Confucianism As Philosophy

Confucianism as philosophy

Region

Confucianism originates in China and was his official religion until the seventh century after Christ. Confucianism exerted great spiritual and political influence in China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam. Oriental Asians can say they are shining, taoists, Buddhists, Muslims or Christians, but rarely cease to be Confucianos. His influence on China and Japan’s thinking was huge. It is sometimes considered as a philosophy and other times as a religion, confucionism can be understood as a humanism that is compatible with other forms of religion.

Type of religion

It is a monotheistic religion in which the main God who appears in this religion is the Lord of the top or Shangdi (which means: everything big, he is bigger);appears for the first time in the five classics (五 經, wujing) compiled by confucio in the seventh century to. C. He was not a passive God because he was in charge of sending the mandates and actions to follow. It was seen as a supreme divinity in the divinatory bones of the Zhou dynasty.

Philosophy

Humanism is the most outstanding characteristic in confucionism. This religion preaches, mainly: love for humanity;It gives a high value to learning and devotion to family, peace and justice. Confucian religion sees the cosmos as a situation of harmonic origin that is responsible for regulating stations, animal, vegetable and human life. In Confucianism, a bad government contradicts the natural order and violates the mandate of heaven.

A bad ruler, loses its legitimacy and can be dismissed by another that will receive this mandate. The essence of its teachings is concentrated in good behavior in life, good state governance (charity, justice and respect for hierarchy), care of tradition, study and meditation. The maximum virtues are: tolerance, goodness, benevolence, love of neighbor and respect for the elderly and ancestors. If the prince is virtuous, the subjects will imitate their example, following the ruling/subject, father/son, and so on. A prosperous society will only be achieved if these relationships are maintained in full harmony.

According to confucianism, man must harmonize with the cosmos, that is, to agree with the ordered by heaven. For this, the person must seek perfection through introspection and study. If you do it, you will have knowledge of yourself and the wishes of the sky, which will help you develop your LI, which means the rites, ceremonies, righteousness and good internal forms. LI is useful to develop the REN that could be translated by "good feelings towards other men". The practice of REN supposes the virtues Zhong and Shu, which translate approximately as ‘loyalty’ and ‘forgiveness’, or as ‘fidelity’ and ‘compassion’. If man has ren, he can easily practice justice, good principles, called Yi.

Bibliography

• Xinzhong, and. (2003). Confucianism. Cambridge.