English: Tao Te Ching Essay

Submitted By jackieojeda96
Words: 738
Pages: 3
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English
Jackeline Ojeda
English 4
Miss. Fanelli
December 19, 2014
Confucianism vs. Taoism
Confucianism and Taoism are two religions that we don’t really talk about in a day to day basis, but they were and still are a very important part of different parts of the world and they have so many history behind them. I both of the philosophies they are concerned with the quality of life and the condition of the people. Although Confucianism is more dominant, the both have had a huge impact on Chinese culture. They have similarities and differences, some people may think is the same, but they have big differences and that’s what we want to discuss.
Confucianism as we all know was founded by Confucius, he was a leader and was born on 551
BC, and its theories is based on the “Tao”. Taoism on the other hand was founded by Laozi in
China. One of the three differences between the two religions is that Confucianism encouraged to respect others, keep promises and maybe even study if you still have the energy and strength to do so, in the Analects Confucius states this by saying “ If when all that is done, he has energy to spare, then let him study the polite arts.” (Pg. 214). On the other hand Taoism does not say the same thing he is basically telling the people that follow the religion to not look up to others and just withdraw from society and that people should be absent for knowledge, this is stated in the
Tao Te Ching, “ He always keeps them innocent from knowledge and free from desire” (pg.
210). From what we can see here that there are major differences as to how they act towards each other in a day to day basis.
Another difference between this two ancient religions is that in Confucianism it encouraged the leaders to govern their people not by doing mean things or by acting rude towards, but instead be nice to them so they don't run away and instead they stay happy with the leader they have. This I got from the Analects in which Confucius states that " Govern them by moral force, keep order

among them by ritual and they will keep their self respect." (pg.214). This just proves what I said before. Now Taoism doesn't think the same instead they state something completely different in the Tao Te Ching, this is what they think towards governing people, " Not to honor men of worth will keep the people from contention not to value goods which are hard to come by will keep them from theft." (Pg. 210). Basically what this is saying is that they should not look up at leaders or people that govern them, because they will not make them happy, they want their people to withdraw from
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