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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.
Chinese popular or folk religion, usually referred to as traditional faith (chuantong xinyang) [197]: 49 is the "background" religious tradition of the Chinese, whose practices and beliefs are shared by both the elites and the common people. This tradition includes veneration of forces of nature and ancestors, exorcism of harmful forces, and a ...
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 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 five elements, cosmic deities, historical incarnations, chthonic and dragon gods, and planets, associated to the five sacred mountains. This Chinese religious cosmology shows the Yellow Emperor, god of the earth and the year, as the centre of the cosmos, and the four gods of the directions and the seasons as his emanations.
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.
Chinese tradition describes the first Shang king, Tang as a religious and perspicacious figure in Chinese history. There is a story recorded by both the philosopher Xunzi and the historian Sima Qian about Tang's religious sentiments. For seven years after Tang's accession to the throne, (1766−1760 BCE according to the traditional chronology ...
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]