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Essay on Eastern Religions
Religion is a holy commitment with that which is alleged to be a religious authenticity. Religion is a universal phenomenon that has played a part in all human culture and so is a much broader, more complex category than the set of beliefs or practices found in any single religious tradition. Jews, Muslims, and puritanical forms of Protestantism prohibit images of God in order to preserve the transcendence and holiness of the divine. But images of holy persons or of the deity are important objects of veneration in Catholicism, in Eastern Orthodox Christianity (in which they are called icons), and in most other religions.
The conventional religions of China were Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. People time and again experienced and adhered to customs of all three religions as well as incorporating a variety of local beliefs into their religious practice. Islam and Christianity were among the more formal and organized religions practiced in China, but these faiths had fewer followers. After gaining control in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party officially eliminated organized religion. The CCP’s move received little resistance because Confucianism is largely secular and because most Chinese adhered to aspects of all three major faiths; thus they lacked strong allegiance to any single religion. Most temples, churches, and schools of Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, and Christianity were converted to secular purposes. Simply with the constitution of 1978 was authorized support again given for the promulgation of formal religion in China. The constitution also stated that the Chinese people had the right to hold no religious beliefs and “to propagate atheism.
The constitution of 1982, the most recent constitution, allows citizens freedom of religious belief and protects legitimate religious activities as defined by the state. (Borneo Research Bulletin (1999)Even before the constitutional changes, ethnic Chinese Muslims, or Hui, as well as other Muslim minority peoples such as the Uygur, Kazakh, and Kirgiz, sustained their belief in Islam......
