• HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m no expert but I’m pretty sure there’s both a religion and a philosophy. Taoism and confucianism are the ones that are more philosophical than religious but even taoism has a fair amount of woo baked in. Don’t know shit about confucianism except all the times Lao Tse pokes at Kung Tse in the Zhuangzhi, which is probably a bit skewed perspective. I made a cursory study of some of Eastern philosophy a few years back. Went a bit into the religious aspects but lacked the cultural background to properly understand without a teacher so I stuck mostly to just the philosophy (which was far less inscrutable than the Zhuangzhi, for example). It’s a western mistake to necessarily separate the two, from what I understand. Still worth trying to understand tho.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Of course there is both. You can say the same thing about every religion that has established itself. There have been great minds who wrote stuff down in all the major faiths. I don’t think theists are dumb people. You can for example study Thomas Aquinas and I dare anyone to say he wasn’t sharp but that won’t make Catholicism not a religion.