"There is no god in Confucianism or Taoism: only nature, which enforces the need for social balance and cooperation. "
There is no god of organized religion, of beliefs, in Confucianism or Taoism, but whoever wrote the Tao Te Ching had either realized, or met someone who had realized the Very Divine to a greater degree than Jesus, Gautama and Krishna.
This is a masterly survey of an obviously complex issue — you have a remarkable feel for Chinese civilization (which is different from knowing the facts of political history).
“Long before the peoples of the Western World turned to the machine, mechanism as an element in social life had come into existence. Before inventors created engines to take the place of men, the leaders of men had drilled and regimented multitudes of human beings: they had discovered how to reduce men to machines.” Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization, 1934
"The "clockwork universe theory" compares the universe to a mechanical clock wound up by God and ticking along, as a perfect machine, with its gears governed by the laws of physics. What sets this theory apart from others is the idea that God's only contribution to the universe was to set everything in motion, and from there the laws of science took hold and have governed every sequence of events since that time. This idea was very popular among deists during the Enlightenment, when scientists realized that Newton's laws of motion, including the law of universal gravitation, could explain the behavior of the solar system." https://www.crystalinks.com/clockworkuniverse.html. Heidegger credits the post-Socratics with a logos that a.) made science possible by separating subject and object b.) encourages human beings, forgetful of their being to become objects. As objects our agency is determined by design. God, kings, etc. We are reduced to function. Then rich people. in the industrial revolutions. . That's "natural" in conflict societies. Collaborative-Connsensus cultures are holistic and inter-subjective.
"There is no god in Confucianism or Taoism: only nature, which enforces the need for social balance and cooperation. "
There is no god of organized religion, of beliefs, in Confucianism or Taoism, but whoever wrote the Tao Te Ching had either realized, or met someone who had realized the Very Divine to a greater degree than Jesus, Gautama and Krishna.
This is a masterly survey of an obviously complex issue — you have a remarkable feel for Chinese civilization (which is different from knowing the facts of political history).
I speak as someone with partial Chinese ancestry.
“Long before the peoples of the Western World turned to the machine, mechanism as an element in social life had come into existence. Before inventors created engines to take the place of men, the leaders of men had drilled and regimented multitudes of human beings: they had discovered how to reduce men to machines.” Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization, 1934
"The "clockwork universe theory" compares the universe to a mechanical clock wound up by God and ticking along, as a perfect machine, with its gears governed by the laws of physics. What sets this theory apart from others is the idea that God's only contribution to the universe was to set everything in motion, and from there the laws of science took hold and have governed every sequence of events since that time. This idea was very popular among deists during the Enlightenment, when scientists realized that Newton's laws of motion, including the law of universal gravitation, could explain the behavior of the solar system." https://www.crystalinks.com/clockworkuniverse.html. Heidegger credits the post-Socratics with a logos that a.) made science possible by separating subject and object b.) encourages human beings, forgetful of their being to become objects. As objects our agency is determined by design. God, kings, etc. We are reduced to function. Then rich people. in the industrial revolutions. . That's "natural" in conflict societies. Collaborative-Connsensus cultures are holistic and inter-subjective.