基督教和东方文化有矛盾吗？ [美国媒体]

What is the conflict between Christianity and Chinese culture?

基督教和东方文化有矛盾吗？



Eccardo Adelingi, Graduated in Philosophy& Religious Studies
The fundamental problem that the Chinesehave with Christianity is that this Western religion breaks the connection ofpeoples with their ancestors-gods, driving all belief towards an otherworldly(i.e. non-existent, non-provable) entity, that is the God Yahweh-Jesus of theBible (or Scientology’s Xenu, by the way, and any other “God” which is moreappropriate to science-fiction tales than to religion), which came to the Eartharound 2000 years ago as a Jew in what is today Israel/Palestine, and drivesall hopes towards its otherworldly future (and never coming) paradise.

中国文化和基督教之间的基本矛盾是中国人认为这种西方宗教打破了人们与自己祖先-神明的关系，让人们去相信一种超脱尘世的（即不存在的，不可证明的）存在，那就是圣经里的上帝耶和华-耶稣，他在2000年前以一个犹太人的身份来到地球，来到今天的以色列/巴勒斯坦，将所有的希望都寄托在来世的未来（以及永不到来的）天堂里。

—The Chinese do not believe in God as an imaginary friend, ahuman-like extraterrestrial who lives in an otherworldly paradise, on theclouds, or on another planet, like the Bible’s Yahweh-Jesus or Scientology’sXenu.
The Chinese have a different conception ofGod as Heaven, which is the always-present cosmic force manifesting itself inthe sky motions and their earthly influences, and in the progenitors of beingsand human groups. The gods (shén 神) and the forefathers (zŭ 祖) are thus theintermediaries between humanity and Heaven. The forefathers are not merely deadhumans, but are spiritual forces always-living as their descendants, as thephenomenal lineage which they started.

而中国人不认为上帝是一个虚假的朋友，不认为他是人形外星人，居住在超世俗的天堂里，或者云里，或者其他星球里，比如圣经里的耶和华-耶稣或者山达基里的Xenu。
中国人看法不一样，认为上帝就是天，是一个永远在场的宇宙力量，在天上和地上发挥着自己的影响力，是生命和人类群体的先觉者。因此神和祖先就成为了人和天之间的中介。祖先不仅仅是死人，而是一种永远存在的精神力量。

To the Chinese, God is immanent, present inthis world, and manifests as the forefathers-gods. The role of humanity is toupkeep harmony with the forces at play in the cosmos (gods and ancestors) andcultivate them. In Chinese religious culture there is no “afterlife”,“paradise” or “heaven” intended in the Christian sense as an “other world”;Heaven expresses itself in the present, and Heaven on Earth is always realisedby humanity when it is in harmony with the gods and the ancestors.

对于中国人而言，上帝是普遍存在的，是存在于这个世界的，并且以祖先-神明的身份显现。人类的作用就是和宇宙中的力量（神明和祖先）保持和谐。在中国的宗教文化中，没有基督教那种意义上的来世和天堂；天堂以当下的形式存在，当人与神明以及祖先形成和谐关系时，人间就是天堂。

Christianity, with its otherworldly beliefswhich drive the mind away from present reality, is totally antithetical toChinese culture and religion. Christianity disconnects humanity from the lifeof the universe, from the gods and the ancestors, and thus the world, bereft oflife, rots and falls apart. This is the epitome of what the Chinese despise as “evildoctrines” (邪教 xiejiao).

基督教以其超凡脱俗的信念致使人们脱离当下的现实，这完全和中国文化以及宗教形成对立。基督教将人与宇宙生命断开，将人与神明和祖先断开，因此这个世界缺乏了生命，腐烂而分裂。这就是中国人所鄙视的邪教。

—To Chinese culture, this is God as Heaven (Tian 天), or itsorder (Tianli 天理 or Tiandao 天道 ), nothing like some extraterrestrial science-fiction characterlike Scientology’s Xenu or Christianity’s Yahweh-Jesus.

在中国文化中，上帝就是天，或者天理，天道，根本不是那种天外的科幻式的人物，比如基督教里的耶和华-耶稣。

The Han Chinese are not overwhelminglyatheists as a certain Western narrative claims, they have a “cosmic religion”which is an integral aspect of the Chinese identity itself, consisting in theworship of the gods of the environment and of the forefathers of the Chineseethnicity, all of whom represent the aforediscussed Heaven on the Earth. Thisis not even called a “religion” in Chinese language (宗教 zongjiao, better translatable as “doctrine” than “religion”), but issimply referred to as “worshipping gods/ancestors” (拜神 baishenand 拜祖 baizu).
Worship of Huangdi, the “Yellow Deity”forefather of all Chinese, in Henan:
Worship of Shennong Yandi, the “SpiritualFarmer, Flaming Deity”, god of agriculture, technology, and ancestor ofsouthern Chinese, in Gaoping, Shanxi:
Worship of Nuwa, the “Female Shaman”, inHenan:
Temple of the Mother Goddess of the YellowRiver in Ningxia:
Worship of Confucius in northeast China (Ithink it is Jilin Confucius Temple, but I’m not utterly sure):
Worship of Chashen, the “Tea God”, Lu Yu,in Zhangzhou, Jiangxi:
Huangdi (the Chinese forefather living asthe Chinese people themselves), Shennong Yandi (the principle of farming andtechnology), Nuwa (female nature), the Yellow River, Confucius, tea, etcetera,are real entities.

汉人并非某些西方人所说的那样是完全的无神论者，中国人信仰的是宇宙宗教，这是中国人身份认同的一个固有部分，包括了对环境神明和中国人祖先神明的崇拜，他们都代表了我前面所说的人间天堂。在中国语言里它甚至不称为religion（宗教最好翻译成doctrine而不是religion），而是称呼为拜神和拜祖。比如对皇帝的崇拜，对神农炎帝的崇拜，他是农业技术之神，是中国南方人的祖先。对女娲的崇拜，对孔子的崇拜，对茶圣陆羽的崇拜。

Christians thus represent a “foreign body”within China, as they do not share this history and culture, and actively denythe worship of ancestors-gods, only believing in their imaginary friend orextraterrestrial-like Yahweh-Jesus.
The Chinese have the duty to defend theirroots if they do not want to be obliterated from history like the many culturesdestroyed in the past by Christianity: How many cultures have been destroyed byIslam and Christianity?

因此在中国，基督徒是一种外来物，因为基督教没有这样的历史和文化，而且完全不崇拜祖先-神明，只信仰他们所想象出来的朋友或者天外来物——耶和华-耶稣。
如果中国人不想像历史上的众多文明那样被基督教消灭的话，中国人就有义务捍卫自己的根。有多少的文明已经被伊斯兰和基督教摧毁？

Feifei Wang
Gee… How I love to see white people talkabout Chinese and completely wrong about pretty much everything.

天啊，我真的喜欢看白人谈论中国文化，几乎都是错的。

Eccardo Adelingi
Thank you for your frankness, Feifei;please, point out what I wrote wrong.

谢谢你的坦率，请你指出我哪里说错了。

Feifei Wang, I spend about the same amountof my life in China and in the US.
It is always fun to read about someEuropean person writing about China and completely wrong about just everything.Seriously, like I said, if you don't speak Chinese as well as I speak English,you have no position talking about Chinese culture.
"Western religion breaks theconnection of peoples with their ancestors-gods?" OMG, can we stop withthis? connection with ancestors? Did you just watch Mulan and all of suddenyou're the expert of Chinese religion. Eh... OK, OK, let's not dwell on otherpeople's idiocy. After all, pointing out other people's mistakes wouldconstitute violation of BNBR. But writing about shit you don't know about?Quora admin wouldn't mind 100 answers of those!

有些欧洲人在谈论中国，可是看法几乎是完全错误的，真有意思。说真的，正如我之前说过的，如果你的中文水平不像我的英文水平那么好，那么你根本不配谈论中国文化。
“西方宗教打破了人们与自己祖先-神明的关系？”天啊，你能不能消停一下？和祖先的联系？是不是刚刚看了电影《花木兰》，然后就觉得自己是中国宗教专家了？

I know, I know. I'm salty about this. Butsee how "sweet" you can be after 1000th foreigner pretend to beexperts of your culture because they have watched some Disney movie and readone wiki page.

我知道，自己在这方面有点刻薄，但是那么多外国人在看了某部迪士尼电影和看了某个维基百科页面后就觉得自己是中国文化专家了，所以我怎么可能笑脸相迎？

First of all, you need to understandChinese' attitude towards religion throughout ages. There had been occasionalfanatics, of course, but generally speaking, Chinese people took a verypragmatic view on all things supernatural. We see religion (“homegrown” or foreign),superstition, alchemy, folklore... pretty much the same. It is a system thathelp us explain the world, and more importantly, it is a system we (humans) cansomewhat manipulate and bargain with. We see various gods more or less like howGreeks saw their gods, they're imperfect (on various level) personification ofnatural phenomenon. Pray, making contribution towards certain gods or animalsacrifices... these are all part of this quid-pro-quo system. You give some,you get some.

首先，你需要了解中国人对待宗教的一贯态度。当然会有一些狂热者，但是大体上看，中国人对所有超自然的事物都持有务实的态度。我们视宗教（本土或者外来的），迷信，炼金术，民间传说几乎是一样的东西。这是一种帮助我们解释世界的体系，更重要的是，这种体系是我们人类某种程度上可以进行操纵和讨价还价的。我们对不同神明的看法多少像希腊人的神明看法，是对自然现象的不完美的人格化。祈祷，献祭等等，都是这种利益交换系统的一部分。你有付出，才能获得回报。

If ancestors can protect us, great! Itwon't hurt to add Buddha to that. This new Christian god seems pretty powerful,might want to visit their church just to cover our bases. Oh and on our way toChurch, might want to buy this sigil of protection to post it on the frontdoor. That's how Chinese see religion: whatever works.
When it comes to the supernatural, there'retwo separate category:
1) the pursue of wisdom of the universe, tobetter understand the world and life.
2) bargaining with gods and demons forbetter life.
Philosophy, theology, ethics... belongs to thefirst category. Taoism isn't a religion, it is a philosophy. Confucianism isn'ta religion, it is an ethics system.
Religion, superstition, folklore, belongsto the second category.

如果祖先可以保护我们，很好！把佛祖加进去也不是问题。这个新的基督教神明看起来相当强大，可以去他们的教堂做做礼拜，以保护我们。然后在去教堂的路上，看到并买下了护身符贴在前门保护一家人。这就是中国人对待宗教的态度：只要有用就行。
当涉及超自然事物时，有两个不同的类别：

1、追求宇宙智慧，更好的理解世界和生命。
2、和神魔讨价还价以过上更好的生活。
哲学，神学，道德都属于第一种类别。道教不是宗教，是一种哲学。儒家也不是宗教，是一种道德体系。宗教，迷信和民间传说属于第二种类别。

It bothers me to no end when people talkabout Confucianism as if it's our homegrown religion. It's not. Confuciushimself would be horrified if he knew some misguided western scholars andsinologist wannabes would think of him as some kind of god. He would probablydespise the thought, thinking no self-respect intellectuals would lowerthemselves to such primitive superstitions. Confucius saw himself first andforemost as a teacher and a political consultant for rulers (on this front,he's very much the same as Machiavelli).
We don't have homegrown religion in thesense of Buddhism or Christianity as a religion.
So I laughed so hard at "connectionwith our ancestor" part. Gee... really? You've read too much Orientalistnew-age spiritual bullshit, buddy. Do you also greet Chinese (or any Asianlooking person) with your hand pressed together and say "namaste"?

当有人把儒家视为我们本土宗教时，我都觉得好烦。它并不是。如果孔子知道某些被误导的西方学者和汉学家模仿者视自己为某种神明的话，他会吓死的。他可能会鄙视这种思想，认为自重的知识分子是不会相信这种原始迷信的。孔子首先视自己为老师和统治者的政治顾问（这方面他很像马基雅维利）。
我们没有佛教或者基督教那种意义上的本土宗教。所以我看到有人说“和我们祖先连结”这部分内容时，笑死了。你看了太多东方学者的新世纪瞎扯了。你和中国人或者东亚人打交道时难道还双手合十吗？

If you understand Chinese' pragmatic viewon all things supernatural, you would understand there's no conflict betweenChristianity and Chinese culture. Chinese people would welcome Priests andchurches, they'd pray to Christian God, after they made an offering at theirancestry temple. The only problem I can think of might come from Christianitybeing a monotheistic religion. While Chinese wouldn't mind Christianity beingpart of their life, the Church probably would be very unhappy about Chinese'lukewarm and loose attitude for their faith.

如果你明白中国人对所有超自然事物的务实态度，你就会明白基督教和中国文化之间没有冲突。中国人会欢迎牧师和教堂，在自己的祖庙里祭祀完后，他们还可以去向基督教的上帝祈祷。唯一的问题我认为是出在一神论的基督教身上。中国人不介意基督教成为自己生活的一部分，但是基督教可能会不满于中国人这种对待信仰的冷淡和松垮的态度。

So no, back to the original question: thereisn't a conflict between Christianity and Chinese culture.
There are few other things I want to talkabout that's somewhat related to this answer, but not quite. So read on ifyou're interested in Chinese perspective on "religion".
When talk about Chinese religion, a lot ofSinologists wannabe often cite the practice of “祭祖" (Ancestorveneration) as part of our "traditional religion" (even wiki saidso!) And the way we pay our respect to our ancestors indeed look very similarto religious practice. It doesn't help when western euro-centric civilizationreally doesn't have this family/ancestor temple thing, so it's easy to confusethis practice as a religions practice.

所以基督教和中国文化之间不存在冲突。还有一些相关问题我想谈一谈，虽然相关性不是很大。如果你对中国人如何看待宗教感兴趣的话，请继续看下去。
当谈论中国宗教时，很多想成为汉学家的人都会引用“祭祖”这一行为，把它视为我们“传统宗教”的一部分（甚至维基百科上都这么认为！）。而我们祭祖的方式看起来确实很像宗教的做法。而且西方的以欧洲为中心的文明没有这种祭祖传统，所以很容易将这种行为同宗教实践混淆。

ancestor veneration is more like memorialday or presidents day. We remember our dead ancestors, we pay tribute to theirdeeds. It is an opportunity for families to get together and unified. It's moreof a family festival than a religious ceremony. And sure, we talked about howancestors are looking down at us from heaven or ancestors protecting us... mostof those are figurative speech. More like when we say "Washington would berolling in his grave if he saw our democracy today", that kind of thing.Our ancestor temple is more like Lincoln Memorial. It's not an actual templefor an actual god.
So when people say “dishonor your ancestor”(and your cow…) it's more about dishonor the family name, not this or thatindividual ancestor.

祭祖更像是纪念日或者总统日。我们纪念我们死去的祖先，我们悼念他们的作为。这是家人团聚在一起的机会。那更多的是一种家庭节日而非宗教仪式。当然我们会说祖先在天上看着我们或者保护我们，但这大体上是一种比喻的说法。就好比我们说“如果华盛顿看到我们如今的民主现状，他会死不瞑目的”。我们的祖庙更像是林肯纪念堂。它不是一个用来供奉神明的庙宇。

Linguo LI, Entrepreneur at Startups(2016-present)
Thanks for request Eccardo, the OP is LeeMing. Thanks again for correction.
there is no real conflicts betweenChristianity and Chinese culture.
Chinese culture is backing into 5000 yearsif not 6000 years before. There are academic disputes. But all disputes arebased on SOLID scientific evidences.
So, Jesus and Jehovah were only around 2000thousands years old. Rome, Egyptian, Babylon, India and China cultures werebefore the born both of Jesus and Jehovah.
The only problem between Christianity andChinese Culture(and other cultures), is the attitude to Sciences and History.
All religions were and are about businessinterests. That is the reason why many absurd and meaningless wars were and arestarted.

基督教和中国文化之间不存在真正的冲突。中国文化可以追溯到5千年甚至6千年前。这存在学术上的争议。但是所有争议都基于可靠的科学证据。
而耶稣和耶和华才2000多年的历史。罗马，埃及，巴比伦，印度和中国文都产生于耶稣和耶和华出生之前。
基督教和中国文化（以及其他文化）之间存在的真正问题是对科学和历史的态度。
所有宗教都和商业利益相关。这就是很多荒唐无意义的战争发生的原因。