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<blockquote data-quote="covaithe" data-source="post: 4499957" data-attributes="member: 46559">I spent a little time this morning looking at the Wikipedia entry for chinese mythology.&nbsp; It's long and confusing, which is not surprising for a country with that much history, that has gone through a number of very different dominant religions throughout its history.&nbsp; My impression is that they seem to be very polytheistic, with heaven being a celestial court ruled over by the Jade Emperor, who is wise and good and remote and possibly a dragon sometimes.&nbsp; There are many, many minor deities, for rain and snow and lovers and funny-shaped rocks and so forth.&nbsp; These often squabble and reproduce in surprising ways.&nbsp; Former emperors or empresses who are particularly revered often seem to find a place in the pantheon, which sort of ties into the whole Confucian thing that the emperor is halfway to being a deity already.&nbsp; Anyway, I think strict monotheism would be wrong, but a heaven full of obscure deities ruled by one uber-god makes sense.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="covaithe, post: 4499957, member: 46559"] I spent a little time this morning looking at the Wikipedia entry for chinese mythology. It's long and confusing, which is not surprising for a country with that much history, that has gone through a number of very different dominant religions throughout its history. My impression is that they seem to be very polytheistic, with heaven being a celestial court ruled over by the Jade Emperor, who is wise and good and remote and possibly a dragon sometimes. There are many, many minor deities, for rain and snow and lovers and funny-shaped rocks and so forth. These often squabble and reproduce in surprising ways. Former emperors or empresses who are particularly revered often seem to find a place in the pantheon, which sort of ties into the whole Confucian thing that the emperor is halfway to being a deity already. Anyway, I think strict monotheism would be wrong, but a heaven full of obscure deities ruled by one uber-god makes sense. [/QUOTE]

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