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Archive 1 |
Is the ancient Chinese "Lord of the Heaven" actually referred to as "Shang Ti"? It sounds odd to me. User:kt2
In a sense yes, the literal meaning of Shang Di is either "Lord On High" or "Celestial Lord".
The Old Chinese "Zhandai" written here is random guess. The second syllable did not have voicing in Middle Chinese. So I deleted it. User:qrasy
Shangdi and Tian are words referring to the sky. This wiki refers those words to the god? I'm thinking of adding the present usage or alternative usage of those words. 75.49.7.84 ( talk) 02:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
==Neutrali ty== On what grounds is the neutrality of this artical being disputed? There seems to be no POV dispute going on here. That tag should be otherwise removed. Thanatosimii 23:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I am the original editor of this article. Regarding the "Chinese theology" section, some philosophers think there is no equivalent concept of "Being" in ancient Chinese philosophy. For example the historian of ancient Chinese philosophy A. C. Graham. (According to them "Being" is a philosophical concept perculiar to Indo-European cultures) Chinese philosophy is instead "process"-based. Therefore rather than stating that Taiji is the Ground of all beings it might be more accurate to say that Taiji is the Ground of all processes.
However, there are scholars who disagree with this view as well. For example the French sinologist and historian Jacques Gernet. According to his book A History of Chinese Civilisation, ancient Chinese philosophers did dispute issues related to "being" and "non-being", in particular the Neo-Daoists of the 3rd and 4th century AD. Therefore "being" is not a foreign concept in Chinese culture.
In order to maintain the clarity and demonstrate the reliability of each claim, please include references in a date, author, book, chapter, verse format that is consistent with the other references cited. mamgeorge 16:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Temple of Heaven details should be moved to that article, with the relevant points rewritten under attributes. mamgeorge 23:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Anthropomorphizing is often assumed for questions of diety in Chinese religion. This stems from the assumption that attributes of person are added to a character (for example, saying "the chair is lonely"). However, when the origin of the "person" is in question, claiming this is NOT a nuetral point of view, and not factual. If "god" is described as judgemental, kind, angry, and in heaven, than the assumption that "god" is Heaven, or that "god" is anthropomorphized is NOT correct. A factual description would recognize that "god" is described with these characteristics.
While discussing the possibility of anthropomorphizing, assuming all origins are non personal is as much of an unprovable assumption as the obverse. In Chinese history, the "nonpersonal" "appears" to be the "acquired" attribute, not the other way around. Zhou king Wen probably would not have been in agreement with Laozi view of god. An interesting twist in this depiction is the change through time: Shangdi appears to enter literature with "person traits", is later generalized as an impersonal force, and (depending on the school of teaching) reacquires "father" quailities.
Please see the relevant reference in Chinese Mythology.
mamgeorge 19:21, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I question the statement that Shang Di was considered a Creator (originally). As far as I'm aware, ALL scholars agree that in the Shang-Zhou Dynasties, Shang Di was not a creator. The quote given from Mozi (chapter 27) does not mention Shang Di at all, but rather Heaven (Tian). Furthermore, it does not explicitly say that Heaven created the sun, moon stars, seasons, snow, rain, grains, rivers, valleys, etc. It in fact regulated (Zhi4 制) and arranged (Lie4 列) them, but not created (Sheng1 生 or Zao4 造). The Shang Dynasty oracle bone inscriptions also do not claim that (Shang) Di created anything. Bao Pu 21:53, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
hello Mamgeorge
re: "some scholars suggest China is unique in not having a "creation mythology" at all"
re: Mozi
Bao Pu, Thank you for your comments, and the considerate way you made them. I was encouraged by your thoughtfulness.
Dear colleagues, I am delighted by the level of this discussion, which rather restores my faith in Wikipedia. My question: I am impressed to see so much reference to the learned journals but I think our scholarship must also address the arguments of Harvard's Benjamin I. Schwartz, in his standard work, The World of Thought in Ancient China. See 46-7 for his ideas about the usurping Chou Dynasty needing to conflate their god with Shang Di-- "the extreme anxiety of the spokesmen of the new dynasty to identify with the political and religious system of their predecessors." If there are arguments opposed, they should be included too. (I have added nothing to the Wikipedia page, preferring to submit it here.) Prof. G. Leonard, San Francisco State University
hello Mamgeorge,
Re: Nüwa, some scholars like Cai Junsheng (of the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) maintain that her myth goes back to pre-historic (Matriarchical) times. She was said to have created human beings and repaired the sky, but not created the sky and earth. There doesn't seem to be any proof though that her myth is that old.
Re: Mozi, there is an English translation by W.P. Mei at ( http://nacrp.cic.sfu.ca/nacrp/articles/legalmohist/mozi_mei/momei.html) Note: it is old. Mo Zi clearly believed that Shangdi was a conscious anthropomorphic god. Heaven (Tian) seems to be referred to the same way, which makes me think it is a term denoting the place where Shangdi and other royal ancestors resided, and functions similarly to our Western use of "Heaven" as a term for God (e.g. "Heaven help us.") But as for Shangdi creating heaven and earth...
Re: Oracle Bones: I have been collecting references and quotes pertaining to this. Robert Eno has written a very interesting article on the use of Di in the oracle bones but the link to it doesn't seem to be working anymore. I could email it to you as a WORD file though if you are interested. Three quotes:
Bao Pu, Thank you again for your detailed answers and polite reply.
Eiorgiomugini, Hello.
In trying to identify a real source for the three components listed for the Border Sacrifice quotation, I came up with this:
The dating of Shangdi in Chinese thought is based on the following understanding:
Please comment on this if you can add verifiable detail. Thank you!
mamgeorge 15:42, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
The entire section bases its argument upon an obscure Christian book called God's Promise to the Chinese, and of course has no evidence nor reason to back up any of the claims. The source violates Wikipedia:No_original_research#Sources, and the section simply copies over what the book says over. This theory is no more credible than Purushottam Nagesh Oak's theory that the Taj Mahal was built by a Hindu king, nor more reliable than creationists' claim that the Earth is less than 6,000 years old. –- kungming·2 (Talk) 22:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Kungming2, thanks for deleting the unverifiable "More information" section. Practically all those claims are falsehoods confusing the ancient Chinese Shangdi with the modern Christian translation Shangdi. Here are some examples.
These "character etymologies" are sadly misguided. Modern epigraphic research of Oracle and Bronze characters reveals that many traditional explanations based on Seal Characters (Shuowen jiezi, Wieger, Yellowbridge, etc.) were false.
This kind of pseudo-scholarship might be suitable for a Sunday school but not for an encyclopedia.
Mamgeorge, the "Border Sacrifice" was called Jiao 郊 "suburbs", referring to the location of seasonal sacrifices to the gods of heaven and earth. Here are details from Legge's Liji translation [4]. If you would like more references, please contact me through my Talk Page.
Best wishes, Keahapana 04:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but it is easy to forget the majority of people don't have a firm background in the Chinese classics, including many modern-day Chinese who have never read classical Chinese - sorry I did not give a more firm ground upon which I removed that section.
As Keahapana pointed out, 上帝 is often used by Protestants in China to refer to God. The two are very different, however, and the theories that attempt to link them together are rightly called fringe theories, because the vast majority of evidence goes against their stated claims and "evidence".
The symbol that the Shang Dynasty used to symbolize Di (at that time, the word 上, meaning "greater" or "upper" had not yet been added), looked very similar to the pictograph of a star, having similar astronomical meanings with the Zhou's use of Tian (the sky or heaven).
Yet Di was someone related to ancestry and the king's ancestors. The king did not pray to Di directly most of the time; rather, he prayed to his ancestors to intercede and talk to Di. Therefore, any divination and sacrifices to Di would have been done at an ancestor's temple, not at a special altar/temple for Di. And the religion of the ancient Chinese was most definitely not monotheistic - apart from Di, there were the numerous nature spirits and gods of special powers that were worshipped.
My source is Conrad Schirokauer's "A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations," which is the textbook I am now using in my studies at Princeton. For further information, it's probably a good place to begin from.
As for the "Text of the Border Sacrifice" and "Annual Sacrifice Ritual", I would have to look in the Five Classics for them - and I confess I'm only knowledgeable in the Four Books - the Confucian ones.
–- kungming·2 (Talk) 20:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
This Shangdi article is muddled and I'm wondering how it could be rearranged. The current organization is:
I just got a copy of Chang's "Understanding Di and Tian" monograph, which is organized chronologically:
Any suggestions for how Shangdi should be reorganized? Keahapana 02:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Shaddai means something entirely different from Shangdi; even the number and type of morphemes in both are completely different. This kind of folk etymology is typical of religious appropriationist-revisionists. Whoever cleaned up the evangelism, thank you so very much.-- 195.229.236.250 09:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
on kantonese, shang ti or shang di sounds like sheung dai...
the hebrew for almighty is shaddai.... a connection between monotheistic relgions?
it hase to be i think...especially when u read this...a connection between chinese calligraphy and the Genesis of the Old testament...
http://www.cps.org.yu/Innerpeace/Creation/china.html
coincidencies?? or maybe sth. bigger??
what do u think about this?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.60.247.28 ( talk) 16:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Not enough on the connection to Daoism.
67.148.120.100 ( talk) 23:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)stardingo747
The junk etymology appeared to be copied from this
this was probably lifted off wikipedia at an earlier date and therefore we should examine it closely to seperate the junk from truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.160.80 ( talk) 02:39, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
From the earliest eras of Chinese history, Shangdi was officially worshipped through sacrificial rituals. Shangdi is believed to rule over natural and ancestral spirits, who act as His ministers.
notice the His, capitalized. Only christians refer to their god like that. and the fact that the source for that section is just a picture of the temple of heaven is laughable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.160.80 ( talk) 02:43, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I HAVE BEEN LIVING IN CHINA FOR OVER 25 years,I only heared Jude Emperor,Not Shangdi. 219.151.149.122 ( talk) 09:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
The article currently reads:
"Shangdi is not invariant [for he judges a person according to his actions]. On the good-doer He sends down blessings, and on the evil-doer He sends down miseries."[4]
This reference is simply the Chinese text that it was translated from, meaning that the translation was done by a Wikipedia editor. If that sort of thing happens, it has to be a very careful translation. The above is sloppy and there is a lot added to the original. The referenced Chinese reads:
惟上帝不常,作善降之百祥,作不善降之百殃。
When examining the actual Chinese, there is no pronoun. No "he" whatsoever, and certainly not "He", implying the pronoun used by Christians for God. There is nothing here implying that there is any anthropomorphic figure at all. Someone was using wishful thinking, inventing the "evidence" along the way. Tengu800 02:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&pg=PA141#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&pg=PA144#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&pg=PA193#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&pg=PA198#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&pg=PA200#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=jmRxAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=jmRxAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=yCqMneCHMJ4C&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=yCqMneCHMJ4C&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=KoiD_yafPT8C&pg=PA187#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=R0PrjC1Ar7gC&pg=PA50#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=sTPPAsiFDS4C&pg=PA156#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=3V4zalTcXCwC&pg=PA421#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=H3nHpsDBm6QC&pg=PA90#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=R-a2moz_taMC&pg=PT104#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ol6K4ef_c5wC&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=AxWLxjyOUooC&pg=PA60#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 25
Heaven as traditionally believed is comprised of the ancestors (Di) who were ruled over by a supreme ancestor (Shangdi). It was Confucius who first shifted emphasis from Heaven to Earth. The spirit of the whole Analects is in line with this change of emphasis. One good example is the change of emphasis from ancestor worship to filial piety. However, Confucius has never abandoned the idea of Heaven. In the words of Huston Smith, "The extent to which Confucius shifted emphasis from Heaven to Earth should not blind us, however, to the balancing point; namely, that he did not sunder man from Heaven altogether. He never repudiated the main outlines of the worldview of his time — Heaven and Earth, the divine creative pair, half physical and half more-than-physical, ruled over by the Supreme Shang Ti [Shangdi]."* The Analects
http://books.google.com/books?id=nTTYAAAAMAAJ&q=Shangdi#search_anchor
Title Islam and civilizational dialogue: the quest for a truly universal civilization Author Osman Bakar Publisher Published and distributed for the Centre for Civilizational Dialogue of University of Malaya by University of Malaya Press, 1997 Original from the University of Michigan Digitized Jun 30, 2009 ISBN 9831000404, 9789831000403 Length 133 pages
The deity was mentioned in Ming records.
http://www.lasalle.edu/~mcinneshin/356/wk01/mingshilu.htm
14 Mar 1369 [Hong-wu Emperor] The one on high (上帝) will truly be watching and you must not be remiss in your exertions."
30 December 1369 [Hong-wu Emperor] you take up arms against each other and fight on for years without resolution, it will indeed bring calamity to your people, and the One on High (上帝), who loves life, will indeed be displeased.
Vietnamese worship of shangdi and heaven
http://books.google.com/books?id=CAlh7JJYCvAC&pg=PA134#v=onepage&q&f=false
Rajmaan ( talk) 22:16, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Recently user "George Leung" has attempted to impose a Christian interpretation to the article introducing unreliable sources such as Answers in Genesis, mostly material that is produced by American Evangelical agencies trying to trace the origins of Chinese religion to the "Bible" (rather, the historical fact would be that the worship of Shang Di came from the Indo-Europeans of Central Asia, but this is another issue). I have found that the same type of problem was discussed in past months and years. What is new with the edits by George Leung is that he tries to impose the idea that "Shangdi" is now used mostly in a "Christian" context, completely ignoring the long and still developing Confucian and popular theological traditions which contain the same concept.-- Aethelwolf Emsworth ( talk) 12:27, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
Hi George Leung, you asked on my Talk page why I reverted edits and I'll answer here.
If I've inadvertently reverted any changes that follow WP conventions and improve this article, please discuss it here. Best wishes, Keahapana ( talk) 00:38, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello Keehapana,
For now, I will revert, but merge with your suggestions. George Leung ( talk) 21:36, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
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the description there comparing this idea with the Christian God is poorly written and structured, making it unclear which descriptions apply to which. This needs to be reworked to make it more clear what the difference is supposed to be, as I can't tell from what it says there.-- 108.86.123.102 ( talk) 07:27, 26 October 2019 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 |
Is the ancient Chinese "Lord of the Heaven" actually referred to as "Shang Ti"? It sounds odd to me. User:kt2
In a sense yes, the literal meaning of Shang Di is either "Lord On High" or "Celestial Lord".
The Old Chinese "Zhandai" written here is random guess. The second syllable did not have voicing in Middle Chinese. So I deleted it. User:qrasy
Shangdi and Tian are words referring to the sky. This wiki refers those words to the god? I'm thinking of adding the present usage or alternative usage of those words. 75.49.7.84 ( talk) 02:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
==Neutrali ty== On what grounds is the neutrality of this artical being disputed? There seems to be no POV dispute going on here. That tag should be otherwise removed. Thanatosimii 23:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
I am the original editor of this article. Regarding the "Chinese theology" section, some philosophers think there is no equivalent concept of "Being" in ancient Chinese philosophy. For example the historian of ancient Chinese philosophy A. C. Graham. (According to them "Being" is a philosophical concept perculiar to Indo-European cultures) Chinese philosophy is instead "process"-based. Therefore rather than stating that Taiji is the Ground of all beings it might be more accurate to say that Taiji is the Ground of all processes.
However, there are scholars who disagree with this view as well. For example the French sinologist and historian Jacques Gernet. According to his book A History of Chinese Civilisation, ancient Chinese philosophers did dispute issues related to "being" and "non-being", in particular the Neo-Daoists of the 3rd and 4th century AD. Therefore "being" is not a foreign concept in Chinese culture.
In order to maintain the clarity and demonstrate the reliability of each claim, please include references in a date, author, book, chapter, verse format that is consistent with the other references cited. mamgeorge 16:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Temple of Heaven details should be moved to that article, with the relevant points rewritten under attributes. mamgeorge 23:31, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
Anthropomorphizing is often assumed for questions of diety in Chinese religion. This stems from the assumption that attributes of person are added to a character (for example, saying "the chair is lonely"). However, when the origin of the "person" is in question, claiming this is NOT a nuetral point of view, and not factual. If "god" is described as judgemental, kind, angry, and in heaven, than the assumption that "god" is Heaven, or that "god" is anthropomorphized is NOT correct. A factual description would recognize that "god" is described with these characteristics.
While discussing the possibility of anthropomorphizing, assuming all origins are non personal is as much of an unprovable assumption as the obverse. In Chinese history, the "nonpersonal" "appears" to be the "acquired" attribute, not the other way around. Zhou king Wen probably would not have been in agreement with Laozi view of god. An interesting twist in this depiction is the change through time: Shangdi appears to enter literature with "person traits", is later generalized as an impersonal force, and (depending on the school of teaching) reacquires "father" quailities.
Please see the relevant reference in Chinese Mythology.
mamgeorge 19:21, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I question the statement that Shang Di was considered a Creator (originally). As far as I'm aware, ALL scholars agree that in the Shang-Zhou Dynasties, Shang Di was not a creator. The quote given from Mozi (chapter 27) does not mention Shang Di at all, but rather Heaven (Tian). Furthermore, it does not explicitly say that Heaven created the sun, moon stars, seasons, snow, rain, grains, rivers, valleys, etc. It in fact regulated (Zhi4 制) and arranged (Lie4 列) them, but not created (Sheng1 生 or Zao4 造). The Shang Dynasty oracle bone inscriptions also do not claim that (Shang) Di created anything. Bao Pu 21:53, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
hello Mamgeorge
re: "some scholars suggest China is unique in not having a "creation mythology" at all"
re: Mozi
Bao Pu, Thank you for your comments, and the considerate way you made them. I was encouraged by your thoughtfulness.
Dear colleagues, I am delighted by the level of this discussion, which rather restores my faith in Wikipedia. My question: I am impressed to see so much reference to the learned journals but I think our scholarship must also address the arguments of Harvard's Benjamin I. Schwartz, in his standard work, The World of Thought in Ancient China. See 46-7 for his ideas about the usurping Chou Dynasty needing to conflate their god with Shang Di-- "the extreme anxiety of the spokesmen of the new dynasty to identify with the political and religious system of their predecessors." If there are arguments opposed, they should be included too. (I have added nothing to the Wikipedia page, preferring to submit it here.) Prof. G. Leonard, San Francisco State University
hello Mamgeorge,
Re: Nüwa, some scholars like Cai Junsheng (of the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) maintain that her myth goes back to pre-historic (Matriarchical) times. She was said to have created human beings and repaired the sky, but not created the sky and earth. There doesn't seem to be any proof though that her myth is that old.
Re: Mozi, there is an English translation by W.P. Mei at ( http://nacrp.cic.sfu.ca/nacrp/articles/legalmohist/mozi_mei/momei.html) Note: it is old. Mo Zi clearly believed that Shangdi was a conscious anthropomorphic god. Heaven (Tian) seems to be referred to the same way, which makes me think it is a term denoting the place where Shangdi and other royal ancestors resided, and functions similarly to our Western use of "Heaven" as a term for God (e.g. "Heaven help us.") But as for Shangdi creating heaven and earth...
Re: Oracle Bones: I have been collecting references and quotes pertaining to this. Robert Eno has written a very interesting article on the use of Di in the oracle bones but the link to it doesn't seem to be working anymore. I could email it to you as a WORD file though if you are interested. Three quotes:
Bao Pu, Thank you again for your detailed answers and polite reply.
Eiorgiomugini, Hello.
In trying to identify a real source for the three components listed for the Border Sacrifice quotation, I came up with this:
The dating of Shangdi in Chinese thought is based on the following understanding:
Please comment on this if you can add verifiable detail. Thank you!
mamgeorge 15:42, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
The entire section bases its argument upon an obscure Christian book called God's Promise to the Chinese, and of course has no evidence nor reason to back up any of the claims. The source violates Wikipedia:No_original_research#Sources, and the section simply copies over what the book says over. This theory is no more credible than Purushottam Nagesh Oak's theory that the Taj Mahal was built by a Hindu king, nor more reliable than creationists' claim that the Earth is less than 6,000 years old. –- kungming·2 (Talk) 22:10, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Kungming2, thanks for deleting the unverifiable "More information" section. Practically all those claims are falsehoods confusing the ancient Chinese Shangdi with the modern Christian translation Shangdi. Here are some examples.
These "character etymologies" are sadly misguided. Modern epigraphic research of Oracle and Bronze characters reveals that many traditional explanations based on Seal Characters (Shuowen jiezi, Wieger, Yellowbridge, etc.) were false.
This kind of pseudo-scholarship might be suitable for a Sunday school but not for an encyclopedia.
Mamgeorge, the "Border Sacrifice" was called Jiao 郊 "suburbs", referring to the location of seasonal sacrifices to the gods of heaven and earth. Here are details from Legge's Liji translation [4]. If you would like more references, please contact me through my Talk Page.
Best wishes, Keahapana 04:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but it is easy to forget the majority of people don't have a firm background in the Chinese classics, including many modern-day Chinese who have never read classical Chinese - sorry I did not give a more firm ground upon which I removed that section.
As Keahapana pointed out, 上帝 is often used by Protestants in China to refer to God. The two are very different, however, and the theories that attempt to link them together are rightly called fringe theories, because the vast majority of evidence goes against their stated claims and "evidence".
The symbol that the Shang Dynasty used to symbolize Di (at that time, the word 上, meaning "greater" or "upper" had not yet been added), looked very similar to the pictograph of a star, having similar astronomical meanings with the Zhou's use of Tian (the sky or heaven).
Yet Di was someone related to ancestry and the king's ancestors. The king did not pray to Di directly most of the time; rather, he prayed to his ancestors to intercede and talk to Di. Therefore, any divination and sacrifices to Di would have been done at an ancestor's temple, not at a special altar/temple for Di. And the religion of the ancient Chinese was most definitely not monotheistic - apart from Di, there were the numerous nature spirits and gods of special powers that were worshipped.
My source is Conrad Schirokauer's "A Brief History of Chinese and Japanese Civilizations," which is the textbook I am now using in my studies at Princeton. For further information, it's probably a good place to begin from.
As for the "Text of the Border Sacrifice" and "Annual Sacrifice Ritual", I would have to look in the Five Classics for them - and I confess I'm only knowledgeable in the Four Books - the Confucian ones.
–- kungming·2 (Talk) 20:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
This Shangdi article is muddled and I'm wondering how it could be rearranged. The current organization is:
I just got a copy of Chang's "Understanding Di and Tian" monograph, which is organized chronologically:
Any suggestions for how Shangdi should be reorganized? Keahapana 02:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Shaddai means something entirely different from Shangdi; even the number and type of morphemes in both are completely different. This kind of folk etymology is typical of religious appropriationist-revisionists. Whoever cleaned up the evangelism, thank you so very much.-- 195.229.236.250 09:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
on kantonese, shang ti or shang di sounds like sheung dai...
the hebrew for almighty is shaddai.... a connection between monotheistic relgions?
it hase to be i think...especially when u read this...a connection between chinese calligraphy and the Genesis of the Old testament...
http://www.cps.org.yu/Innerpeace/Creation/china.html
coincidencies?? or maybe sth. bigger??
what do u think about this?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.60.247.28 ( talk) 16:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Not enough on the connection to Daoism.
67.148.120.100 ( talk) 23:32, 18 May 2009 (UTC)stardingo747
The junk etymology appeared to be copied from this
this was probably lifted off wikipedia at an earlier date and therefore we should examine it closely to seperate the junk from truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.160.80 ( talk) 02:39, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
From the earliest eras of Chinese history, Shangdi was officially worshipped through sacrificial rituals. Shangdi is believed to rule over natural and ancestral spirits, who act as His ministers.
notice the His, capitalized. Only christians refer to their god like that. and the fact that the source for that section is just a picture of the temple of heaven is laughable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.160.80 ( talk) 02:43, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
I HAVE BEEN LIVING IN CHINA FOR OVER 25 years,I only heared Jude Emperor,Not Shangdi. 219.151.149.122 ( talk) 09:57, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
The article currently reads:
"Shangdi is not invariant [for he judges a person according to his actions]. On the good-doer He sends down blessings, and on the evil-doer He sends down miseries."[4]
This reference is simply the Chinese text that it was translated from, meaning that the translation was done by a Wikipedia editor. If that sort of thing happens, it has to be a very careful translation. The above is sloppy and there is a lot added to the original. The referenced Chinese reads:
惟上帝不常,作善降之百祥,作不善降之百殃。
When examining the actual Chinese, there is no pronoun. No "he" whatsoever, and certainly not "He", implying the pronoun used by Christians for God. There is nothing here implying that there is any anthropomorphic figure at all. Someone was using wishful thinking, inventing the "evidence" along the way. Tengu800 02:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)
http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&pg=PA141#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&pg=PA144#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&pg=PA193#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&pg=PA198#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=tAE2OJ9bPG0C&pg=PA200#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=jmRxAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=jmRxAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=yCqMneCHMJ4C&pg=PA24#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=yCqMneCHMJ4C&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=KoiD_yafPT8C&pg=PA187#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=R0PrjC1Ar7gC&pg=PA50#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=sTPPAsiFDS4C&pg=PA156#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=3V4zalTcXCwC&pg=PA421#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=H3nHpsDBm6QC&pg=PA90#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=R-a2moz_taMC&pg=PT104#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ol6K4ef_c5wC&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=AxWLxjyOUooC&pg=PA60#v=onepage&q&f=false
Page 25
Heaven as traditionally believed is comprised of the ancestors (Di) who were ruled over by a supreme ancestor (Shangdi). It was Confucius who first shifted emphasis from Heaven to Earth. The spirit of the whole Analects is in line with this change of emphasis. One good example is the change of emphasis from ancestor worship to filial piety. However, Confucius has never abandoned the idea of Heaven. In the words of Huston Smith, "The extent to which Confucius shifted emphasis from Heaven to Earth should not blind us, however, to the balancing point; namely, that he did not sunder man from Heaven altogether. He never repudiated the main outlines of the worldview of his time — Heaven and Earth, the divine creative pair, half physical and half more-than-physical, ruled over by the Supreme Shang Ti [Shangdi]."* The Analects
http://books.google.com/books?id=nTTYAAAAMAAJ&q=Shangdi#search_anchor
Title Islam and civilizational dialogue: the quest for a truly universal civilization Author Osman Bakar Publisher Published and distributed for the Centre for Civilizational Dialogue of University of Malaya by University of Malaya Press, 1997 Original from the University of Michigan Digitized Jun 30, 2009 ISBN 9831000404, 9789831000403 Length 133 pages
The deity was mentioned in Ming records.
http://www.lasalle.edu/~mcinneshin/356/wk01/mingshilu.htm
14 Mar 1369 [Hong-wu Emperor] The one on high (上帝) will truly be watching and you must not be remiss in your exertions."
30 December 1369 [Hong-wu Emperor] you take up arms against each other and fight on for years without resolution, it will indeed bring calamity to your people, and the One on High (上帝), who loves life, will indeed be displeased.
Vietnamese worship of shangdi and heaven
http://books.google.com/books?id=CAlh7JJYCvAC&pg=PA134#v=onepage&q&f=false
Rajmaan ( talk) 22:16, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
Recently user "George Leung" has attempted to impose a Christian interpretation to the article introducing unreliable sources such as Answers in Genesis, mostly material that is produced by American Evangelical agencies trying to trace the origins of Chinese religion to the "Bible" (rather, the historical fact would be that the worship of Shang Di came from the Indo-Europeans of Central Asia, but this is another issue). I have found that the same type of problem was discussed in past months and years. What is new with the edits by George Leung is that he tries to impose the idea that "Shangdi" is now used mostly in a "Christian" context, completely ignoring the long and still developing Confucian and popular theological traditions which contain the same concept.-- Aethelwolf Emsworth ( talk) 12:27, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
Hi George Leung, you asked on my Talk page why I reverted edits and I'll answer here.
If I've inadvertently reverted any changes that follow WP conventions and improve this article, please discuss it here. Best wishes, Keahapana ( talk) 00:38, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello Keehapana,
For now, I will revert, but merge with your suggestions. George Leung ( talk) 21:36, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
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the description there comparing this idea with the Christian God is poorly written and structured, making it unclear which descriptions apply to which. This needs to be reworked to make it more clear what the difference is supposed to be, as I can't tell from what it says there.-- 108.86.123.102 ( talk) 07:27, 26 October 2019 (UTC)