Essay about Religion in Ancient China and Egypt - 1569 Words

Dixon 1 Daniel Dixon Dr. Campbell History 114 3/20/14 Religion in Ancient China and Egypt Religion has played a very important role in society and the history of mankind for over thousands of years. Originally created by ancient peoples as a way to explain the unknown, religion has greatly evolved and spread across the globe. As new religions have formed and spread, the diversity and similarities between these new religions have also increased, especially due to their geographic locations. Two civilizations in particular with both similar and distinct religions are ancient China, and ancient Egypt. Ancient Chinese religion and ancient Egyptian religion share many things in common with each other, yet at the same time they are†¦show more content†¦The people who lived under the Shang Dynasty strongly believed that whenever their ancestors died, they became similar to gods, and deserved to be worshipped as if they too were gods. Each family in the Shang Dynasty would not only worship the gods, but would also worship their own anc estors. Along with ancestor worship, during the late Shang Dynasty, people in ancient China also began to use written oracle bones to try to predict the future and also to communicate with the gods. Ancient China and ancient Egypt were both two sophisticated civilizations that created a religion as a way to explain the natural phenomena they encountered and the unknown. Although different in many ways, their religions do share many similarities with each other. One of these similarities is that both of the religions are polytheistic. In both Chinese and Egyptian religion, there are many different gods, and each god rules in their own domain. However, not only do both religions have more than one god in them, but also many of the gods from both religions are very similar to each other in the sense that they rule over the exact same thing. For example in ancient Chinese religion there is a sky god, just like the sky god in ancient Egyptian religion. Another similarity that both religi ons have in common with each other is that each religion has it’s own â€Å"high god† that rules above all of the other gods. For the Chinese it is Shang-Ti, the supreme god who rules aboveShow MoreRelatedMesopotamia, Egypt and China Essay871 Words   |  4 PagesThe civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and China were all different but were also developed similar ways of doing things. The political, economic and intellectual outlooks of these ancient peoples say a lot about their ways of life. The religious views of Egypt and Mesopotamia were rather different. II. Politics The political thinking of these ancient civilizations definitely had their differences and also their similarities. A. 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