Saint Confucius

Ito_^ SG

lets continue our discussion here..

wisefool83

I guess to a certain degree yes bah. Depending on which Church you are from really. Some like the Jesuits can even accept Confucius as a Saint. But generally seems like the Abrahamic religions more exclusive or self-righteous, people who don't believe in them are referred to as infidels. And generally they don't practice dual religion, making their religion a zero-sum.

ito

jesuits believe confucius is a saint meh? Shocked

wisefool

Ya, they are the ones who came up with the latin word Confucius and Mencius while others like Sun Tzu and Lao Tzu remain in their English translation. The Jesuits went into China quite long ago to preach about Christianity, or rather Catholism and managed to convince one of the Chinese Emperor to baptise.

ito

u sure they didn't refer em as "wise men"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuit_China_missions

i read and reread, nowhere it says confucius is saint.

[quote]..prohibition of Confucian customs on the part of Chinese Christians, finally resulted in all Christians being banned.

[/quote]

wisefool

I read about it in a history book in the book store in Wheellocke place a few years ago. I then found this link, it says it somewhere in the first few paragraphs in page 3. But ya, its not a popular notion now.

http://smedia.vermotion.com/media/12002/resources/IngManConf.pdf#search=%22Jesuits%20Saint%20Confucius%20%22

I then read about the Jesuits part from one of Jin Yong's writing (not novel, but actual academic writings), and I'm pretty sure that for a short while, there was a good blend of Catholism and Confucianism in China. Until the Pope had an issue with the Chinese praying to their ancestors and banned the practice among converted Chinese. The Chinese Emperor then, who was Kang Xi, flew into rage when he found out about the decree, banned and deported the missionaries.

ito

did the pope canonized him? Shocked

of cuz.. did u mean confucius is..

saint (sānt) pronunciation
n.

1.
1. (Abbr. St. or S.) Christianity. A person officially recognized, especially by canonization, as being entitled to public veneration and capable of interceding for people on earth.
2. A person who has died and gone to heaven.
3. Saint A member of any of various religious groups, especially a Latter-Day Saint.
2. An extremely virtuous person.

tr.v., saint·ed, saint·ing, saints.

To name, recognize, or venerate as a saint; canonize.

wisefool83 SG

Actually no, at least not in my viewpoint. Much of what we know now about Confucius is largely frabicated. When the Jesuits entered the "China market", they wanted to interpret confucianism in such way that it doesn't conflict with their Christianity so they twist a fair amount of facts in such that Confucianism became a culture. The Chinese did not perceive religion in the same manner as these westerners and didn't really care how it was being interpretated and translated by the westerners.

To make Christianity orthordox, the Jesuits tried to merge Confucius' teaching with their own and accorded sainthood to Confucius. Hence why the westerner's Saint is translated into Chinese as Sage (Sheng). Sheng Ren or Sage is Confucianism's highest goal, like how Taoist practice their religion to become "immortal (Xian)", the Buddhist's "Buddha (Fuo)". By mixing up Saint and Sage, the Jesuits convinced a large number of Chinese to accept Christianity and practice it along with Confucianism.

As mentioned in previous thread, this arrangement was fine until the Pope made a decree that all converted Chinese should not worship their ancestor anymore and the Chinese pretty much gave the Christians the finger and told to F*** off.

So no, Confucius is not a Christian, but some people backed then want to protray him as one and the Sainthood was one of the mean to do so.

NT2 SG

Saints must be Christians (excluding those from SAJC who call themselves Saints)

Ito_^ SG

under the above definition "2. An extremely virtuous person.", like machiam no need leh.

Ito_^ SG

and ic, i understand what you meant. Mr. Green

davidche SG

Originally posted by wisefool83:
Actually no, at least not in my viewpoint. Much of what we know now about Confucius is largely frabicated. When the Jesuits entered the "China market", they wanted to interpret confucianism in such way that it doesn't conflict with their Christianity so they twist a fair amount of facts in such that Confucianism became a culture. The Chinese did not perceive religion in the same manner as these westerners and didn't really care how it was being interpretated and translated by the westerners.

To make Christianity orthordox, the Jesuits tried to merge Confucius' teaching with their own and accorded sainthood to Confucius. Hence why the westerner's Saint is translated into Chinese as Sage (Sheng). Sheng Ren or Sage is Confucianism's highest goal, like how Taoist practice their religion to become "immortal (Xian)", the Buddhist's "Buddha (Fuo)". By mixing up Saint and Sage, the Jesuits convinced a large number of Chinese to accept Christianity and practice it along with Confucianism.

wa lau, how can compromise our own religion like that just for ppl to accept, somehow it reminds me of charismatic churches.

Passage Matthew 6:24:

24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

Ito_^ SG

Originally posted by davidche:

wa lau, how can compromise our own religion like that just for ppl to accept, somehow it reminds me of charismatic churches.

Passage Matthew 6:24:

24"[b]No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

[/b]

its not 2 masters.. its culture. the rituals dat confucius were done in respect for the ancestry and memories of them. he believes in a systemic display of respect for elders and those above the social hierachy. or dats how i see it.

not ghosts or divine power.

wisefool83 SG

Actually not so. Confucius himself did not came up with all these rituals, some of these rituals were passed down by people before him as remants of the Chinese's Shamanism. He just refine and organise some of them. But most of the rest of these rituals were made up by people after him and most of the doctrines were set 3-4 centuries after he died when the Chinese government upgraded Confucianism into a Civic religion. Chinese don't really distinguish between culture and religion.

davidche SG

its hard to differenciate. Based on the fact that ppl call whoever is wei3 da4 as God cos they need security.

Now why is it hard to differenciate? do you call it culture or religion.

This issue has a important relationship with whether the 'God' is self-explainatory.
and it is a sensitive one.

Kong zi is seeking for the truth and therefore isnt the truth.

If the person sees this, he will call it a 'culture'(i dont think this is a accurate word)

If a person tries to delude himself he will call it a religion.

A person said to me, if you dont respect kong zi as God, you are not a chinese,

Then Kong zi isnt a chinese loh. Very Happy

wisefool83 SG

Doesn't quite understand your first sentence. Not everyone called Wei Da will be called God, to the PRC, all of their leaders are Wei Da, other than Mao, hardly anyone is a god to them. If you are thinking about historical figures being conferred as deity, then thats a practice that stemmed from Shamanism.

Its difficult to differentiate culture from religion in a Chinese context. Religion in Chinese is called Jiao, similar meaning to teachings. Among the traditional Chinese religion of Confucianism, Taosim and Buddhism, the two former ones are born in China while the latter is imported from India. Both religions that are born in China started off as philosophical school of thoughts. While most schools have religious aspect such as the Five element schools or Moism, but all these schools seek to become political doctrines, not to explain how people came about or explaining after life. So for a long time in China's history, there's no such thing as an official religion. Right from the start, Chinese were only being discriminated on what you learn, not who/what you pray to.

The most religious aspect of the Chinese life back then was "Shamanism" which can be traced back to Da Yu of the Xia Dynasty. The common Chinese notion of praying to tree or river or simply just about everything derives from Shamanism. But Shamanism is not a religion, its a culture.

One of the greatest evidence that Chinese do not have the concept of religion is that up till now, there's still debate on whether Confucianism is a religion or just a school of thought. 2500 years of following the same doctrine and nobody can tell you for sure if its a religion. Things get more complicated when the three religions "merged" together and most Chinese scholars are expected to learn from all three religions' teaching. Most people today can see Chinese praying to something, but couldn't quite really say which religion the practice came from. For example, there's a practice that parents will bring their children to pray Confucius when the exams are near. If one is pray Confucius, one would expect this to be a Confucianism practice, but no, Confucian in this case is known as Wen Chang Jun, which is a Taoism title.

When Dong Zong Shu of the Han Dynasty proposed to make Confucianism the official "religion", the status of Confucianism became what the westerners call a Civic Religion. The emphasis of a Civic religion is not truth or metaphysic but to shape the mind and thinking of the population in order to govern them. So in Confucianism, there's emphasis on Jun Jun Chen Chen Fu Fu Zi Zi, which basically emphasized the importance of strict hierarchy and following the orders of those above the hierarchy. Confucianism does have traces of religious thoughts such as Tian Ren Gan Ying or Tian Ming (Mandate of Heaven), but the purpose of which is to justify the Imperial family's right to rule and the other people's obligation to obey.

Since then, the Emperor rule as political entity with religious power, but hardly anyone see him as a Pope like figure. But the Emperor can conferred titles to past away figures and let other people worship him/her. Yue Fei, Liang Hong Yu, Kong Zi and Guan Yu were all historical figures that had been conferred titles by the Emperor and became Deity like figure. But the purpose of conferring these figures were political, they were suppose to be some sort of role models or tools of govenmental propaganda. The Emperors made no denial that these acts were political and not religious act, but they couldn't see the difference in the first place.

The central thinking of Kong Zi is not truth, but Ren (benelovance). You are right in saying that culture is not a right word, most Chinese in the past didn't differentiate between education, politics, culture and religion.

As for the person who tell you that if you dont respect kong zi as God, you are not a chinese, kindly tell him to F*** off.

iveco SG

If Confucius is God, Aristotle can also qualify. Laughing

Anyway, the idea of canonising only Christians smacks of exclusivism. There were great people in history who were non-Christians.

laurence82 SG

wisefool is right

Confucianism is not a religion

And people always get the facts wrong mainly because they always use the same yardstick to measure everything

Western religions focus mainly on truth, while Eastern religions/cultures are more focused on virtues

We just had this discussion somewhere actually

Besides, there are certain rumblings about Jesuit messing up Confucianism, but I didnt take the opportunity to read about them

iveco SG

So which is better? Truth or virtue?

laurence82 SG

Very funny leh

I am not saying who is greater or who is lesser

but why would you called someone a Singaporean if he is not a citizen and pledged to protect the Constitution?

laurence82 SG

Depends on who you ask

For me, its two paradigms

Wink

wisefool83 SG

depends on whether you are a Kaynetian or utilitarian

laurence82 SG

wisefool is not my clone

hohohoho

Mr. Green

iveco SG

Kaynetian? Confused

wisefool83 SG

My apologies, it should be Kantian

iveco SG

I thought you meant Keynesian.