A Study On Chen Duxiu's Thought Of "Science Instead Of Religion"

As a cultural phenomenon in human society, religion has a certain influence on the social economy, politics, ideology, culture and so on. Therefore, it receives people's widespread attention. In the modern history of China, the intellectuals' attention to the problem of religion has been improved, and a debate on the issue of religion has been launched in the period of the New Culture Movement. The subject of this argument is whether the development of modern China is still in need of religious participation.As a representative of the May 4th Movement and the New Culture Movement, Chen Duxiu is also very concerned about the religious issues. In 1917, Chen Duxiu put forward the idea of "science instead of religion", which represented his basic point of view on religion. Since the Opium War, the traditional social structure of China has been forced to change, the ideological system of Confucianism has been seriously affected, and the crisis of the national faith has been produced. Under this background, some religious people hope that through the development of religious beliefs to maintain moral and realize the development of the China. But in the view of Chen Duxiu, religion itself exist many drawbacks, already cannot adapt to the new social demand. Therefore, he advocated a comprehensive study of the west science and tried to replace religious beliefs with the spirit of science. The idea of "science instead of religion" has been widely supported in China because it caters to the trend of the times when the country is learning from the West. And this idea also played an active role in the initiation and development of modern China.In this paper, through the idea of Chen Duxiu's "science instead of religion", we try to analyze Chen Duxiu's basic views on religion, and sum up the true meaning and intention of his ideas. At the same time, we combined with the representative figures' evaluation of this idea in order to understand the historical impact of this idea. Finally, after a comprehensive analysis of Chen Duxiu's thought of "science instead of religion", we try to explore the reasonable part, and provide reference for the correct view of religion.