Religions of Ancient Civilizations

Each religion is the people’s way of explaining the phenomenon’s of life. When a religion wouldn’t comply with what the people wanted it to do for them, often a new one would spring up. Religions which would be in favor of the people obeying the rulers would be adopted by the governing class, and they would be encouraged the commoners to participate in the particular religion (McGill). All three religions came up because of the people’s need for an explanation of life and its purpose. Also to fulfill ancient people’s needs to have something larger than life governing it.

Ancient China’s religions of Confucianism and Legalism focused on political structure and inter class relations, but Daoism was mostly kept separate from the government. Confucianism’s approach to inter class relationships was “do unto others as your status and theirs dictate” (Stearns 47). Sort of like Confucianism, Legalism upheld the view of class relationships between the militant and commoner classes. Legalism’s view on relationships between rulers and the ruled was that “the army would control and the people would labor” (Stearns 49).Daoism stayed unrelated to politics until persuaded otherwise during the Han dynasty, though it still clung to “humility and frugal living” as its center, and kept politics as a side note (Stearns 50). These three religions of Ancient China Focused upon relationships instead of trying to explain every day occurrences like other earlier religions.

Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece’s religions were focused on how to explain phenomenon of everyday in an “of-this-world” approach. Greece’s religion was connected to everyday life giving it an applicable quality (Duiker 112). Ancient Rome and Greece worshiped almost the same deities just with different names. Philosophy might be considered a religion because of the huge affect it had on their societies. Plato suggested that through reasoning we may be able to understand the “three perfect forms” of the absolute truth, good, and beautiful, which were to him the basic parts of the universe (Stearns 94). Stoicism, another religion formulated by the Ancient Greeks and Romans, focused on “inner moral independence, to be cultivated by strict discipline of the body and by personal bravery” (Stearns 93).

The ancient religions of Greece, Rome, and China were the base for the new religions to come and each had its effect on the next. An example could be when Roman and Greece’s religion was been likened to Confucianism “although with greater emphasis on skeptical questioning and abstract questioning about the basic nature of humanity and the universe” (Stearns 94). When their religious system in place would not satisfy the people they would simply come up with a new one that better solved their personal problems and their need for something larger in life. Since each religion was a major part of each culture’s life it changed the course of their life dramatically. Since each religion affected life so much it’s no secret that religions changed the course of history. This is why the understanding of the ancient civilizations is important to the understanding of Modern World History.