Tao vs. Ren

Tao vs. Ren

Brad Czopek
Area Studies
There are three major "religions" in China: Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism.   Buddhism came from India, but the other two originated in China.   This is a comparison between those two religions.   In modern times there are lots of people that try to maintain a balance between the three, but this has not always been the case.   There have been times when the followers of one religion were persecuted by the people of another religion.   Coming into this report, I knew basically nothing about the topics that I chose to discuss, which has made this an educational experience for me.   Most of the books on Taoism in the library were gone, so I had to settle for the information that I could get from books on general Chinese philosophy, so my knowledge in this area is not as specialized as it is for Confucianism, but I think that it will still allow me to write an informed comparison of the two.   With no further ado, I bring you the comparison between Taoism and Confucianism.
Taoism and Confucianism are similar in several ways.   They were both founded within the same period of time, and in fact, the two founders supposedly met in 518 BC, when Confucius went to Lao Tzu, who was at the time the curator of royal archives, and studied ancient ceremonies with him.   They both believed in the importance of names, Lao Tzu saying that having a name is the difference between existence and non existence, and Confucius thinking that all would become chaos if the names were not straightened so that objects were actually what their names implied.   "A square vase that is not square- square vase indeed!"(Leys, 27), which refers to a type of pot called a gu which means square pot in Chinese, but which had evolved so that it was not square anymore.   Confucius and Lao Tzu agreed on things, such as the necessity of maintaining rituals and ceremonies, and they both thought that there was an orderly connection between nature, people, and heaven.   Taoism believes in...