user2006 wrote
1. Taoism focuses more on individuals rather than the whole of humanity, in which no one HAS to serve good to humanity. I know Confucianism encourages it and doesn't force, but Taoism doesn't force at all, it is your choice to do it or not, while Confucianism is like "Do good to humanity, do good to yourself!" Confucianism at some point just sounds like propaganda at its strange parts.
First i will begin explaining what i consider "better" about confucianism.
Confucianism, also known as
Ruism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient
China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, a way of governing, or simply a way of life
Now the first thing i like about Confucianism, is that it is a philosophy based upon rationalism.
And when a confucian writes about events, or analyses history, a confician attempts to leave his religious beliefs at home, and records those events accurately, and sticks to what can be proven, at face value.
Historical works, that recorded the "warring states period" and even pre-dated the "old testament" were written by more contemporary scholars, than religious scholars, and the "Zuo Zhuan" is thought to be a contemporary recording of the "warring states period".
The Zuo Zhuan generally translated
The Zuo Tradition or
The Commentary of Zuo, is an ancient Chinese narrative history that is traditionally regarded as a commentary on the ancient Chinese chronicle
Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu 春秋). It comprises 30 chapters covering a period from 722 to 468 BC, and focuses mainly on political, diplomatic, and military affairs from that era. The
Zuo zhuan is famous for its "relentlessly realistic" style, and recounts many tense and dramatic episodes, such as battles and fights, royal assassinations and murder of concubines, deception and intrigue, excesses, citizens' oppression and insurgences, and appearances of ghosts and cosmic portents
user2006 wrote....
2. Taoism inspired Confucianism and even Buddhism.
Saying that Taoism inspired confucianism, is just another was of saying that Taoists mostly ditched their religious practices and beliefs in favour of something more realistic in nature. More contemporary, and less damaging.
user2006 wrote...
3. Taoism holds general positions on life, while Confucianism holds traditional views that will be outdated, such as that women are inferior, and that children are to obey adults even it means they will be submissive to whatever their parents need.
Can you please provide citation for this.
Now, i will show what i believe to be the fatal weaknesses in Taoism. And i will begin by exemplifying how Taoists, nearly caused a true event in Chinese history, known as "the great flood", to become regarded as "mythology".
People who follow this religion believe that doing something with words, thoughts,
symbolic actions, etc. can make things in the real world change. That idea is hard to understand. Here is an example: There is an old story that says China was once covered by a flood. The world was saved from the flood by 禹 Yǔ, who had only one leg that worked. Yǔ went to different parts of China in a special order, and he dug ditches to let the flood water go into the ocean. When something very bad happens in the world, a Daoist priest can go to the Daoist temple and act out what Yǔ did, and just doing that will make the world get fixed.
So from above, we clearly see that not only would stupid religious beliefs "cause a flood", by not doing anything about it. Religious beliefs would also fail to use the correct methods in which to tackle a flood. And also, those crazy beliefs will cause others in the future, to believe that "the flood" event was mythology, and the story may become mythologisised.
But was the Chinese great flood, mythology? No, it was not.
The
Great Flood of Gun-Yu was a major flood event in
ancient China that allegedly continued for at least two generations, which resulted in great population displacements among other disasters, such as storms and famine. People left their homes to live on the high hills and mounts, or nest on the trees.
Now according to mythology, created by Taoists, the date of the great flood is wrong.
According to mythological and historical sources, it is traditionally dated to the third millennium BCE, or about 2300-2200 BC, during the reign of
Emperor Yao.
However, according to archaeologists the event occured 1900bc
However, archaeological evidence of an
outburst flood on the Yellow River, comparable to similar
severe events in the world in the past 10,000 years, has been dated to about 1900 BC (
But most importantly, "it did happen".
But, due to religious beliefs such as Taoism, the flood narrative got fictionalised, and mistaken for myth.
This was due to all kinds of religious belief being attributed to it.
The story of the Great Flood plays a dramatic role in
Chinese mythology, and its various versions present a number of examples of the
flood myth motif around the world. Flood narratives in Chinese mythology share certain common features, despite being somewhat lacking in internal consistency as well as incorporating various magical transformations and divine or semi-divine interventions like
Nüwa.
Another myth attributed to "the great flood story" was the flood being a punishment for human sin".
However, luckily we do also have contemporary historic records of the flood event, that are far more rational.
According to rational thinkers at the time, the flood could be countered by building dikes and dams, and canals and creating channels aswell as teaching people how to construct this.
flooding is alleviated by constructing
dikes and
dams (such as the efforts of
Gun), digging
canals (as devised by
Yu the Great), widening or deepening existing channels, and teaching these skills to others.
From this event, China pretty much ditched religious belief, and focused on education, and intelligence
During the course of fighting, surviving, and eventually getting the inundation problems under control, much progress was also made in terms of land management, beast control, and agricultural techniques. These and other developments are integral to the narrative, and exemplify a wider approach to human health and societal well being than
emergency management of the flood and its immediate effects.
Now there are plenty other true stories from the ancient Chinese period that became fictionalised due to religious attributions destroying any believability in those stories.
A good example is King Zhou and Daji.
King Zhou was a king that got led astray by a beautiful woman named Daji.
He took his eyes off the ball, and began spending his days with Daji in his wine pool. where they would swim and make love in red wine, whilst watching POWS be tortured in front of them.
King Zhou was so drunk and led astray, he was unable to defend his kingdom when his enemies burnt it to a crisp.
This story became mythologisised by religious beliefs being attributed to it.
But it is in fact a true historical account
Now i will end this round with some Confucian quotes
Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.
It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.
Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.
Death and life have their determined appointments; riches and honors depend upon heaven.
Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
Now, i do believe "Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you."
pre-dates the OT quote.
Confucius 551–479 BC)
If it is the fact that you find the "quantity" of argument too much to deal with, you could try not engaging with the opponent. You could try simply building your own case, and then finish by concluding that this is the correct conclusion. Therefore regardless of what my opponent says, it cannot be true, because "this is true".
Though that does not always work either. I was met with this when i first came on here. I took on a challenge and then when i went to look at the my opponents round 1 argument i was met with a 10,000 character great wall of text. And i thought "how on earth am i supposed to refute all of that"? Where do i even begin? What are his key points to refute, and what are not? So i decided to just skip it. And put forward my own argument and let him refute me instead. Though i have noticed a voter may view failing to refute an opponents argument = validating their argument, and may not see that you refuted their entire argument, when you offered a conclusion that your own argument was the correct conclusion.
Sorry for forfeiting. Guess a vote against me will be my teacher of being responsible. I am still relatively new and not as skilled.
I agree with Nevets on the time for arguments, but disagree on the character limit.
Based on what you presented in R1, you might want to go down to about 5000 characters. This will force you to be selective in what you reply to, which is a good skill to master.
You should make your debates 30,000 characters.
You don't need to use all 30,000 characters. But at least then you will have more room to make up for incidents like this.
Also you should extend how much time you give for arguments to be presented
The reason I wrote this short is that I am basically out of time. I had to attend class meetings at online school WHILST writing it because I simply don't want to forfeit. Now that the timer is refreshed, I can take my sweet time.
Good luck to my opponent.
I accepted this challenge as confucianism sits well with my own outlook.