In writing my thoughts about Confucianism (here and here), one thing that struck me was the strong influence that its “Doctrine of the Mean” has, even down to this day. This is reflected in the “Chinese preference for negotiation, mediation, and the “middle man” as against resorting to rigid, impersonal statutes. Until recently, legal action …
Monthly Archive: June 2007
Jun 14 2007
Taoism
The final religion that rounds out the major eastern religions is Taoism. Like Confucianism, it too is a rough contemporary of Buddhism. Its founder is named as Lao Tzu who is said to have been born around 604 BCE, which makes him the earliest of the three founders, but it is not clear if there …
Jun 13 2007
The essence of Confucianism
In the previous post, I briefly described the political and social crisis that China faced in Confucius’ time due to the gradual breakdown in social order due to the erosion of a sense of tradition and custom and sense of propriety. Confucius was dissatisfied with the two opposite responses that were being suggested to deal …
Jun 12 2007
Confucianism
Confucianism is an interesting religion that is little known or understood outside the countries where it is practiced. It is often portrayed merely as a bunch of fortune cookie type sayings, leading to jokes of the form “Confucius say. . .” Although Confucius did say many things that can be quoted as aphorisms, the real …
Jun 11 2007
Buddhism and atheism
Of all the major religions, Buddhism (as originally formulated) probably comes closest to atheism and being scientific. If someone, for whatever reason, cannot believe in god but feels uncomfortable with calling themselves an atheist and feels the need to be part of some well-established religious tradition, Buddhism probably meets that need best. In is book …
Jun 08 2007
Highway merging and the theory of evolution
Some time ago, I wrote about the best way for traffic to merge on a highway, say when a lane is closed up ahead. There are those drivers who begin to merge as soon as the signs warning of impending closure appear, thus making their lanes clear. Others take advantage of this lane opening up …
Jun 07 2007
The consequences of atheism
While atheism is not a philosophy as such, the reasons that one has for being one (mainly, the rejection of those beliefs for which there is no evidence) necessarily lead to certain consequences. Collected together, this set of results may look like a philosophy, but is not really. It is merely the playing out of …
Jun 06 2007
Taking offense (revisited)
There has been an interesting and (as usual) thoughtful set of responses to my earlier post on taking offense to critiques of religion. Instead of responding to each commenter separately as I usually do, in this case I thought I would respond to all collectively, not because they are all saying the same thing, but …
Jun 05 2007
Is there an atheist philosophy?
I received a private email from a reader of this blog asking what exactly an atheist is and pointing out that my critiques of god and religion are written with a primarily western and Christian concept of a personal god in mind. I was asked how I felt about eastern concepts derived from religions such …
Jun 04 2007
Taking offense
I have written before (See here, here, here, and here.) that one of the odd characteristics about the discussions about the new atheism is the frequently made charge that the new atheists are ‘rude’ and saying ‘offensive’ things about religion. I myself have said things that may warrant this charge. I have frequently compared belief …
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