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Atheists of Tildes, what alive religions do you find fascinating, excluding Abrahamic ones and Buddhism?
Fellow atheists, what alive religions (still practiced to a significant degree) do you find fascinating, not including Abrahamic ones and Hinduism? Are the reasons ethical, aesthetic, or something different? I'm excluding these two categories, because they are the answers of most people in English-speaking online spaces.
My reason for asking this to atheists and not all nonbelievers is because I wonder what religions pique the interest of people who don't believe in anything supernatural.
Edit: I was tired when I created the post, and accidentally wrote Hinduism. I meant Buddhism.
I find Sikhism to be beautiful. Its core beliefs of equality, honesty, serving community, fighting for justice and radical acceptance resonate with my own values. I also appreciate the aesthetic (turbans are cool!) and the symbolic aspects of the articles of faith one is supposed to carry. The Sikhs I've met have all lived with conviction and been empathetic, kind and supportive people. There was a Gurdwara not far from where I lived for a while that did free community meals for anyone who was hungry nearly every night. I'm sure there must be bad Sikhs out there, no population of millions of people could be without its jerks, but I haven't met them yet.
I have to recommend See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love by Valarie Kaur if you are interested in Sikhism! She is an American Sikh activist and civil rights lawyer. The book tells the story of her life so far and deeply explores the role her faith played in it. There's a heavy emphasis on American politics (since she's an activist) and it came out in the summer of 2020, to give you an idea of its fraught context. Let me get the inside jacket blurb for you:
So so good.
I am deeply fascinated by Ethiopia's history and how uniquely it was shaped by its close connection to other major civilizations in antiquity, but then became isolated from the west for 1000 years. It started keeping historical records a very long time ago, and it was the only African nation to have never been colonized by European powers and had its culture and history scattered, so it offers a real treasure trove of historical details. Ethiopia is like a living alternative history timeline and I find it endlessly fascinating to learn about.
And thus I am inordinately fond of Rastafarianism, a religion with a central identity around appreciating how rad Ethiopia is.
Also, Rastafarianism is very unusual — possibly even unique — in that its primary divine figure (Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia) was a fully passive recipient of worship. He in no way founded the religion, tried to lead or shape it, took advantage of it, etc. He was astounded by the whole thing and insisted he was just a normal human being. I really love this about it and about him. It's such a perfect addition to Ethiopia's history books.
(Technically Rastafarianism is Abrahamic, but this such a huge category of religions that I think it's unfair to exclude all of them from the discussion. It has a diverse cast of characters beyond the big three: Zoroastrianism, Baha'i, Druzism, Yazidi, and more.)
I only know of Rastafarianism from the western appropriations and the parodies of those appropriations, and didn't know it was such an interesting belief system under that.
The Satanic Temple's tenets are pretty solid.
I had a time where, after exiting Christianity completely, I was drawn to Buddhism. I think this might be a fairly common thing too for ex-Christians (not sure). However, personally drawn only really to understandings and ideas of it that downplay or almost ignore the 'supernatural' parts. That said, when reading, learning, or consuming Buddhism-related content, I did not heavily concern myself with avoiding intaking supernatural language or perspectives that included it- even if I discard those myself, I did want to not pre-filter what was coming my way. There's a much larger discussion (that I don't want to really dive into) about "secular Buddhism" and if that's a thing, or a Western invention/twisting of Buddhism, or whatever.
But regardless, it was interesting to me for a few reasons:
As a meta twist, I find western interpretations or viewings of Buddhism very interesting. It's very different to the kind that is typically practiced in China or Japan, where it's much more similar to judaistic religions imo. We were more taught that you need to say amitofo a lot and be a good person and Amitabha would whisk you away to the pure land, or if you were bad you'd go to hell (and there's 134 hells, so watch out).
I'll raise my hand for exploring Buddhism and Hinduism for a short time.
Though learning about Church of the SubGenius was hugely influential.
Not an atheist, but:
I find any survivors fascinating. Like the Yazidis of Iraq or the small Zoroastrianism communities that persisted in India. Cheating the non Abrahamic rule with Yazidis, but I think the spirit of what you meant probably has more to do with more mainstream Christianity and Islam.
Shinto is fascinating to me in a way Hinduism would be if the question allowed it; proof positive that universal religions don't automatically devour ethnic religions. Shintoism was able to resist Christianity in a way European and American ethnic religions couldn't.
And speaking of American religions, the worship of la Santa Muerte in Mexico. Her title is Santa and many people insist that it's not out of step with Christianity, but man, some of the depiction is a strange feathered creature. Those motherfuckers were able to sneak in their Aztec death god under the nose of the Catholic Church, and even got a Día de los Muertos (the most pagan shit I've ever seen) as a bonus! It's amazing and I love it.
Shout out to Saint Brigid in Ireland who is totally different from the goddess Brigid, don't worry about it, go back to Italy, papal legate!
My reasons is that religions (like language) encode stories, which are the lifeblood of culture. The destruction of a people's religion is usually the first step in destroying them as a coherent group. Groups that kept theirs are really interesting to me.
Well, to be fair, that came from brutal and deliberate oppression by the Tokugawa shogunate.
On the other hand, you can look at Korea, which is the only East Asian country which is plurality Christian at 31%. What American missionaries can do in less than half a century!
Yup, 110%! But even with violence back, ethnic religions were still usually at a disadvantage, Korea being a good example.
Shintoism and Hinduism are some of the few large ethnic belief systems that survived into the modern era (and violent oppression was a factor for both), and I think that's really interesting, because I think it offers us insights into forms of belief we would've otherwise lost access to.
EDIT: I should also acknowledge Judaism, another well known ethnic religion. But their survival is pretty particular to the region, its relationship to its offshoot universal religions, having a pretty coherent identity that prevented them from being swallowed up, etc.
I'd also say Shinto. It's a little bit of an anti-religion: it doesn't really elevate deities to worship so much as passively respects an expected multitude of Kami. As such, it happily lays claim to and demotes deities from other religions. In the modern sense, it feels more like a set of unobtrusive culturally engrained rituals and superstitions than the active, in your face following done by Abrahamic religions, for instance.
I get a kick out of the idea that my (Japan-made, according to the VIN) car was built in a factory in Suzuka that was probably blessed at least in a groundbreaking ceremony, if not the individual car. Cars are vey personal and easily anthropomorphized, so it seems appropriate.
If you want another one like Santa Muerte, Vodou has some similarities in syncretism and hiding things under the nose of Christianity.
Not one that I know much about–nobody does really–but I'm intensely interested in what the development of Proto-Indo-European religion looked like. My own culture and genetics are distant descendents of theirs, and probably yours are too, considering this is an English-language forum. They didn't leave any direct records of their beliefs, but they did leave successor cultures, and the similarities between them are tantalizingly allusive. I find it endlessly fascinating how different waves of migration ended up leading to the development of the Germanic/Norse traditions, the Ancient Greco-Roman religions and cultures, the Celts, and even Vedic Hinduism!
We can infer that they probably had a polytheistic religion with different roles for each deity, such as god of war, goddess of fertility/love, god of death. They were likely patriarchal, and possibly gave the chief spot in the pantheon to the god of the sky, who probably wielded the thunderbolt. That makes sense out on the Eurasian steppe, where there's not much but the land and wide open sky, but the later Greeks thought that was a bit odd, because nothing much happens in the sky. For them it would've made much more sense for Poseidon to be chief, but they didn't question too deeply, because Zeus did have the thunderbolts after all.
We can't know anything for certain though, and that only deepens the mystery. What was it about the Germanic branch that led the god of death to take the top spot over the sky god? How did the meeting of the Indo-Europeans and the Dravidic people develop into Vedism, and then into Classical Hinduism?
While the relative lack of physical evidence adds to the mystery, it also means there's a lot of space for error, and Wotan knows some shitheads have turned their speculations to horrific ends. The whole field of inquiry suffered for decades after the Nazis, and even today some people frown on idle contemplation of them, which I get. You can't argue though that they weren't highly influential in the development of world culture in the end, so I still like thinking and learning about them.
Yeah, the Nazis really managed to ruin any interest anyone might have in non-Norse Germanic mythology. It's a shame.
Not that we really know much about it. Hell, we don't really know a lot about Norse mythology — certainly a lot less than people think we know about it.
I went down a little bit of a Wikipedia rabbit hole reading about Proto-Indo-European Mythology a year or so ago. I agree that it's a fascinating subject, particularly given how its various descendants evolved.
Oh they very much also ruin Norse mythology. The Nazis themselves loved Norse mythology, and in modern Germany a lot of its symbology is used by neo-Nazis to dodge German laws against hate symbols.
Another thing that I didn't mention in my little screed that fascinates me is the back and forth between the descendents of the PIE religions and the Abrahamic ones.
There wasn't really a dualism in the Abrahamic tradition prior to the influence of Zoroastrianism via the Persians, which was itself a descendant IE religion through the Aryans (the real ones, not the Nazi fantasy).
Then you get another strain of IE influencing Judaism and early Christianity, thence Islam, through Hellenic influence.
Then you get the Abrahamic religions branching out into Europe via Christianity where a sort of syncretism happened in which many local deities and traditions–the descendents of PIE via the Celtic and Germanic offshoots–were folded into the Catholic system as that religion steadily dominated and assimilated the continent.
I think a long tradition of euro-centrism and Christian orthodoxy has clouded our view of just how interconnected the ancient world truly was. Of course none of these traditions and cultures sprang up fully formed in isolation! It seems so obvious when you phrase it that way, but if the only history you've ever learned is the traditional European/Christian story, that's exactly how you'd come to think of it.
[Edited to remove "Judeo-" on the advice of @sparksbet.]
Just call it Christian. There is nothing particularly Jewish about the orthodoxy you describe, and Judaism is almost always extremely misrepresented when the word "Judeo-Christian" is used.
You're absolutely right. I've edited my comment.
I seem to recall that Egyptian conceptions of the afterlife and eternal judgement were factors in the development of the ancient Hebrew conception of souls and the afterlife. Because, indeed, in the oldest stories found in the Christian Bible, there is no concept of heaven, hell, souls, or an afterlife. They're all later additions. (As is the devil, which is more obviously a Zoroastrian influence.)
How much was Ancient Egyptian mythology an influence on Hellenic conceptions of the afterlife (and thus, in turn, an influence on Near Eastern myth)? I have no idea. But, as you say, the ancient world was far more interconnected than most people realize. In part because of the enormous time spans covered by ancient civilizations. Ancient Egyptian mythology doesn't need to have a huge influence on Near Eastern mythology if it can keep exerting that influence over millennia. Eventually, everyone "just knows" that there's an afterlife even if they can't say exactly why they know that or where the idea came from.
I'm not so sure about an Egyptian origin for the concept of an afterlife. The Greeks had their concept of Hades before Alexander's conquests, though it wasn't nearly as fleshed out as the Egyptians' conception. From what I recall, Elysium was a much later concept, likely a result of the sort of syncretism the Hellenic Period is known for.
I seem to recall the Zoroastrians had a notion about the judgment of the dead as well, with the punishment being getting handed over to Angra Mainyu to be tortured in an icy sort of hell. I have no idea whether this idea predates the Persian Empire and so can be said to be endemic to the Medes/Persians.
Suffice to say, tracing the origins of these things is a complex affair, which is part of why I find it so fascinating.
The only reason why I was speculating that they might be a factor is because they were enormously influential in the Near East and the Mediterranean and because Ancient Egyptian civilization is so old.
For example, just look at this part of the Wikipedia entry on Anubis:
(Emphasis mine.)
Even the Greek Dark Ages (c. 1200 – c. 800 BC) were hundreds of years after the Middle Kingdom. That's a long time for their myths to percolate out into surrounding cultures and for syncretism to do its thing.
Oh, indeed! Though ancient history can be so frustrating because of the lack of proper sources. Especially when you go back as far as the Ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians. We have enormous holes in our knowledge of Ancient Rome, and the Romans lived millennia after them!
When I was writing that comment I was put in mind of the fact that the Egyptians were about the only culture to survive the Bronze Age Collapse more or less intact. I wonder what influence that had on religious diffusion?
The Egyptian culture was among the most ancient, but there were Levantine cultures even older that simply didn't survive. I don't recall there being much of a concept of an afterlife in surviving Mesopotamian accounts, at least none that differ significantly from the kind of boring non-death we see in the Homeric stories: shades shuffling around doing not much of anything and being vaguely pissed about it. Certainly no hunting parties or burnished barques like suggested by Middle Kingdom burials.
Man, it's been forever since I did any real reading into mythology. I should get back into it.
Yeah, it's certainly not my area of expertise. Most of my study of history was Modern Europe, with a bit about Ancient Greece and Rome. Well after college, I did a lot of reading about the Roman Empire in late antiquity after visiting the city on my wife and I's tenth anniversary.
But I have a love of Ancient Egyptian mythology going back to middle school at least. I just never got to study it seriously.
I was lucky enough to do some studying in folklore and mythology in undergrad, but that and an amateur fascination is all I have as well.
My experience of Egyptian religion is that it's pretty difficult to read in translation, but that there are some fantastic synopses if you know where to look. I, unfortunately, do not, so my knowledge of them is barely a sketch.
Unitarian Universalism. It's derived from Christianity, but it's definitely not Christian at this point. And I'm hesitant to even call it a religion because it's more like an excuse for open and like minded liberals to get together on Sundays to learn about other religions, philosophies, etc.
I semi-regularly attend my local church, but I certainly don't consider myself to be religious at all. In fact I've struggled quite a bit with something as simple as saying out loud "I'm going to church tomorrow" because it feels gross in my mouth. But all the same it fills the social void that exiting Christianity left. I grew up in a Christian church, so having a lot of those comfort from my childhood in my life again feels right. And I don't even need to forsake my morals or political views to enjoy them!
Plus I live in a very red, rural area, so having a group of liberals to hang out with helps a lot with the loneliness of being left-leaning in this area.
Happy Science, because it's absolutely insane. Plus they make anime. Without them, we might not have had the KyoAni that we know and love today (yes, seriously).
Gnosticism, because it's basically a pseudo-christian fanfiction circle that doesn't seem to exist anymore. I think it's safe to say that I'm a fan of "fake" religions, to a point.
Zoroastrianism, because it makes you realize that all Abrahamic religion is basically fanfiction.
I'd have to say that Sikhism, Bhuddism, and Hinduism are the closest to a religion I'd actually like to be a part of. I don't know that much detail about them, but all the people I have personally encountered who openly followed those religions tended to be pretty chill. I used to live pretty close to a BAPS temple at one point, and thought I never ventured into it, I was always pretty captivated by how impressive the temple looked if nothing else. There are a lot of temples in my area but I swear the people who go there are like ghosts because I very rarely encounter them; the only place I see them is at a local independent grocer.
Tell that to the Mandaeans, hahaha.
For anyone else interested in some fun reading, here's a list of some Gnostic sects, Christian and non, many historic and some current (however, they don't include Scientology and its offshoots). It's neat stuff!
EDIT: Oh, but if you want to go down an exciting rabbit-hole of an intentionally fake Gnostic religion, you should look into the Tribunal Temple of Morrowind. Their gestalt pleroma provides hours of entertaining research. If you're already familiar with the Trimorphic Protennoia and Hypostasis of the Archons, you already have a good basis for understanding aspects of Dunmer ontology. If you're already familiar with Concept of our Great Power and the Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth, you'll be ahead of most in grasping Dunmer theories of salvation and gnosis. Plus, the game is just plain fun if you like older RPGs, haha.
Scientology's offshoots?
You read that right! No religion is free from the human tendency to schism, as we know so well.
One early breakaway was Art Coulter's Synergetics.
Another one was Harvey Jackins' Re-evaluation Co-Counseling.
A little over a decade later, there was Jack Horner's Dianology (probably biased source) which turned into the Church of Eductivism.
Probably the most famous off-shoot of the 60s was the Process Church of the Final Judgement, who even retained the use of e-meters. Famously, they were mistakenly thought to have had some relation to the Manson Family.
In the 80s, David Mayo broke away to form the Advanced Ability Center.
Though not directly related as far as anyone knows, it's believed that NXIVM modeled some of it's destructive ideas off of Scientology's playbook.
Here's a fun tree illustrating the sources of inspiration for and offshoots of Scientology.
Ha! That's exactly why I love Zoroastrianism! I went to Lutheran school K-6th grade, and Catholic school 7-12th. By the time I was in high school I was done with religion. I remember learning about Zoroastrianism and feeling so validated as an atheist. I wasn't weird for not believing. They just don't know what else is out there.
Could you explain a bit more what you mean about Zoroastrianism and Abrahamic fan fiction? I don’t know much about it!
There is a tremendous amount of simelarities in some of the religious texts. Given that Zoroastrianism is much older than Christianity and Judaism, it’s pretty clear that a lot of their texts were inspired from it and other contemporary religious movements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8j3HvmgpYc
This video is more about Christianity than all Abrahamic religion, but it does go into the origins and evidence beginning with the Old Testament. I've been agnostic for almost three decades now but this video was the first time I ever heard that Exodus was entirely false and the "Israelites" were never Egyptian slaves.
Holy hell, I thought you accidentally replied to the wrong topic at first. I didn't even know Happy Science existed haha.
They are fascinating. They're actually active somewhere in my area; I found out about them when I saw a flyer for a screening of one of their anime.
I'm kind of curious what they're up to since their founder died, but I haven't checked in a while.
I am pretty shocked that there is no mention of Taoism ITT.
I first came across it many years ago when I was in a bit of a challenging part of my life (5150'd and ended up in a psychiatric ward).
My roommate at the ward for my short time had a large stack of paper that he had printed out and it was a translation of the Tao te ching - I said I had no interest in religion but he imploded me to read it.
I was fascinated at how much it resonated with me and was disappointed that I did know Chinese so I could grok it in the original meaning.
Eventually when I ended up going to school and studying leadership I tried to incorporate different verses into how I lead expeditions, training groups, or other things going on in my life.
Verse 17 informed a lot of this for me:
Stephen Mitchell's translation was the first I came across.
There is a lot about it I enjoy - and I still struggle to exactly state what it is about the text that I enjoy so much. You like what you like I guess.
Hey, that's my background! :D But I didn't want to seem pushy or proselytizing—especially also as I'm not an atheist but an agnostic, so I just tried to stick to commenting about other religions I casually enthuse over too, rather than reply directly. I always find it fun and interesting to meet someone else who is genuinely interested in the Dào, be it practice or philosophy. Do you enjoy any other texts or follow any practices?
I'm just a lay practitioner with a mixed, but mostly Lóngmén background. Though still very few in number, they tend to be the most active school in my part of the world, it seems. Excitingly, I just found out that a respected Lóngmén teacher has moved to my area from China, and she has opened a retreat center a few hours away. I'm thinking I may attend in the next summer or two.
Oh, and here's another rendition of Chapter 17 to compliment your post:
知有之。
其次親而譽之，
其次畏之，
其次侮之。
信不足焉，
有不信焉。
悠兮其貴言:
功成
事遂
百姓皆謂:
我自然。
Zhī yǒu zhī.
Qícì qīn ér yù zhī,
Qícì wèi zhī,
Qícì wǔ zhī.
Xìn bùzú yān,
Yǒu bùxìn yān.
Yōu xí qí guì yán:
Gōng chéng
Shì suì
Bǎixìng jiē wèi:
Wǒ zìrán.
They are aware it exists.
Then they witness and praise.
Then they fear.
Then they despise.
If trust is not enough,
There is no trust to gain.
Be careful in valuing words:
When the work is done,
And affairs are settled,
The hundred families all say
We are self-so.
For anyone interested, in the received order of the Lǎozǐ (beginning with the Dào section, ch.1-37, before the Dé section, ch.38-81, unlike the older Mǎ Wángduī which features the Dé section first), this passage features the first mention of a key concept in Dàoism:
Zìrán [ 自然 ] adverb
/ t͡sz̩⁵¹-ʐän³⁵/ [Wade-Giles: Tzu jan ]
Self-so; certain form; naturalness or spontaneity;
the natural condition of something left undisturbed.
Edit: spelling
I've actually read up on and been a fan of Taoist philosophies for quite some time now (amongst my friends I'm known to "have a soft spot for them" given my harsh attitude towards many religions.
With that said may I ask you for advice/a question? (I'm now going to assume you said yes, lol). Can you point me in a good direction for learning how to implement Taoist practices? Is there any books/videos/etc that I should look into that can teach me more about how to utilize some of the teachings best? Thank you kindly in advance :)
This is an excellent and somewhat challenging question! I love it!
My short, knee-jerk answer would be persistent osmosis. However, I figured I should be more thoughtful in my response.
To be honest, I think it depends on what you want to get out of Dàoist practice. The Dàozàng—the Dàoist canon—is comprised of so many hundreds of texts not merely because of the delight of data hoarding, nor out of any expectation for one to read them all, but so that teachers can select a few entries that contour to the student.
One of the things that I find fun about Dàoism is that, as with most esoteric traditions, it is intentionally aloof about its teachings. The idea is to shift the onus of discovery onto the student; this yields the most meaningful results. The core of the plain meaning is hidden right in front of people, but we're not always in a place to engage it at face value, so there are many, many texts, symbols, rituals, and practices to help any number of unique people click with the ideas at play. You have likely already read the most essential aspects of Dàoism any number of times:
持而保之。
一曰慈，
二曰儉，
三曰不敢
為天下先。
Chí ér bǎo zhī.
Yī yuē cí,
Èr yuē jiǎn,
Sān yuē bùgǎn
Wéi tiānxià xiān.
To hold and maintain:
The first is called compassion,
The second is called temperance,
The third is called not presuming
To be first under heaven.
Mastery over these three things is, in a sense, universal mastery over any interpersonal situation. Dàoism, after all, is not a process of world governance per sē, but first and foremost a process of self-governance. Consider this passage:
以治身，
其緒餘
以為國家，
其土苴
以治天下。
Yǐ zhì shēn,
Qí xù yú
Yǐ wéi guójiā,
Qí tǔ jū
Yǐ zhì tiānxià.
Is to govern the person;
Its excess threads
Are for managing state and home;
Its dusty scraps
Are for governing all under heaven.
This brings us to another key concept:
Yǎngshēng [ 養生 ] verb
/ jɑŋ²¹⁴ˉ²¹-ʂɤŋ⁵⁵/ [Wade-Giles: Yang shêng ]
To maintain life; to keep fit; to preserve one's
Three Vital Treasures; to care for the living.
The way we treat ourselves inevitably spills out onto others. Facetiously dulling oneself for the sake of stoic appearance merely sidesteps around the work of reforming the self. Bottling one's emotions is like putting water under pressure; it eventually explodes. Calming our emotions is like cooling water; though more difficult and time-consuming, it tends to be the actual solution to bringing the pressure down, as opposed to just storing and concealing it until disaster.
Yǎngshēng is primarily about our diet, exercise, and mental well-being. Getting these under control creates a foundation of habit for how we treat others. As alluded, the Three Treasures have analogues for the tripartite ideas of the composition of the self as found in Dàoism and Traditional Chinese Medicine:
Jīng [ 精 ] noun
/ t͡ɕiŋ⁵⁵/ [Wade-Giles: Ching ]
Vital essence; the nourishing substances, healthful
elements, or general physical aspects of the body.
Qì [ 氣 ] noun
/ t͡ɕʰi⁵¹/ [Wade-Giles: Ch'i ]
Vital energy; breath; pneuma; the dynamic energy
that streams through the body.
Shén [ 神 ] noun
/ ʂən³⁵/ [Wade-Giles: Shen ]
Vital spirit; composure; emotional and mental
awareness; a core system of five parts: the mind,
the will, the ethereal soul (the principle of
awareness and mood), corporeal soul (the vigorous
and animating principle), and itself.
We use our bodies to treat ourselves and others with compassion. We use our breath and energy frugally to temper ourselves. We use the whole of our mind to be humble towards and considerate of others.
One piece of advice I was given for how to check my words before speaking with others I may disagree with is to practice taking a breath before talking. This is difficult to do and requires a lot of practice, but that moment of breath is most often all the time you need to determine if what you desire to spout needs to be said or not. Hesitation is a key starting place in cultivating another integral discipline:
Wéi Wúwéi [ 為無為 ] verb
/ weɪ̯³⁵ u³⁵-weɪ̯³⁵/ [Wade-Giles: Wei wu wei ]
Doing non-doing; to act with non-action; any act,
or lack thereof, that accomplishes its purpose by
contouring to the nature of things and events;
effortless action.
Edward Slingerland gives an illuminating talk on this subject: Trying Not to Try - Talks at Google
He also has a more scholarly book that dives a bit deeper into what he talks about above: Effortless Action: Wu-wei As Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China
A lot of these concepts become easier to apply when you take up a regimen of exercise with meditation. While a teacher is generally recommended to help you narrow down what kinds of exercise and meditation might be right for you—and these will change over time—when you're just getting started, basic stretches (e.g. touching your toes, crossing your arms, etc.) and quiet sitting are more than adequate. It's consistency that is key here.
If you want some more academic sources, you may be familiar with the venerable Livia Kohn. She has a great textbook overview with contributions from a lot of well-known researchers and practitioners: Daoist Body Cultivation
A work-out routine involving stretching is the baseline to meet before you get into meditation. Kohn has another book that examines the evolving history of this: Chinese Healing Exercises: The Tradition of Daoyin
One thing I would recommend, if you intend to go down the meditation route, is to build some core strength, if you haven't already. Planks, leg-lifts, crunches, back-bridges, back leg-lifts, and superman stretches will immensely benefit you in the ability to hold a half or full lotus pose.
Now, a form of meditation that is easy to start but tough to master is Zuòwàng, and once again, Kohn has a great academic book that features the history of this practice as well as a translation of a famous (in Dàoism) discourse on it: Sitting in Oblivion: The Heart of Daoist Meditation
I would say that if you have not found a teacher, start slow at 5 minutes a day and scale it up to 30~45 minutes over the next year or two. If you meet an instructor and find them to be trustworthy, consider their recommendations instead. Otherwise, it's better to play it safe.
The key with stillness meditation is to become comfortable with states of non-thought. We all have a quick moment here or there every day where we see something and our mind goes blank. It's that type of moment that you are learning to foster and instigate. Expect, for quite some time, to wonder when you will see some results, until eventually you get good at—
However, I cannot stress enough that if you are going to try meditation, start out slow. You want to get healthful benefits from it, yes, but you also want to avoid getting high on your own supply, or worse, triggering mental health issues by over-stress of the practice. Working out your brain is like working out your body: you want to find a trainer you can trust who will be able to help you approach meditation in a healthy way, especially when you are working on the intermediate steps. Similarly, if you have diagnosed mental health issues or a history of trauma, you will want to consult your doctor or therapist before getting too far in your practice.
Deep stretching and meditation can put you in a rather vulnerable state as your brain and nervous system build out new pathways, which also brings me to one last point: watch out for cults. Dào balances shade with light; Dào balances heaven with earth; Dào balances land with sea; Dào balances life with death. There may be people who come along and try to sell you xiān (仙, immortal) with no mention of the metaphoric nature of rén (人, a person) scaling shān (山, a mountain). Dàoism has always had espousers of both figurative and literal approaches to this concept, but some will take advantage and try to promise things that can't be promised. Even if you decide to get into Nèidān shù, I recommend you remember the advice you've probably already read many times:
沒身
不殆。
Mò shēn
Bùdài.
Your body dies.
There is no danger.
I know that may sound grim, but it's really not, and is worth remembering.
This brings me back around to one more essential concept:
Fǎn [ 反 ] verb
/ fän²¹⁴/ [Wade-Giles: Fan ]
To repeat or return; to invert or reverse upon
reaching a most extreme point; enantiodromia.
Persistence in practice and patience in continuing to absorb the concepts is key to personal progress. Don't worry about the results; they will come about themselves.
With all of this said, if what you are looking for is something a bit lighter, while I admit that I don't use YouTube much, George Thompson's Tea Time Taoism has been pretty solid, from what little I've seen. He seems well spoken and a lot of these short episodes are about applying Dàoist ideas to aspects of everyday life.
I don't know whether this adequately answers your question, so please feel free to ask me more, PM me, or start another thread if you like.
Such effort and clarity. This response collects some threads I've been trying to gather after reading the Tao Te Ching in two different languages. Specifically the obtuseness appeals to me, never understood why before reading your post.
For general purpose daoist reading what would be suggestions for a next after Tao Te Ching?
Another great question!
Historically, there are five texts that are considered to be the Essential Classics of Dàoism, the first three of which are considered the Pillars of Dàoist Thought:
The Lǎozǐ Dào Dé Jīng [ 老子道德經 ], or The Old Master's Classics of the Way and Integrity:
Of course as mentioned, you have already read this one, but for others who might be curious:
The Zhuāngzǐ [ 莊子 ], or The Solemn Master:
In my opinion, Wandering on the Way is going to be the most approachable for a casual read, while Zhuangzi: The Complete Writings is going to be well suited for deep textual study.
The Lièzǐ [ 列子 ], or The Divisioning Master:
The Huáinánzǐ [ 淮南子 ], or The Masters of [the Principality of] Huáinán (Huáinán, more literally translated, is the state of the "Southern Waterbirds"):
This one has not received a lot of attention in the West, but there is a good, academic translation available:
The Wénzǐ [ 文子 ], or The Culture Master:
This one has also not received much attention in the West, but is still thankfully available to curious readers:
Aside from these five, there is also another text that is as old, or possibly older than the Dào Dé Jīng:
The Nèiyè [ 內業 ], or The Inner Work:
Originally, this text was contained deep within an 85 chapter Legalist volume called the Guǎnzǐ. It has not traditionally been a part of the Dàozàng as it fell into obscurity some time during or after the second century, and didn't receive much recognition or scrutiny by the Dàoist community until the 20th century.
If this is a lot to process and you would rather a more condensed recommendation on what to approach next, I might suggest the Zhuāngzǐ for philosophy or the Nèiyè for practice.
If you are not yet interested in (or are burned out on) reading the Classics, and are looking for a more modern, organized introduction to Dàoism, there are some good texts out there to help wrap your head around the core concepts.
Xūwú [ 虛無 ] noun
/ ɕy⁵⁵-u³⁵/ [Wade-Giles: Hsü wu ]
Empty lack; nothingness; void; unoccupied space;
the initial state of the cosmos.
Similarly, if you want a more condensed recommendation on which of these to pick up first, I might suggest Daoism Explained and then follow it up with In Praise of Nothing.
Hope this is helpful in some way, but please feel free to ask more questions if you have any!
Edit: spelling and some better clarifications.
Wonderful stuff user ShamedSalmon. A lot to return to later, will start with Daoism Explained. Books are piling up here. So much to read. A pleasure.
If you don't mind me asking: are you academically involved in this topic or is it some sort of heavy duty spiritual hobby? :-)
I have no academic accreditations beyond a high school degree, lol. While I was aware of Dàoism in my youth, it didn't really become a factor in my life until much, much later when I really began working on my bipolar and depression. I find it to be a soothing multidisciplinary psychoanalytical practice, but yes, also a very enjoyable hobby. Dàoism is still obscure enough that when you reach an intermediate level of study, you more than likely have come to know of a majority of the key figures in the academic world.
Oh, and I completely agree that too many books is a great problem to have!
Your recommendations are of great help and I've already passed them on to some of my friends. Thanks for sharing and showing up with excellent comments whenever there is an introspective mental health question on tildes.
Thank you, that's really kind! I try to help when I can and do try to put a lot of thought into my responses. Things can get lengthy, but I've been told that Tildes is the very place for lengthy responses, hahaha.
I wouldn't go as far to say I'm a practitioner - rather it just is the only 'religious' text that piqued my interest when reading.
A dear friend of mine (who passed away last October) sent me a translation of the Gita and it didn't strike a chord with me as much. He actually was a hindu baba (Shri Mahant Managalanand Puri) but wasn't pushy about it when it didn't resonate with me as much.
Big fan of the Gītā, but from the same figurative and literary perspective that I approach Christianity from. If you don't mind my asking, what translation was it? Easwaran, Flood & Martin, something else? If it's a sore spot, though, feel free to ignore my curiosity.
I also want to say that I am so very sorry for your loss. My sister died very suddenly in April, which left my family and I pretty devastated, so I resonate with the loss of a dear friend. I hope you are doing as well as can be given the circumstances.
Not a sore spot at all - I don't know which translation. As I was searching through my messages when he sent me the pdf and it doesn't seem to have been in the backup of our chats. It just didn't grab me the was the Tao did from it's first passages.
Thanks - it wasn't so unexpected as he was having some challenges with his health. I'm sorry for your loss.
I'm going to take some leeway here and take "alive" to mean enough folks know about it to be recognizable in mainstream culture - mostly for the inclusion of some pagan religions like those of the Celts and Norse folk. Are those really practiced - I'd say kind of but probably not seriously. But I want to include them. With that out of the way and an admission that I'm based in the United States...
The first ones that jump to mind are the local ones to where I live. I'm on the California Coast, so mostly those of first nation tribes locally. There are a lot of great mythologies and creation stories, and I really enjoy how the differences between the regions reflect the local flora and fauna. They have great stories about how the condor or vulture got their bald heads. Different interpretations and personalities of the sun/moon or even of the bear/wolf/deer. I'm sad we don't get more education on it in public school as the focus is always on "how much we worked together and discovered this new land" /s
There are really cool ways to interact with it today as well. I got to go to a pow wow in Oakland last year and it knocked my socks off! Fry bread may not be religious in and of itself, but eating it felt like a religious experience.
Second would be the pagan religion of the Celts/Scots. My dad is English and as such never really learned much about the Celts because England was great at demonizing the Irish, laughing at the Scots, and generally looking down at anyone who doesn't accept Henry the 8th version of religion. But I still have a lot of family over there and was about to spend a few months backpacking around the isles. I learned all sorts about pagan beliefs and the mythology that accompanies it. I was even invited to a pagan rave where a bunch of folks dressed up like elves, druids, and woodland creatures drank and did drugs in a 2000 year old Roman cistern. If you have the chance, check out the stories of selkies,
In Ecuador there is a really interesting mix of Catholicism and local (I'm going to call pagan because I'm not sure what else to call it) indigenous Cañari beliefs. I was in the Andes in 2008 during the Inti Raymi Celebration. Indigenous communities would retake the cities and holy sites "back" from Catholicism for the day. It was on the solstice for the sun god. I also learned while I was there that nearly all the church sites were chosen as they had been the location of the pyramid temple sites of the Inca/Canari and they all had an effect where as the sun set light would pour through the front doors as the temples were all built to face the sunset on the solstice. It was very cool to experience.
Anyway, I find most of the "indigenous" religions fascinating. They seem to put much higher emphasis on the plants/animals of our world, the sun and the moon, and feel more rooted in our reality. Their gods and mythical characters have a wide range of personalities and emotions, something I think we could do more with in the US considering the "infallibility" of the radical christian right wing.
Jainism. One of the oldest faith systems with an extra dose of super peace it's a wonder they're even alive at all.
Buddhism. To quote the Dalai Lama, “If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims.”
I assume you intended to exclude Buddhism, Sikhism, etc. even though they're similar to Hinduism, it's debatable whether they come from Hinduism. By excluding these two categories, you will most likely still end up around "Western" religions. So I assume the answers will most likely revolve around native American religions, Pacific islander religions or Shintoism.
I'm not answering the question because I'll talk about an Abrahamic religion, but I'm fascinated by Mormonism. And to be frank, I find it unfair that it was excluded from the possible answers :D . It has nothing to do with ethics and aesthetic. The whole concept to revamp a religion 1800 years later is very intriguing to me. As an atheist, I assume the old and the new testament are basically baloneys, so having a bunch of people coming together and saying "how can we complete it with even more made-up stuff" almost two millennia later is mesmerizing...
This personal interest also applies to other modern wide spread religions, I could also cite Scientology, which would fit in your narrowing. Writing a brand new religion in the 1950s is amazing to me... Like, how can someone have the guts to do this? or to be gullible enough to believe in it? I can understand this with old stories, but these stories didn't exist 100 years ago, most people's grandma was born before these stories even existed! You can't use the "it's part of what I grew up with" argument, you literally chose to believe in this!
Edit: When I was typing this, there was no answer to this post. So I hadn't read Raistlin's answer which was posted after my comment, when I wrote "will most likely revolve around native American religions, Pacific islander religions or Shintoism." I just want to say that I saw this a mile away :)
Yeah, I meant Buddhism. I was tired when I created the post and made a mistake. Will try to fix it.
@cfabbro can you assist with the title?
Fixed, I think? cc: @daywalker
None in particular, although I enjoy learning about moral frameworks and different societies. But no belief system I've come across so far has felt so exceptionally more interesting than others that it's something I've taken note of.
I think, in the end, it's that any system that possesses the ability to affect a large number of people across a multi-generational period of time is going to have enough similar characteristics under the hood that the core patterns will feel familiar after a reasonable amount of study.
I'm curious about Hinduism as a modern polytheistic religion connected to the same Proto-Indo-European mythology that gave rise to Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology.
In some sense, it feels a bit like Hinduism provides a window into what Roman mythology might have looked like if Christianity had not supplanted it. (Though I'm sure there has been plenty of syncretism with Abrahamic religions over the millennia. To say nothing of the other traditions that informed it in the prehistoric past as it diverged from the other PIE mythologies.)
But I admittedly don't know much about Hinduism because the topic is so huge and I wouldn't even know where to start. When I've looked into it, it's been almost dizzying to try to follow all of the concepts. Which is understandable, considering its age and the diverse number of interpretations that seem to exist. One of these days, though, I would like to read a book that goes over the core tenants and practices of the dominant "branches" (for lack of a better term) of the religion. I'm sure there are some good ones out there, particularly for students of comparative religion in Western countries.
I find arguing over theological minutiae that make little sense to those outside the religion fascinating. This has made Judaism appealing to me, of course, since that's very ingrained in their religious culture, and I've found researching early Christian heresies really fun (the sheer amount of disagreement over the exact proportions of God and man in Jesus...). But I'm not actually very aware of any non-Abrahamic religion with a similar history or culture of debating theological minutiae that would interest me -- if anyone is familiar with that, do let me know so I can dig in!
Does Buddhism count? Some flavors of Buddhist teachings are almost atheistic in their disinterest in deities, while others do resemble something closer to most other religions.
The other reason I ask is that the equivalent of “No Abrahamic religions” would also exclude Buddhism on the Indic religion side. Then again, does Mormonism (has clear lineage but very different theology) count as Abrahamic or Shinto (to the best of my understanding, traditional Japanese indigenous beliefs coupled with a thousand years of Buddhist influence) count as Indic/Vedic?
Personally, I’m more of a theologically apathetic agnostic than a true-believing atheist. Arguments over the existence of divine beings is a waste of time. By the metric of “all religions are false; some are useful,” I do find practices of religions worship to be beneficial, even if the underlying theology is bunk.
How would Mormonism count as shinto? It's very much a Christian religion and by extension Abrahamic.
They are asking whether:
The lack of comma and incorporation of parentheses within the middle of the latter thought is probably what confused the point of the question.
And I would tend to agree that the LDS movement being binitarian, substituting a non-orthodox cosmology, and including an additional prophet would not preclude it from being considered an off-shoot of an Abrahamic religion, especially given that it sees and espouses itself as the restorative fulfillment of said religious lineage.
Could you expand on your characterization of the Mormon belief system as binitarian? I got curious and looked it up on Wikipedia, and from what I can tell, they seem to believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit similarly to other Christian denominations, although they have divergent beliefs as to their nature.
I may be misunderstanding, however, since I’ve never really understood the standard Christian dogma concerning the Trinity.
Okay, to be fair, the LDS don't consider themselves to be binitarian, and their doctrine on the composition of the Godhead changes over time, with technically no consensus so as to not limit their possibility of continuing revelation. With that said, Smith evolved his modalist view into binitarianism and attested to it in his Lectures on Faith. Here's an excerpt from Lecture 5, paragraph 2:
Further down, it continues:
Concluding with a Q&A section:
So the personage of the Holy Spirit is technically reduced in role from co-equal aspects in classical Trinitarianism to being the mind of the Father and Son.
However, the Lectures were removed from the Doctrine and Covenants and are no longer considered scripture, again to ensure open-ended aspects of doctrine, but they are still taught as doctrine fit for those who hold the Elder position within the church. So it's a bit more tricky than one might expect.
I've got to run to work, but I'll try to find you more sources on the LDS' evolution of the Godhead over time.
Thanks, this is really interesting.
Deep lore time!
So, in general, a lot of the trouble surrounding this line of inquest comes down to attempts at defining a plurality of simultaneous identities of the Abrahamic god, especially after the idea of Jesus Christ's divinity. Determining Jesus' divinity becomes important in the redemptionist/salvationist camp (as opposed to the gnostic branch) as it forms the substantive argument over whether his death was a proper korban that would satisfy the Abrahamic god. Out of this comes arguments over whether and why only Jesus' blood could satisfy that god, an evolution from general martyrdom as being an atonement to one man's martyrdom being the atonement. Pretty soon the redemptionists arrived at the man having to be divine. This is where one runs into the problem of whether Jesus was eternally preexistent, and deriving the answer involves crossing a tightrope of determining whether being so or even not being so could violate the definition of god's unity. Once that divinity has been widely established, what comes next is pinning down the metaphysics of this atonement as applied to prospective followers, which is then where clarification on the nature of the holy spirit becomes more important.
Unitarianism (sometimes called monarchianism; see also these unitarians, as opposed to these Unitarians) tended to hold either the belief that Jesus was not divine but an exhalted prophet (sometimes called psilanthropism; see also the Ebionites) or that he was divine as a product of god that came down from and returned to heaven (in some cases expressed as dynamic monarchianism or adoptionism, in others as modalistic monarchianism or modalism; see also the Thomasines). Second-century attempts to clarify these beliefs brought about binitarianism, and from that time on, more complex questions began to arise about defining the nature of the oft-mentioned holy spirit, eventually leading to the establishment of trinitarianism.
The LDS reject the common redemptionist/salvationist definition of trinitarianism as established by the ecumenical First Council of Nicaea, but don't seem to entirely throw out the idea of a tripartite identity of god — especially as it remained fashionable among the vast majority of Protestants who did not return to unitarianism. However, their distinctive definitions of the form and substance for that god tend to differ greatly from other Protestant groups.
Doctrine and Covenants, 130:22
While I don't have anything more clearly damning than the previously quoted Lectures on Faith, Smith's own clarification of his ideas about the holy spirit do seem to come from his prior works:
Pearl of Great Price, Moses 6:61
Doctrine and Covenants, 84:45-46
Later LDS writers do indeed assert that the definition of their god is trinitarian:
Gospel Doctrine Ch. 5 p. 24: Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, Comforter.
They do a lot to illustrate the consubstantiality of the father and son while distinguishing the spirit. With its being an emanatory aspect of either the father or the son, rather than a third co-equal figure in its own right, the vast majority of unitarian and trinitarian branches tend to view the godhead of the LDS as being binitarian — though some woefully misunderstand it to be tritheistic.
Hopefully I explained that somewhat well.
EDIT: spelling and clarification
Thanks for the explanation. I appreciate it.
"atheists of tildes" lmao