Quote:
Originally Posted by combatmedic
The East Romans an the pre British 'Indians' are 'too religious and disturbing' but China isn't? Does not compute. Religion has played a huge role in Chinese history.
|
Actually, not so much. From a fairly early period (there's debate as to when) China's elites have prefered to encourage agnosticism amoung the elites. Read what
Confucius actually says on religion. He isn't interested in banning or denying it, he just suggests it's a waste of time and energy. China has a great deal of passionately religious people yes, but the elites tend to quietly leave it alone. Those amoung the elites who were deeply religious tended to keep their faith private. Remember that in Chinese literature, the devout are generally dupes and the priests are generally crooks.
China ran itself with a nonreligious elite. You could make the case that between 1780 and 1980 the USA followed a similar policy of keeping religion out of the halls of power even when the president was deeply religious.