Of religion and secularism - Reply to a friend's email

I think coming from our own cultural tradition, or for me, coming from a nation that has built itself upon multi-racialism, it is natural for us not to favour politics that comes intertwined with religion. But I guess as the article has mentioned, the global trend is that it is increasingly difficult for us to neglect trends as those in the Muslim world. Also, when India comes up, it will be impossible not to take into account the influence of religion, esp between Hindus and Muslims, and the political considerations that stem from social phenomena that have their roots in religious beliefs.

I agree with what you mentioned about the Enlightenment movement learning from Confucianist thoughts, but I hope you also do not overlook the impact of religion in the historical development of Chinese imperial politics. In my opinion, the reason why we can say China's never had its own religion is because we seldom adopt a logical approach towards traditional folk beliefs. The entrance of Buddhism fundamentally changed that, spurring the Taoist to also start coming up with lots of writings to support their own faith. And it was after this tultumous period of 教义书写 in the 魏晋南北朝 that religion began to influence politics, eventually tipping over the balancing point resulting in the Tang empire having to rein them in. 葛兆光教授 from Fudan has written extensively about this process of dis-empowering the religions. I read some of his essays while I was preparing for my graduation thesis in 2008. So my point here is, even in a place like China, we did have a historical period that Buddhism helped cement political legitimacy - even though 不语怪力乱神的Confucianism acted as the base of imperial rule.

But even then, within later strands of Confucianism, particularly in the school of 心学, there also appeared "mysticism" in the appreciation of Confucian teachings. I was just reading an academic essay on this 2 days ago. Of course, the 理学 school didn't agree with what the former advocated. But therein lies the paradox of something we term as "belief". Even if it is what was initially thought as "secular", as one gradually loses sight of an external force that we the Chinese term as 道, and try to look inward, in trying to make sense of our own reflections of the meaning of life, it doesn't just involve logic and the mind. It also involves emotions and other psychological feelings that give us a feeling of what is metaphorically called the "soul". （有时我也在想，究竟在”道“这个形而上体，在中国人那里是否随着封建主义的结束而陨落，以及如果是的话，其后果是什么；如果不是，那么在当代，我们应该如何再去重构或是重新阐释这个概念。毕竟，所谓的“道德”与“伦理”，本是不一样的概念，在中国亦不该混为一谈）

The way I see it, to make sense of one's own life and the meaning of my own existence, that is not difficult. The real difficulty and challenge come when we want to 悟人, and establish a set of rules that others can follow. Yet the latter is what "spiritual leaders" have to try and provide for their people. That is why I gradually became a "believer" of Buddhism (here I mean Buddha's teachings in the Sanskrit version) - and how "karma", "emptiness", and belief in nothing as a "soul" leads to an ethical world. That is also why I see Buddhism as a philosophy, not a religion. It is defined as a religion only because of the way it has been spread and utilized by politics after Buddha's demise.

康德在《纯粹理性批判》中就提出过，人有一种自然倾向，把所谓的”神“进行”他化“。在我看来，目前当我们说”宗教“时，指的就是以这种倾向为本质基础的信仰——或者，是尼采所谓的“基督教是人性弱点的客体化”（也因此，康德在其哲学中，虽然没有明说，但研究者都认为，只要有了康德哲学，就不需要神；而尼采更是将其以“上帝死了”、超人诞生的极端方式进行表述。但是，在未有足够的智慧累计前，我觉得，人或得选择皈依一个“神”，或是变得迷茫，或是选择不去想，或是堕落）。而另一种信仰，则是一种”向内“来领悟自己的”神性“，并 向外去确立自己这个个体与这复杂世界的伦理关系。True secularism, if you ask me, does not reject the latter notion of belief, otherwise it becomes what our NMP terms as "fundamentalist secularism" in Parliament; at the same time, it does not allow the former to come into dominance such that we have no freedom to choose not to abide by worldviews or some rules or law （教义）that are 'external' to us. In the modern notion, "free-thinkers" are not "atheists", they just do not like to be binded by imposed religious laws. And if you realize, such resistance is also spilling over into emotions against moral laws and tradition.

最近我博客上的"Humanitarianism"一文，恰好与今天《联合早报》上黄浩威的《世俗人道主义更行得通》异曲同工，不妨一读。