Essay/Term paper: Confucianism and taoism

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Humanities Essays

The Chinese people have three

main traditions in their history- Confucianism, Taoism, and

Buddhism. I am going to be talking about Confucianism

and Taoism. Both of these date back to the Sixth Century

B.C. The traditional founder of Taoism is Confucius and

Laozi. On top of many other things Confucius was a very

influential speaker. Throughout time, his teachings, and

preaching developed into a religion. He spoke to a wide

variety of people. Daoist tend to look back to Laozi as

their founder. Over centuries, Taoism was transformed

from a small religion, very conservative, into a loosely

organized religion. During the Second Century B.C., a ruler

named Han had the most part in it. A large number of

religious groups rose from this because of the social and

political disorder. One of these groups named the Yellow

Turbans in eastern China., fought Han in 184 B.C. This led

to a civil war. Han lost authority and power, and his

generals became warlords. Then, in Western China, a

group known as the Way of the Celestial Masters came

into power. From the Second Century B.C., Taoists and

others believed it was possible to find an elixir which would

make them immortal. An elixir is a sweetened alcoholic

medicinal preparation, but back in ancient philosophy it

was thought to be for changing base metals into gold, or for

prolonging life. Research flourished because of this belief.

But the chief ingredient, cinnabar, was found to be

poisonous. Many imperial deaths ensued from this. But this

was not the only way to achieve immortality back in ancient

times. Another belief said that a man would have to acquire

108 women to get granted 10,000 years of life. For more

than 2,000 years ,Chinese, Japananese, and Korean

people have lived in cultures that were greatly influenced by

the thoughts of Confucius. Confucius saw himself as an

ordinary man doing a good deed for a diverse group of

cultures. He taught his fellow human beings moral behavior

and good family relationships.He thought that they are the

key to a well ordered society. People valued his opinions

and teachings very much and followed them in every day

life. Confucius himself avoided talking about religion, but at

the same time recognized the importance of worshipping his

ancestors. He believed that he was not guided by religion,

but by a higher power called heaven. Confucius lived at a

time when China was changing. A lot of the traditions that

everyone had lived by were long gone and they had moved

on to new things, but not Confucius, he still believed in the

traditions of old and still preached them. Most of the

traditions had been written down and would later be the

center of Confucius"s teachings.Proceeding Confucius"s

death his followers preserved his thoughts and ideas for the

next three centuries to come. Confucius had some

followers that preached his works, too. Among these, were

Mencius and Xunzi. They spread Confucius"s ideas while

at the same time elaborating on them. Mencius studied

Confucian"s understanding of mortality. He believe that

seeds of goodness were in everyone, but at the same time

there had to be developed properly. On the other hand,

Xunzi believe that everyone was not good and that

everyone didn"t practice good behavior. He believed that

they needed Confucius to guide them with his teachings.

Confucianism and Taoism were a very big and important

part of the ancient world and there traditions.