Disenchantment: Induction between Heaven and Man, Modern Science, and the Evolution of the Concept of the Universe in the Late Qing Dynasty
About This Novel
In the long tradition of China, there is no lack of belief and reverence for heaven, heaven, countless personal gods, ghosts and other divine beings in national rituals and daily life. However, since the early years of the Republic of China, these sacred beings have basically disappeared from the public life of the middle and upper classes. The highest representatives of political power no longer claim to be ordered by heaven. Most of the public speeches of intellectuals no longer strive to prove that heaven is a sacred existence worthy of awe and belief. Belief in personal gods and various forms of belief based on the laws of yin and yang and the five elements have become suspicious in public speech. How did this fundamental change occur? Why did this change happen? Starting from the perspective of intellectual history, this book examines the challenges that Christian natural theology and the modern scientific knowledge contained in it posed to the traditional cosmology in the late Qing Dynasty. It also examines how local intellectuals used the theory of evolution based on biological evolution to respond to the challenge, thereby explaining the disenchantment of the traditional cosmology and the weakening of the legitimacy of faith traditions.
What Readers Think
Rating
Community(0)
Rating
Community(0)
