为什么中国人不信仰上帝，却信仰鬼魂、天使、祖先和灵魂之类的？ [美国媒体]

Why don't the Chinese believe in God, but they do believe in ghosts, angels, ancestors, and spirits, etc.

为什么中国人不信仰上帝，却信仰鬼魂、天使、祖先和灵魂之类的？


Matthew Ming, PhD in Psychology, Life & Philosophy（心理学博士，生命与哲学）
When you say Chinese I assume you refers to the folk religion that a lot of Chinese believe in.

说到中国人，我假设你指的是民间宗教，很多中国人信仰民间宗教。

It's the same as not all Caucasians are Christians and not all Arabs are Muslims.

并非所有的高加索人都是基督徒以及并非所有阿拉伯人都是穆斯林，中国的情况人也是一样。

Ok, Chinese do believe in God. In fact in the Chinese folk religion they believe in God even more than the Abraham religions.

好吧，中国人确实信仰上帝。实际上在中国的民间宗教里，他们甚至比亚伯拉罕的宗教更信仰上帝。

Just that, their gods are not the same god as yours. In Chinese folk religion there are GodS. A lot of Gods. Or in another name they are called Deities.

只是他们的上帝跟你们的上帝不是同一个。中国的民间宗教存在上帝，很多的上帝，或者换个说法就是神祗。

There's a God for everything akin to Patron Saints in Catholicism.

任何事物都有自己的神，类似于天主教里的保护神。

Then there's the king of all gods which is called the jade emperor.

然后所有的神有个王，他被称作玉帝。

So… yep! That's your answer

所以，对啦，这就是你要的回答。

Martin Wang, lives in China（住在中国）
When in bad fortune, Chinese can blame it to ghost, and pray to all kinds of gods or buddas, if that works or comforts.

当倒霉的时候，中国人会把它归咎于鬼魂，并且向各种神佛祈祷，可能有用或者能让自己舒服一点。

To the god and ghost, Chinese’s attitude is to stay at a respectful distance and mind their own business.

对于神和鬼，中国人的态度是待在相当的距离之外，管好自己的事。

The most pragmatic people in the world.

全世界最实用主义的人。

Esther
Maybe because there is no history for an Christian tradition. We didn’t know much about God until maybe 1840s. But a tradition to respect our ancestors sprang from the first recognized dynasty of China. So did other things like ghosts. By the way, I don’t think many Chinese people believe in angels, except that you mean many celebrities like to name themselves by angel.

可能是因为中国历史上没有基督教的传统。可能到了1840年，我们才开始了解上帝。但敬奉祖先的传统从第一个被承认的朝代就开始了。其他的东西如鬼魂也是一样。顺便说，我觉得没有多少中国人信仰天使，除非你指的是很多名人喜欢自称的那种天使。

And Christian God is kind of foreign for us. And in contemporary days, despite of the official recognition of government, Christian is not approved by the Party and the government. And the mainstream ideology is materialism, which is against the idealism things, like God. Therefore, there is little space for the propagate of the Christian, especially the government is afraid that western power may interfere with our internal affairs with the tool of religion.

并且基督教的上帝是对我们而言是外来的。在当代，尽管政府官方承认基督教，但基督教并没有得到党和政府的认可。主流思想是唯物主义，反对唯心论的比如上帝之类的东西。因此，基督教的传播空间很小，特别是政府害怕西方强权可能会用宗教工具干涉我们的内政。

Tom Xu, Chinese who has overseas working experience（有海外工作经验的中国人）
Believing the existence of ghosts and gods doesn’t mean believe IN them.

相信鬼神的存在，并不意味着信仰他们。

Chinese treat all those ghosts, angels, ancestors and spirits as normal people in daily life. We never believe in them in a western sense.

中国人把所有那些鬼魂、天使、祖先和灵魂当做日常生活的普通人对待。对于它们，我们不存在西方意义上的信仰。

Tom Liu, lives in China (1993-present)（1993至今居于中国）
To those who say we believe in any religion or any superstition, I recommend you to learn some Chinese and read this textbook:

对于那些说我们信仰任何宗教或者任何迷信的人，我推荐你学点中文，并且读一读下面这本教科书：



Life and philosophy.

生命和哲学

Mervyn谢, music（音乐）
In chinese ,there are differents between BELIEVE 接受 and BELIEVE IN 信仰. we believe people can make things and themselves better by keep work hard, be nice . Since we believe that people will go to hell. Will be punished After died.

中国在接受和信仰之间存在区别。我们相信人们能做到某件事，但他们自己最好努力的做，好好干。如果我们相信别人会下地狱，那么他死掉之后就会受到惩罚。

Anonymous
Well the question itself is not really valid, if you are talking about Chinese as a race, not a nationality (mainland Chinese). Many Chinese in SEA with English names are often Christians.

好嘛，这个问题本身就不严谨。如果你说的中国人是种族而不是国籍（大陆中国人），那么很多海外的有英文名字的中国人通常是基督徒。

But let’s assume you are talking about the latter case and the “God” you are talking about is the Christian God, Jesus.

但我假设你说的是后者，并且你谈论的“上帝”是基督教的上帝，耶稣。

The answer is really simple. Because these ghosts, angels story were either home-made or imported from neighboring countries like Buddhism from India. And if you take a look at the map, you will find Israel, the origin for Christianity is rather far from China, and separated by desert etc. So the geographic immobility restricted its spread in China.

那么答案就很简单了。因为那些鬼魂、天使的故事不是国产的，就是从邻国引进的，就像佛教从印度引入。如果你看看地图，你就会发现，基督教的发源地跟中国相当的远，而且被沙漠之类的分隔开。所以地理原因限制了它在中国的传播。

While during Qing Dynasty and ROC period, the colonization of the Westerners did help the Christianity to spread in China. However, they were soon taken out during culture revolution due to 1. Hostility to the west 2. Their rather short and brief influence over the public, unlike the others, which are rooted among the mass

在清朝和民国时期，西方的殖民活动确实有助于基督教在中国的传播。然而它们很快就被文哥给清除了，原因1对西方的敌意，2它们对公众的影响十分短暂，不像其他的宗教已经扎根在大众之中。

However, broadly speaking, the idea of god does exist in China and often referred to as Yu Huang Da Di (Jade Emperor) and the Kings(Emperors) of China oven claimed themselves the son of that guy =.=

然而泛泛地说，中国确实存在上帝的概念，通常是指玉皇大帝（玉帝）和中国的皇帝，后者经常自称是前面那个家伙的儿子。

Bull Zhou, lives in China（居于中国）
You’re misinformed. Almost every Chinese believe in one god, or two, or three. But Chinese gods are not your gods in the West.

你被误导了。几乎每个中国人都信仰一个、二个或者三个上帝。但中国人的上帝跟你们西方的上帝不是同一个。

Cuoco Huang
Personally, the fact should be there is no complete God system in China or ancient Chinese worshipped the power of nature and their ancestors a lot.

我个人而言，事实上中国没有完全的上帝系统，古代中国人十分崇拜自然和祖先的力量。

And China is a country starting from agricultural civilization, which makes Chinese practical. So still personally, Chinese might believe in the existence of God but hardly believe in any religious belief.

并且中国是一个从农业文明发展而来的国家，这使得中国人十分的实用主义。所以仍然是一家之言，中国人可能会相信上帝的存在，但很难信仰任何宗教信仰。

Chan Roberts, studied Religion & Special Education at Liberty University (2009)（2009年在自由大学学习宗教和特殊专业）
Individual Chinese hold a variety of beliefs and, yes, some of them even believe in God.

中国的个人拥有各种不同的信仰，而且确实有一部分信仰上帝。

D. Parker
Because all humans are not foolish and brainwashed in the same exact way at all points of the globe.
Stupid.
How are my people are not the same?
Because they are different?

因为全世界所有地方的人不可能被同一种方式愚弄和洗脑。
愚蠢。
为什么我们不一样？
因为他们有不同？

南 成, B.C Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu Normal University (2015)（2015江苏师范大学机械工程）
IN OUR CULTURE, we believe that gentlemen should always be self-improved. So we also beliveve in ourselves. But when we met Some challenges that we can not overome, we will try to relax pressure by praying to our dead ancestors. Those ghosts and gods are our ancestors . we think that we can change the world normally by our hands. And we are doing it。

在我们的文化里，我们相信人应该自我提升。所以我们也信仰我们自己。但当我们遇到某些挑战，难以自己克服的时候，我们会通过向死去的祖先祈祷的方式来舒缓压力。那些鬼神是我们的祖先。我们认为我们通常能够用自己的手来改变世界。并且我们正在这么做。

James Fullwood, Special Researcher at Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学特约研究员）
Chinese culture is over 5,000 years old, and the Chinese people’s general form of spirituality is a reflection of this. 5,000 years ago, mono-theistic religions which permeate modern society didn't exist. Moreover, the modern conception of “God” evolved from people’s beliefs in spirits, ghosts etc. (even Christians believe God to be the “holy ghost”), so the Chinese are pretty much just as spiritual as everyone else, just in a more ancient form.

中国文化有5000年历史，中国人一般的精神形式，就反映在这一点上。5000年前，渗透现代社会的一神论宗教还不存在。另外，现代的“上帝”概念是从人们对鬼神的信仰演变而来的（甚至基督徒也认为上帝是“圣灵”），所以中国人在精神方面与其他人一样，只是其形式更加古老罢了。

Chuan Wong, lived in China（居于中国）
We donot believe God, but most of us believe Buddha( generally refer to GuanYin). The concept of universal salvation has been accpeted from serveral dynasties to present society. Meanwhile, ghost is the opposite side of Guanyin. so we believe the ghost will occur when people do something bad, and only Guanyin could save us.

我们不相信上帝，但我们大多数人相信佛陀（一般指观音）。从多个朝代到现代社会，救恩观念被普遍的接受。同时，鬼魂是观音的对立面。所以我们相信鬼魂会在人们做坏事的时候出现，只有观音才能拯救我们。