Popular Religion Flashcards
what does pop religion create
an alternative system through which people cna engage with the world of power and chance without institutional intermediaries
Chinese pop religion refers to
forms of religion practiced by almost all chines people regardless of social and economic standing, level of literacy, region, or expliciti religious identification.
refers to the lower class, not the elite
some of the practices
funeral and memorial rites
rituals in dealing with illness, misfortune, or good fortune,
general beliefs about cosmos, spirits and life and death
imporatnt dates: festivals
why not the elite
well-educated elites view gods in abstract, impersonal terms and to demonstrate restrained respect.
the less educated view as concrete, personal beings before whom fear is appropriate
patterns of practice differ
Describe chinese world of gods
divine bureaucracy
how is it modeled
social org of human gov is essential model of the chinese imaged ‘other world’
what are the three domains in the cosmos
heaven
earth
underworld
each domain is
populated by gods and goddessess
who inhabits heavenly domain
jade emperor (yudi) rules over court staffed by deities - power over three worlds
the earthly domain
kitchen god
why stove - story of man who died in it
story of the stove god
worship and custom - burn offerings, give food, ash transfers
meaning, be good or he will tattle, reinforce family structure
earth god
local protective deity, represented as a married couple, reinforcing the nothion that the gods of the earthly domains were very close ot humands in proximity and life patters
city god
devine coutner part of human magistrate. religious link between the state and the socitye. no longer linke in society, but worship continues
underwordl domain
transitory space and time for the soulds of the dead (not hell)
sould of deceased are held accountable for their action in life by the ten judges
all souls were evneturally reincarnated, the originally buddhist idea of the unednign cycle of life, death, and rebirt (samsara) was incorporated into chines pop notion of cosmic continuity and cosmic reproduction.
chinese cosmos
needhams comparison
needhams comparison
the world as a complete and complex organism, rather than being created out of nothing, the world evolved into its current condition of complexity out of a prior state of simplicity and undifferentiation.
