The difference between humans and animals is that people have autonomous consciousness, and when consciousness is constantly evolving, faith arises, while religion is the embodiment of faith.
The three major religions of the world today, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, all have compassion and fraternity at their core, and are therefore capable of resonating with the deepest reckoning of the human soul.
But what is puzzling is that Taoism, as a religion originating in the mainland, has not formed an influence in the world, why is this?
1. The current situation of Taoism
Although in our Chinese context, elements such as Taoists and Taoists often appear in novels and film and television works, so that people think that Taoism is also very popular, but as everyone knows, what is popular has always been something that has nothing to do with Taoism.
So, how many registered Taoist practitioners are orthodox in China?
The answer is 50,000 people, and it includes the main road and the kun road.
These people are orthodox Taoist priests, and if we count according to the development of ten believers per person, the number of people who truly believe in Taoism in the whole country is 500,000 - at most 1 million, and correspondingly, the number of Taoist temples in the country is about 9,000.
It seems difficult to understand the size of the data of Taoism when taken out separately, so let's compare it with Buddhism.
According to the data on the website of the central government, there are 33,000 Buddhist temples on the mainland, more than 200,000 monks are registered, not to mention the number of believers, and more than 100 million Buddhists in China.
Islam is relatively small on the mainland, with almost a dozen ethnic minorities believing in Islam.
But even so, there are more than 35,000 mosques in the land of Islam, Catholicism has 5.5 million followers in China, and Christianity is the latest religion to be introduced to China, after the Opium War, but now it has also gained 23 million believers......
The data of other religions is staggering, how can there be tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of believers at every turn, and even some niche schools have millions of believers, why is it that there are so few people who believe in Taoism that originated in our own country?
Speaking with real data, we can intuitively see the current situation of major religions in China.
Although Taoism is often mentioned, it is actually a niche religion, and it is not worth mentioning in terms of size or adherents compared to behemoths such as Buddhism and Christianity.
So, how did Taoism develop, and how did Taoism spread for more than 1,700 years, if no one believed in it from the very beginning?
2. The development of Taoism
In fact, people have always confused Taoism with Taoism, when it comes to Taoism, it is natural to think of Lao Tzu, yes, Taoist thought is a school of thought founded by Lao Tzu, its essence is a philosophical thought, and later carried forward by Zhuangzi, Liezi and others, and experienced the change of different historical dynasties to form Taoism.
At the political level, Taoism pays attention to "rule by doing nothing", that is, advocating the laws of nature, believing in atheism, and requiring everything to act in accordance with the objective laws of things, only in this way can we enter the realm of no struggle.
However, Taoism is different, in the middle and late Eastern Han Dynasty, Taoism gradually took shape, when Zhang Tianshi Zhang Daoling founded Tianshi Taoism, and then through the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, there were various emerging Taoist schools.
Taoism was very hot during this period, and the collision of different ideas also enriched the teachings of Taoism, and even won the approval of the rulers.
During the hundreds of years from the Sui and Tang dynasties to the Northern Song Dynasty, Taoism flourished in China, so why did this happen? In fact, it is closely related to the social environment at that time.
Emperor Wen of Sui Yang Jian, this is a powerful figure who ended the situation of Wuhu Chaohua, although Emperor Yang Guang of Sui was tyrannical, he had to admit that his governing ability was really strong.
Needless to say, the rule of Emperor Taizong Li Shimin's Zhenguan set the tone of the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and during the Northern Song Dynasty, due to the emphasis on literature and light on martial arts, the civil officials of the Song Dynasty were of course willing to continue to promote Taoist thought, which also made the status of Taoism continue to improve.
Why did Taoism suddenly begin to rise during this period?
In fact, it is because people began to believe in metaphysics during the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Taoism has been baptized by various schools, and there are too many mysterious and mysterious things, and this kind of thing is the most bluffing.
Yuan Tiangang appeared in the Tang Dynasty, and Lin Lingsu of the Shenxiao faction appeared in the Song Dynasty, and these people can justify themselves in a metaphysical way what cannot be explained by common sense, and of course it is easy to gain a large number of believers.
In addition, the Sui and Tang dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty actually belonged to the strong period of the dynasties, and the cultural prosperity of a country can be seen from the Tang and Song poems.
Taoism also emphasizes a hundred schools of thought, calling for a hundred schools of thought to bloom, which is very good for the literati, so Taoism ushered in its own golden age in this period.
3. Why are there few believers?
After understanding the current situation of Taoism and the history of Taoism, we can explain why Taoism has not spread to the world, and a netizen once made a concise answer - Taoism is too "anti-human".
This sentence very accurately points out the reason why there are few Taoist believers, and the few people who believe in it will naturally not be able to spread.
The three major religions of the world are all telling us that when we die, we can go to Elysium and we will be liberated, and this is true of Buddhism and Christianity.
The three major religions believe that the world we live in is hell, so we just live well every day, as long as we don't do evil, we can have good results after we die.
But Taoism is different, Taoist thought is a little dialectical.
Taoism tells us that the world is regular, and people must actively seek change in order to change their life status.
Look, Taoism is actually a very passionate religion, if you are a person who wants to do great things, Taoism can give you a lot of help, but for the vast number of toiling people, it is very hard to live every day, you Taoism still makes me struggle, I don't do it!
The second point is that the introduction to Taoism is also very difficult, Buddhism has to chant scriptures, just be able to read and write, but Taoism is full of bread, what feng shui metaphysics, alchemy, tai chi, etc., I really can't understand without ink in my stomach.
Religion is to make people believe, it is to let confused people find an existence of spiritual sustenance, so it must be simple and direct, and this simple and direct way is also easy to spread.
But Taoism is more like a science, to believe in Taoism, there are too many places to learn, and with this energy, you can be admitted to a university.
There is also an essential difference between Taoism and other religions - Taoism does not need to be preached everywhere, nor does it absorb believers everywhere, the main focus is a "casual fate", which is quite similar to the "rule by inaction" of the ancestors.
Taoism believes that belief or unbelief depends on fate, even if some people are willing to convert to Taoism, the ancestor has to see if you have this fate, if not, the Taoist will only send guests politely.
In general, Taoism has little propaganda, a high threshold, and will not "draw a big pie" for people like other religions, and only talk about the afterlife, and all kinds of reasons add up, and naturally there are very few believers.
This is still the case at home, let alone around the world.
Source: China National Knowledge Network, "On the Globalization of Taoism Again", Kong Linghong