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Most traditional Chinese Taoists are polytheistic. Taoism or Daoism is a type of belief, or a way of thinking about life. It is at least 2,500 years old and it comes from China. Taoism is now said to be a philosophy. Tao (or Dao, 道) is the name of the force or the "Way" that Taoists believe makes everything in the world.
The term dàojiàotú (道教徒; 'follower of Dao'), with the meaning of "Taoist" as "lay member or believer of Taoism", is a modern invention that goes back to the introduction of the Western category of "organized religion" in China in the 20th century, but it has no significance for most of Chinese society in which Taoism continues to be an ...
Traditional Chinese Taoist schools accept polytheism, but there are differences in the composition of their pantheon. [28] On the popular level, Taoism typically presents the Jade Emperor as the head deity. Professionalised Taoism (i.e. priestly orders) usually presents Laozi and the Three Pure Ones at the top of the pantheon. [29]
Polytheism is the belief in or worship of more than one god. [1] [2] [3] According to Oxford Reference, it is not easy to count gods, and so not always obvious whether an apparently polytheistic religion, such as Chinese Folk Religions, is really so, or whether the apparent different objects of worship are to be thought of as manifestations of a singular divinity. [1]
Bagua diagram from Zhao Huiqian's (趙撝謙) Liushu benyi (六書本義, c. 1370s).. The Daodejing (also known as the Laozi after its purported author, terminus ante quem 3rd-century BCE) has traditionally been seen as the central and founding Taoist text, though historically, it is only one of the many different influences on Taoist thought, and at times, a marginal one at that. [12]
The term Tao means "way", "path" or "principle", and can also be found in Chinese philosophies and religions other than Taoism. In Taoism, however, Tao denotes something that is both the source and the driving force behind everything that exists. It is ultimately ineffable: "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao." [1] Also called Daoism.
Many other Hindus, however, view polytheism as far preferable to monotheism. The famous Hindu revitalist leader Ram Swarup, for example, points to the Vedas as being specifically polytheistic, [83] and states that, "only some form of polytheism alone can do justice to this variety and richness." [84]
The Way of Heaven, for example, is ruthless; when autumn comes 'no leaf is spared because of its beauty, no flower because of its fragrance'. The Way of Man means, among other things, procreation; and eunuchs are said to be 'far from the Way of Man'. Chu Tao is 'the way to be a monarch', i.e. the