Chapter 24 6. Heaven and Earth

Because the Chinese are "tianxiaists". What is "tianxiaism"?It is "cosmopolitanism" or "humanism".In the view of tianxia, ​​the country is just a member of tianxia, ​​like a small family in a big family.Therefore, real people only belong to the world, not to the country. This, at least, was the concept of the Chinese during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods.Scholars (intellectuals) at that time were all running around.Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, and Xunzi are no exceptions, and no one has ever called them traitors.Confucius, the most patriotic, just walked faster when he left other countries, and dallyed and walked slower when he left Lu.But it is no problem to travel around the world, go to Qin Dynasty and Chu Dynasty, and change families.

Well!You don’t need a country, what religion do you need? In fact, Greece is unique. The Greeks were also "tiantianists".Their city-state was originally the result of colonization, and the most serious consequence of being a foreign resident is that they do not have the right to participate in and discuss state affairs.But at most this prevents him from being an "Athenian", but it does not prevent him from being a "Greek". Greece is also "the world". So, did the Greeks have a religion? Yes, but at least half of it is for fun. Both Greece and Egypt are polytheistic, but the gods of Egypt are "half-man, half-beast", and the gods of Greece are "half-god, half-man".The seven emotions and six desires of people, including all the faults and weaknesses, their gods have them.From scrambling for power to jealousy, from nonsense to mischief, cheating, playing tricks, and pranks, which of the gods on Mount Olympus has never done anything?In the end, all the mistakes and bad things of God are staged as tragedies or comedies for people to enjoy.

Every celebration of worshiping gods is a carnival for people. The Greeks turned religion into art. At the same time, or a little earlier, they also turned witchcraft into science, and even into the thinking of pure truth.Their science is "science for the sake of science"; their thinking is also "thinking for the sake of thinking".So they went from science to philosophy again.In fact, philosophy in Aristotle is called "after physics", which is translated as "metaphysics" in Chinese. This is not the same as Indians. The Indians first turned witchcraft into a religion, and then turned religion into philosophy.Therefore, Indian religion, especially Buddhism, is very philosophical; their philosophy is also very religious.Including their nonviolentism, reincarnation and karma, as well as yoga, all tinged with mysticism.

India seems to be a country with an immortal soul, a temple built on earth, and a holy river that is always clean.There, you can hear voices from heaven, just like the Jewish prophets, Jesus Christ and Muhammad were able to receive direct divine revelation. Jews and Indians are in heaven; Greeks and Chinese are on earth. The Chinese who have been living in the world even partially retained witchcraft.The mouthwash favored by the folks and the auspiciousness favored by the royal family are all relics of witchcraft.Of course, after entering the age of civilization, witchcraft no longer occupies the center of the stage, and it has to change.However, it has neither become a science nor a religion.

What did that turn into? Rites and music. When witchcraft becomes ritual and music, it becomes morality and aesthetics, or ethics and art.What other ethnic groups rely on religion to achieve, in China it is accomplished by ritual and music.The task of ritual is to maintain order and give us a sense of security; the function of music is to ensure harmony and give us a sense of freedom; the unique civilization of ritual and music of the Chinese nation helps us realize our identity. So, we don't have religion and we don't need religion. In fact, going from witchcraft to ritual and music is as natural in China as going from tribe to state, only much later.To be precise, it is the embodiment of Zhou people's wisdom.Therefore, we cannot discuss rites and music yet.Because there are still some stars on the stage of history who have not left the stage, we must explain their whereabouts.

Such as totem.