From Religion To Humanism

It's discussed in this article that the Chinese philosophy of which the characteristic is humanist morality and the nature of life, how came into being from the older god-religion thought and developed gradually. The god- religion in Yinshan gives birth to humanist morality and the nature of life. It's a kind of religion mode taken the god as Supreme God and mixed by nature-worship and ancestor-worship, whose characteristic is the god have no dialogue with human being. So that, if the rulers of human being want to know the will of the God, they have no ways but divination and the appearance of gone ruler's ghost. This communication mode in nature has the possibility of human factor's interposition. So during the event of Pangeng Qianyin, the result of divination is a departure from ruler's will. Thus the effect and the judgment standard of divination became a problem. The "benefit people" idea is introduced to convince opponent of obeying. At the same time, the god's non-general experience difficulty appeared. For solving this problem, the idea emphasizing on morality was introduced by Pangeng. Just in the period of Pangeng Qianyin, the two factors—"benefit people" and the idea emphasizing on morality were applied in the explanation system of god-religion. But, in fact it started a deconstruction function on god-religion.The most important deconstruction factor of humanist morality and the nature of life on god-religion is that the value judgment standard is given legal force to the god. This is the right significance of Zuji's command on Pangeng. The gods were no longer the wantonly-acting god without principle, and became a humanism god taken loyalism and morality as standard to rewards and punishments. Although this loyalism and morality is just extrinsic acting standard, but its important advance of humanist morality. Later period of Yinshang-the period of Zhouwang, tremendous changes of the country forced the people the think about the thing-in-itself of god. Some person headed by Zhouwang thinks the god relied on consanguinity, but after giving the first summons, the god can do nothing to the human, so they can enjoy a freedom without restraint and ignore the result of divination. It's a kind of mechanistic idea about the god caused by extreme expand of desire in human-self. And it's negative advance of humanist morality and the nature of life. Some person headed by Fushi emotionally didn't want to give up the former idea on god, but they had to admit that the god isn't relying on consanguinity and is public and common. This cognition turned the god from personality-god to logos-god.After the destruction of Yinshang, Jizi, as a survival of the past age, summarized the former ideas. In divination, he took human's management as important factor and stipulated the tiptop standard as "benefit people" idea. But his idea still is simple and unsophisticated and mixed. The true pioneer of idea on humanist morality and the nature of life is Zhou Wuwang. As the leader of Zhou, he is the winner,. It is only natural that the Wuwang summed up the experience why such a small country can win the war and pacify the loser of Yin people. The core idea of Wuwang is his concept of Supreme God. He formerly endowed the Supreme God with a signification of a common humanist morality and the nature of life taken as value judgment-standard. By this core idea, he chose an heir ignoring the result of divination and he can have a reasonable idea about death. So, by the effort of Wuwang, the god-religion as a thinking mode can't stand no longer. The thinking mode necessarily turned to the mode of humanist morality and the nature of life. Zhougong filtering this mode into people's minds, because Wuwang died before his time.In conclusion, by gradual process of philosophic thinking in300 years, the god-religion idea vanished gradually and the humanist morality and the nature of life, became a start line of Chinese people's philosophic thinking.