This book explores the different pathways Taoism took in that search, touching at many points on the other interrelated facets of Chinese religion in ...

The text begins by analyzing the concept of knowledge, and what constitut.

The author briefs that spirituality has something to do with religion and humanism does not. She then says that to be a humanist means that one cannot be spiritual. The underlying thought here is pejorative and indicative that humanists have no heart. The author sets out to redress such a view. She reviews that while humanists certainly reject belief in God, religion, and the supernatural, and some might claim that ‘spirituality’ does not exist, other humanists are prepared to accept it (...) as a facet of human life in a secular sense and such acceptance. The Oxford English Dictionary links the word spiritual with ecclesiastical persons, revenue, or property, with what is sacred and holy, and also with that old dualism of spirit and matter, suggesting that it is concerned with the spirit as opposed to material or worldly interests. (shrink)

The exploration of Taoism and T'ai Chi begins by examining their origins and affiliations under the title of Beginnings.

The Charvakas were the sceptic‐materialists of classical India, existing about the same time as the beginnings of early atheistic Buddhism and overlapping with the rise of both Buddhism and Jainism. This chapter examines the primary source literature that focuses on Charvakas in order to glean information about them and to assess the extent of materialist influence. Materialists were of sufficient influence, it seems, for other sects to take heed of them and to offer criticism of their beliefs. The materialists challenged (...) the very basis of established religion and gained the displeasure not just of the orthodox Hindus but also of the heterodox Buddhists and Jains, who accused them of lacking any morality, hence the long‐lasting accusation of hedonism that has been attached to the Charvakas. Another, more well‐known, text that castigates the materialists is the Bhagavad Gita written perhaps around the second century BCE. (shrink)