Polytheism and Animism

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 418.

Buddhism and Chinese Religion

It is sometimes said that Theravada Buddhism, is atheistic, but this is not so. The gods are real, but they are not ultimate. The ultimate reality, or Holy Being, is the impersonal cosmic order. A similar concept is found in ancient Greek religion, in which cosmic destiny seems to have been superior to even the high gods. In the Mahayana Buddhism of China and Japan, the Buddha himself was transformed into a divine being, although the connection with the historical Buddha became very tenuous. The many Buddha figures of Asia are cosmic beings.

In the indigenous Chinese religions, the ultimate Holy Being also seems to have been conceived as an impersonal order. In Taoism, it is the rhythm of the universe; in Confucianism, it is the moral law of heaven.

In polytheism, there are many holy beings, each manifesting some particular divine attribute or caring for some particular aspect of nature or of human affairs. Polytheism was the most common form of religion in the ancient world and was well developed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, and elsewhere. It tends, however, to develop into a form of religion that has a unitary conception of the divine, either through philosophical criticism or through one of the deities in the polytheistic pantheon (assemblage of gods) acquiring an overwhelming superiority over the others. The gods of a pantheon were usually conceived in some family relationship, which ensured from the beginning a sense of their unity. Polytheism probably developed out of a more primitive form of religion (still practiced in many parts of the world) called animism, the belief in a multitude of spiritual forces, localized and limited in their powers, some friendly and some hostile. In animism the sense of Holy Being is diffused throughout the environment.