Believe in Jesus
“The statement that Chinese people have not believed in God since ancient times is purely a fallacy. The extensive and profound Chinese culture is actually connected with the Christian faith; as for the worship of various Chinese folk religions, God is just an idol made by human hands. Only Christianity is the absolute truth, and promoting the truth of Christianity will help the Chinese people return to their faith."
Dr. Liang Yancheng, a famous philosopher, writer, political commentator and thinker. , held a public lecture in New York in early September this year, pointing out that Christianity is the orthodox belief of the ancestors of the Chinese people, and through rigorous research and verification, he removed various heretical folk religions from the sacred altar in the hearts of the Chinese people Come down. His speech was vivid, interesting, well-founded and powerful, and the audience could not but be convinced by it.
Chinese people have feared God since ancient times
Many Chinese people think that Christianity is a foreign religion, but they do not know that the ancestors of the Chinese people believed in God, the creator recorded in the Bible. Lord, the only true God.
Dr. Liang’s evidence is from the ancient Chinese classics "Thirteen Classics" (including: Zhouyi, Shangshu, Book of Songs, Zhouli, Rites, Book of Rites, Chunqiu Zuozhuan, Gongyangzhuan, Gu The "God" and "Heaven" mentioned many times in Liang Zhuan, Xiao Jing, The Analects of Confucius, Er Ya, Mencius) are strikingly similar to the God described in the Bible.
Matteo Ricci, a missionary who has studied ancient Chinese culture for many years, was also surprised to find that the God in the Bible is almost the same as the God in ancient Chinese books. "God" is also called "Emperor God" and "Shangtian" (commonly known as "Old God") by the ancestors of the Chinese people. The ancestors believed that God is the master and creator of heaven and earth and all things. He is also the source of morality, absolute justice, and Judgment of sin.
Not only that, the ancient saints and emperors were very pious to God, served Him faithfully, and worshiped Him regularly. The tablet enshrining the "Emperor of Heaven" in the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests in the Temple of Heaven in Beijing was worshiped by emperors. It reflects the tradition of ancient Chinese emperors offering sacrifices to God.
Dr. Liang pointed out in particular, “We cannot find the names of incense and idols in the Temple of Heaven and ancient classics. From this we can see that the Chinese people have believed in God since ancient times and are very pious.”
The Origin of the Custom of Worshiping Ancestors and Burning Incense
Chinese people have a long history of worshiping ancestors, so why do we worship ancestors? Is this idolatry? In this regard, he explained that the reason why Chinese people worship their ancestors is because they believe that people will return to God after death. Therefore, when they worship God, they also worship their ancestors in order to express their gratitude and memory to their ancestors. heart. "So worshiping ancestors is definitely not worshiping idols."
Chinese people burn incense when making sacrifices, but "incense" does not appear in classical books and the Temple of Heaven. Why is this? Dr. Liang said that burning incense does not belong to orthodox Chinese culture, and ancestors do not burn incense when offering sacrifices to God. In fact, it is a completely foreign custom. As early as the late Western Jin Dynasty, when the Hu people settled in the Central Plains, they also introduced the Indian custom of burning incense. The original purpose of burning incense was to drive away ghosts and not to worship God.
About Taoism
Taoism is a religion native to China. Its founder was Zhang Daoling in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Taoism is completely different from Taoism. Taoism actually originated from witchcraft and ghost and god beliefs in ancient China. Later, witchcraft beliefs (such as ghost ways, Fangxian Tao, etc.) were combined with Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, Mohism, Five Elements, Yin and Yang and other schools of thought. The combination of doctrines creates different folk belief systems in different places.
The thought of gods in the pre-Qin period had a great influence on the emergence and development of Taoism. During the Warring States Period, alchemists who advocated immortality and immortality appeared in many areas. This became the origin of Taoist thought of taking elixirs and becoming immortals.
Dr. Liang said, "The prosperity of Taoism shows that the ancients at that time had lost their devotion to God, and Qin Shihuang was the chief culprit." After Qin Shihuang unified the six kingdoms, he was so arrogant that he called himself the emperor. "That is the abbreviation of Huangtian God". From then on, the authoritarian culture of Chinese rulers began, and people gradually turned away from God.
However, people's hearts are ultimately inseparable from faith, so people began to worship idols, witchcraft and ghosts and gods emerged, and Taoism was the culmination of them. "Therefore, those gods are all false worlds of gods created by humans."
True and False Guan Gong
Dr. Liang also pointed out that the Guan Gong worshiped by many southerners nowadays is purely a descendant. The random assembly with added oil and vinegar is very different from the Guan Gong in history. For example, the generally enshrined statue of Guan Gong shows him holding a long sword in one hand, wearing armor, and holding a book in the other hand.
But those who know a little about ancient history will know that long sword weapons began to be manufactured in the Song Dynasty, armor originated in the Yuan Dynasty, and that book was manufactured in the Qing Dynasty. It can be seen that what people worship now is nothing more than the fake Guan Gong created by man.
Chinese folk Buddhism is very different from the Buddhism originally founded by Sakyamuni
Buddhism has a profound impact on Chinese culture. However, today’s Chinese folk Buddhism is different from the Buddhism originally founded by Sakyamuni. They are so different that the wind, cows and horses are incompatible with each other. In fact, Sakyamuni is a saint and a great thinker. He claims to be a human being, not a god. Moreover, he does not worship gods and does not allow believers to worship idols.
However, after his death, he was deified by later generations, and his teachings were misinterpreted. The most obvious example is that not all Buddhist scriptures today come from Sakyamuni. Dr. Liang explained that Sakyamuni did not compile his teachings during his lifetime. The original Buddhist scriptures were passed down orally from generation to generation by believers and were not written down until his death. It took five hundred years for it to be collected and compiled into a volume.
"The Buddhist scriptures that have been transmitted orally for five hundred years will inevitably have distortions and deviations. What is more important is that some believers have added their own understandings and lessons during the oral transmission process, resulting in the vastness of today's Buddhist scriptures with inconsistent contents. , and even contradict each other in many places. It can be seen that the current Buddhist scriptures are no longer the teachings of Sakyamuni."
Another "creation" of folk Buddhism is the Bodhisattva. Sakyamuni did not propose "Bodhisattva", and the statues of Bodhisattva enshrined in the temple are contrary to Sakyamuni's teachings. Ashoka, a devout believer in Buddhism, once ordered the eradication of 18,000 idol carvers because Ashoka, a devout believer, knew that idol worship was against the tenets of Buddhism.
As for the Guanyin Bodhisattva widely believed by the Chinese people, it has been continuously "modified" by later generations. Dr. Liang said that Guanyin is a new god formed by Buddhists who assembled the God of Compassion and Freedom from India. At first, Guanyin was a man with a beard, but was later changed to a woman by Chinese Buddhists. "It can be seen that Guanyin is just a product fabricated by later generations. And its so-called manifestations of Bodhisattvas are the work of evil spirits."
He also added that Buddhism did not have the theory of eternal life, reincarnation, and heaven at the beginning. It was copied or adapted from the teachings of other religions by later believers. Its purpose is to make Buddhism more advanced with the times and adapt to the needs of the times, so as to increase its viability and the competitiveness of other religions.