buildings, priests or other religious leaders

• Artistic expression: music, art and ...