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Aligning with Chinese anthropologists' emphasis on "religious culture", [62]: 5–7 the government considers these religions as integral expressions of national "Chinese culture". [78] A turning point was reached in 2005, when folk religious cults began to be protected and promoted under the policies of intangible cultural heritage.
Han calls for the acknowledgment of the ancient Chinese religion for what it really is, the 'core and soul of popular culture' (俗文化的核心與靈魂). [37] According to Chen Jinguo (陳進國), the ancient Chinese religion is a core element of Chinese 'cultural and religious self-awareness' (文化自覺，信仰自覺). [36]
The continuity of Chinese civilisation across thousands of years and thousands of square miles is made possible through China's religious traditions understood as systems of knowledge transmission. [147] A worthy Chinese is expected to remember a vast amount of information from the past, and to draw on this past to form his moral reasoning. [147]
Certain characteristics of the Shang state religion have been identified as prefiguring later elements of Chinese bureaucratic culture. [16] [17] The Shang articulated an image of a supreme being that simultaneously led a body of lesser deities, including both ancestor and nature spirits, while also being a composite of all of them.
Each of the tribes practiced its own system of beliefs. The religious beliefs in prehistoric China were based on ideas of animism, totemism and shamanism. [58] [59] [60] Many ancient tribes in pre-dynastic China shared a common belief in the spiritual world. [e] The spirits were thought to possess divine powers. As such, they were able to ...
Chinese theology, which comes in different interpretations according to the Chinese classics and Chinese folk religion, and specifically Confucian, Taoist, and other philosophical formulations, [1] is fundamentally monistic, [2] that is to say it sees the world and the gods of its phenomena as an organic whole, or cosmos, which continuously emerges from a simple principle. [3]
The religion of the Predynastic and Western Zhou was a complex set of religious beliefs and activities adhered to by the early Zhou dynasty in China (c. 13th century BCE – 771 BCE). Strongly influenced by the Shang dynasty 's religion , it developed gradually throughout the Predynastic Zhou period and flourished during the Western Zhou period.
The Shang dynasty of China (c. 1600 – 1046 BCE) practiced a spiritual religion that includes veneration of deceased royal ancestors. [1] Shang ancestors were perceived to possess divine powers ranging from trivial matters to state-related affairs, and sometimes were interpreted as a component of the Shang supreme god Di.