"Military and Martial Plane" Author: Zhilian Chu Guidance
Gods don't do anything? Then change the gods!
There are three dragon kings enshrined in the Dragon King Temple in Taitou Township, Yangcheng County, Shanxi Province. The dragon king statue is more than one foot high, with a red face and blue clothes, high in the middle and low on both sides.
Whenever there is a severe drought, people from the neighboring village will run here to steal the Dragon King. What is the use? Of course it was praying for rain. After the Dragon King stolen, if the Dragon King in the village has not been stolen, he can only place it in the village temple or ancestral hall first. If the village has been stolen, he can directly put it in the Dragon King Temple in the village.
After the Dragon King stole it, he could still enjoy the offering of "God" sooner or later, but as soon as the sun came out, people would place it in the temple courtyard and expose it to the sun. It’s cloudy and rainy, just cover it with something. If it only rains lightly, it will continue to dry until it rains.
It is seven days since the head is over. If it doesn’t rain, the villagers will beat drums and drums, carry the Dragon King to walk around the village and outside the village, so that the Dragon King can see the people’s bitter feelings.
If it doesn't rain anymore, the angry villagers will punch and kick the Dragon King until the ineffective Dragon King is covered with bruises, and the Dragon King can only wait until it rains before being sent back.
, the "Dragon King" circulating in North China, is a rain prayer custom that "evil prayers" is used to pray for the Dragon King. Logically speaking, people should respect gods more. The Dragon King is also a god, how can you fight just by saying that?
Chinese people knew there was no god thousands of years ago
The history of Chinese worshipping gods can be traced back to Shang Dynasty , because people did not form the concept of "god" earlier, but only the tradition of worshiping heaven and ancestors.
In order to rationalize the overthrow of Xia Dynasty , the Shang Dynasty attributed all this to "destiny", known as " Heavenly Destiny Xuanniao , descended to give birth to Shang." That is to say, as the descendants of the Xuanniao, the Shang Dynasty naturally had to be blessed by God, which was the beginning of China's "god" culture.
The Shang Dynasty attaches great importance to establishing good relations with ghosts and gods, and believes in "the great affairs of the country are sacrificed and in the military". If you don't decide when you encounter problems, ask the ghosts and gods first. Anyway, when you are unsure of your mind, you will first divine a divination. The fortune teller is 30% relying on the verbal words and 70% relying on the words. The hexagram is all based on the wizard's mouth. So the wizard becomes a trader who plays "the power of the gods" in his palms, and is highly valued by the king and has an extremely noble status.
When Yi Zhi was a great wizard, the Shang Dynasty was declining from prosperity and some abnormal natural phenomena occurred, which made people panic. In order to calm people's hearts, Yi Zhi proposed: "God cannot defeat a virtuous king. As long as he has virtuous integrity, he does not have to be afraid of God."
This statement that ghosts and gods cannot harm people with virtuous moral integrity actually laid the foreshadowing for later generations' culture of " respecting God " and not "believing in God".
If Yi Zhi gave the Chinese people a clear head to see the power of the gods, then there was another strong man in the Shang Dynasty who directly overturned the power of the gods to the ground and rubbed his feet.
This man is King Zhou Emperor Xin's great-grandfather Wu Yi . Once, he asked the craftsman to carve a puppet, named it "Heaven God", and then ordered a minister to act as a double act for the puppet and pretend to be a god to gamble with him.
gambling with the leader, do you still dare to win? Therefore, this minister will lose every bet.
So Wu Yi pointed to the puppet and laughed and said, "You god can't even bet on me, so how can you have the face of the god." This was not enough. After mocking her, she ordered her subordinates to beat the puppet. Another time, Wu Yi made a leather bag filled with blood and hung it on a branch. He personally took the bow and shot it through the leather bag. The blood of the beast gushed out. Wu Yi laughed and said, "Today, I shot a hole in the gods."
On the surface, this behavior is no different from a child's house playing house, but this is in the Shang Dynasty where the power of the gods covers the sky with one hand and the great wizard can exile the king. It is simply a heresy if he doesn't take God seriously.
But Wu Yi is the king after all, and the people below dare not say anything. So after he did this, the gods who were worshipped became officials who provide services to the king. The king who originally relied on divine power to grant legitimacy began to rely on bloodline to prove it, which formed the world of man ruled.
From then on, China's religious belief turned from "believing in God and respecting God" to the path of "respecting God" but not "believing in God".
When King Wu of Zhou attacked Zhou, in order to dismantle the orthodox "theocracy" of the Shang Dynasty and win over the hearts of the people, he put forward the banner of "the king granted theocracy", saying that King Zhou was tyrannical and unjust, and God pity the people, so he let King Wu defeat Zhou and replace him.
Since the monarch's power is directly granted by God, it is naturally less likely that the wizards and the middlemen between humans and gods will make a difference. This practice of overtaking the divine power has also directly shaken the people's belief in God.
From the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, people began to believe that the essence of God is human. Since this is the case, if mortals practice and attain enlightenment, they can save themselves from immortals. Therefore, Qi-training men and alchemists were very popular for a while.
In later dynasties, the saying "the king grants divine power" has been developing continuously. No matter who starts a war, the title of the title is generally "the destiny of heaven". People on the throne of the emperor are constantly changing, but they are all "Son of Heaven".
And the so-called god has completely become a tool for the feudal ruling class to strengthen its political status and attract the hearts of the people. For example, when Wu Guang raised an army, he learned from the name of fox , and he also collected books in the fish belly. So, thousands of years ago, the Chinese knew that there was no god, but they always talked about God, just wanting to take the opportunity to make trouble.
There are different things
There is a temple in Hui'an County, Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, which is very strange. The temple worships neither immortals nor gods, but the People's Liberation Army.
This country's only military temple was built by Ms. Zeng Hen. She was rescued by the People's Liberation Army during an air raid more than 60 years ago. In order to repay her kindness, she built this temple to worship the 27 People's Liberation Army heroes who died heroically in that battle.
This is a matter of worshipping the People's Liberation Army as a god, but it is reasonable on the land of China. However, this matter may be incomprehensible to foreigners.
Because Western religions are often absolute Unitarian religion , they believe that God is the absolute and only reality, and oppose worship of other gods. Like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Christianity, they are just three different persons of God and do not exist independently.
▲God created the sun and moon
and Islam emphasizes the absolute uniqueness of God. For example, when Muslims worship, they must devoutly recite the pure truth of "All things are not Lord, but Allah".
Since there is only one true God, in the view of the Monodiac, God is the creator of the world, and man is the product of God. This gap of subordinate and opposing relationship can never be eliminated. Therefore, the gods in Western mythology are hereditary, and ordinary mortals will go to heaven if they die. It is absolutely impossible to become gods.
There are many gods in Chinese religion . The highest purpose of believers is to discover their own divinity through religious activities, so as to be infinitely close to God in practice.
To put it bluntly, Chinese people believe in God in order to become God.
This always runs through the idea of "My life is by me, not by heaven", believing that whether a person can achieve enlightenment and become an immortal depends entirely on himself. The highest level of a practitioner is to free his body from the constraints of the world through practice, and finally ascend to heaven in the sun and become an immortal.
Therefore, there were many mortals in the Chinese immortal system, such as , Lin Mo , who died on the ninth day of the ninth month of in 987 because of the shipwreck, and people enthroned her to worship her.
Guan Yu died, and the people respected it as " Guan Gong ". In the Qing Dynasty, it was regarded as "Loyal and righteous God, Wu Ling, Benevolence, Brave and Power Guan Sheng Great Emperor ", and was regarded as "Martial Saint", as the "Writing Saint" Confucius .
Those who were respected during their lifetime and regarded as gods after their death are practitioners and inheritors of traditional Chinese morality. After thousands of years of continuous posthumous and deification, they have formed China's huge system of gods and immortals, and can even be "specialized for gods and special use".
So, China gives people the title of gods, which is an honor and an example that everyone should learn from. At the same time, the gods enfeoffed also advocate practicality. Whatever people have needs, there will be any gods. No matter what they are, as long as they dare to worship, they dare to create God.
For example, the God of Wealth wants to help people get rich
Door God wants to show people home protection
The Saint Kong in the Confucius Temple wants to bless students with the title of the Golden List
And "Brother Chun" is used to bless the undergraduate exam
Yang CY is used to transfer luck
But at the same time, most of the Chinese people's belief in God is utilitarian. People respect God and worship God, but God must also serve people. On weekdays, the Chinese people do not interfere with each other, do not disturb each other, and stay away from them. When they seek God, they begin to believe in God. The reason I began to believe in God is because I believe that God has the power to help solve difficulties.
I believe in you, and you will bring me realistic returns. If you don’t see any obvious effect, it will be a waste of my feelings. Then this god will not only be scolded, but will also be abandoned immediately.
There is an old Chinese saying that "If you have nothing to do, you won't go to the Three Treasures Hall." If people have something to ask for, they will find a temple to pray to God and Buddha. When the wish in their hearts is realized, they will go to fulfill their wishes. Then they will feel that the human and gods have no one to owe each other and continue to not disturb each other.
If the wish is not fulfilled, it means that the gods here are not effective. I will curse a few words to relieve my anger, and then change to the ancestral temple to "please ask for another wise man". Anyway, there are many temples, and I will offer to whoever is powerful. This unique religious model of dealing with God is incomprehensible to Westerners.
Respect for God ≠Believe in God
A hundred years ago, American missionary Arthur Smith once said ridiculously:
Chinese people are pantheism . On the one hand, their attitude towards gods is "believe if there is, and if there is no faith, there will be nothing", and on the other hand, "respect for God is as if God is here, and if it is not here, it will not be strange if it is not here." It seems very incredible to the preachers who devoutly believe in God.
In short, Chinese people will pray to God and worship Buddha, but they believe that people are the foundation of everything in the world. They have a strong subjective consciousness and have religious culture, but they do not have true religious beliefs.
Compared with Westerners who firmly believe in God or Allah, Chinese people have long believed in themselves and their ancestors.
You should know that almost all the gods of Chinese local religions, whether they are Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors , or Guan Gong, Confucius, Laozi , and Zhao Gongming , these people who become gods were originally ancestors.
Chinese worship them because the shining points on them are worthy of respect, not just by believing in them. This is completely different from the religious system of countries around the world. Therefore, Chinese people respect God, at most, seek peace of mind in the form of "blessing", which is considered a weak connection in social interaction.
like "Blessed by the Bodhisattva", "Blessed by the God of Wealth", "Blessed by the God of Heaven", etc. Everyone knows that it is useless to ask for it. It is just praying, giving yourself some encouragement, and giving some spiritual sustenance. This is essentially different from the foreign "faith XX to obtain eternal life".
itself knows that after praying to God, it depends entirely on yourself, so there is no need to pay so much attention to anyone worshiping.
Are you useful to me? OK, then I'll pay a visit to you. Useless? Then let’s say goodbye.
Like before the student exam, there were those who worshipped Wenquxing, Manjushri Bodhisattva , and those who worshiped "Brother Chun", forwarded Yang Chaoyue , and koi. Anyway, there are so many tricks. As long as you can get a title on the gold list, who wouldn't you worship?
As for what these things can be like in normal times, how many people do you think about them? This market exchange relationship between man and God determines God's instrumental attributes. To put it further, the Chinese people’s “respect for God” is to respect their own hearts, and they do not believe in God because they believe more that “man will conquer nature.”
was born in the era of feudal monarchy and autocracy. The idea of "harmony between man and nature" is believed that the king is the gods who descend to earth to reincarnate. They can in turn enfeoffed gods, so that they can protect the eternal state of the country and make the people of the world more surrender.
If any gods do not match their own ideas of governing the country, or will cause rebellion from the people, he will immediately order the destruction of the gods. This system of royal power completely suppressing divine power actually gives an official certification to the idea of "man is conquering nature".
The flood came and ravaged the world. There was Dayu controlling the flood. He passed by his house three times, so that he opened nine provinces, opened nine roads, covered nine lakes, crossed nine mountains, and turned floods into a paradise. As the mountains block the door of his house, he swears to move the royal house to Taihang and leave the bold words of "children and grandchildren are in endless".
For Chinese people, as long as you have perseverance, willing to find a way, and willing to persevere, there is nothing that cannot be solved. If you can't survive, you have to resist. No one is born noble and no one should be born suffering!
Daily moves to , a gentleman strives for self-improvement. The terrain is quiet, and a gentleman carries things with virtue.
A true gentleman's virtue cannot be obtained by praying to gods and worshiping Buddhas. Chinese people never need gods to save them, because fate is always in their own hands.
Respect God and do not believe in God because the belief in Chinese people is to believe in the fruits created by working from their own hands.
No matter whether it is a hero or an old emperor, no one can liberate us, but rely on ourselves.
As for God? What is useful is God, what is useless? Why are you waiting for if you don’t get laid off quickly?
Because we Chinese are our own masters!
