Why the Chinese are more attracted to GOD that can give them wealth rather than GOD that would save their?

"I'm not saying all Chinese, but many Chinese are still pagan"

Let me start by saying that I am not religious. I am not quite "atheist" either, since life itself is a mystery and as a human being, I do have a yearn for spiritial connection. But I always approach religion and faith in a more criticically fashion or a more scholary approach. You will just have to pardon me if this approah will offend any of you.

I assume your beliefs belong to the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition since you brought up the word "pagan" and you spelled "God" with a capital G, hence one God as opposed to many "gods".

But for argument sake, I will assume you are Christian because pagans is what Christians would call people of other faiths.

People tend to forget that Christianity is a western religion despite the fact that it originated in the near east or middle east, specifically israel. It is relatively "new" if you compared to all the "pagan" religions that existed before. Although Christianity stems from Judaism, which is older, there is nevertheless no "historic or archaelogical" proof that Judaism is the first religion in the world despite the wonderful stories it tells us about the creation of the world.

Since Christianity is a messianic faith, that is it followers continuously seek to convert people to its faith; it is no surprise that when the western world (most important through Rome first) expand its power and territory into the rest of the world, a lot of people were embraced into its Christian faith. Some were converted through "reasoning" while others through "force".

Now when speaking of China and its religion, it is a different matter. If you go back in time, China was for most of her history a dominant regional power of the far east. I will list five important reasons to why China was never "conquered" by the Christian faith.

Firstly, China was never conquered by the West or by any other race for that matter. The mongolians and manchus were the only two peoples that conquered China as a "whole" but they were themselves east asians (like the chinese) and has been in touch with chinese civilization and cultures for centuries. There were some contacts with the west but only limited through trade with the exception of later times when the jesuits priests arrived in China.

FYI: jewish settlers arrived in China quite early (definitely centuries before the mongol conquest of China) but their communities were small and did not make any significant change in chinese religious thought.

Secondly, Ancient China was an old civilization dominated by the court of the emperor and its confucian scholars who accepted the emperor rule as a "mandate" of heaven for he was known as the son of heaven and by confucian code of ethics. In ancient chinese thoughts no one (earthly power that is) is higher than the emperor. FYI:it took buddhism almost 400 years to permeate chinese culture and thoughts. One of the situation they faced is that unlike India or the west, the chinese emperor power is above even those of holy men (in ancient india for example the influence of holy men equal or in some cases dominates rulers like the pope did in the western world). Most importanly Confucianism rejects any idea of a higher God or gods. It is not a religion and its focus is on how to create a perfect or organized country and society. I remember one of Mencius (one of Confucius disciples) followers ask him about what the relationship is between man and god. Mencius replied, how can you properly serve god if you can not act as a civilized human being first, hence create a peacefull, productive and organized society. They were in a sense realists.

Thirdly, China has its own native religions which is Taoism and its "sinicized" version of Buddhism. Although Buddhism originated in India, it took almost three to four centuries of "chinese influence" for it to take roots. That is why Chinese Buddhism or east asian buddhism is very different than other buddhist branches around the world. FYI: buddhism is different than christianity. Buddhists was and still is a nearly extinct religion in a Hindu dominated India. There is no central power of Buddhist center in the ancient world,unlike other religions like Christianity with its powerfull centre in Rome. Buddhism own survival depended on how effectively it was able to integrate into a country. That is why each branches of Buddhism has absorbed the native traditions of a country it resides in. When buddhism was integrated with Chinese native culture and thought, it became "acceptable" to the Chinese people.

Fourthly, Christianity with its centre in Rome (yes I am aware of the other branches of Christianity but Roman Catholics still is the dominant form of Christianity with its highly organized centre) is tied to western culture. Christianity therefore unlike Buddhism was able to "retain" its "pure" doctrine without absorbing other countries native religions.

FYI: there w

It maybe that the Chinese are more into superstitions than religion. Most of them do not involve a direct deity worship but are based around a philosophy.Due to this China's home growth religions do not have a clear afterlife. Even in some of China's religions you can still get out of hell. This coupled with Chinas atheistic view and the number of poor makes more worthwhile to worship a superstitious god that can give them a richer life than a foreign god, thats seems unrealistic to them, with a better afterlife.

what's wrong with being pagan?...
i'm partially pagan myself, plus atheist plus i believe in miracles and science...

maybe soul is a kinda organ...
some people have it developed, some don't...
like some people can't move their ears up and down...

can you move your ears?...
if no, imagine someone says -- if you won't be nice you will never move your ears...
sounds interesting? -- unlikely...
coz you can't move them at the moment...
and the pleasure doesn't seem real...

i can move my ears...
does it make me better than those who can't?...
nay, just different...
maybe someone envious would want to cut them...
or clone...
to prevent me from doing something he can't...

money is very material, you can buy food, clothes, cars, houses...
what you value...
people's respect and attention...
even a wife or a husband, like a pet...

who knows, maybe there is no "next life", what then?...
so basically it's all about values...

five kids, each has a penny and they are discussing whether it's better to buy lollipops, biscuits or chocolates...

you just buy what you want to eat...
you never know beforehand whether it's yummy or not...
unless you bought it before...

it's not the choice you make...
it's something in you which leads you to that choice...

Chinese people choose what they value most...
a hot pot now attracts more than a harp then...
it's just not everyone can play the harp...;)

My God!

More Chinese facts may help you to understand China
http://www.chinafacttours.com/facts/

lol. Most of the Chinese in mainland China don't even know what Tua Pek Kong is. It's just a Malaysia and Singapore thing. The Communist regime in China is largely secular. They don't allow state-sanctioned churches and other religious organisations, but many Chinese are Buddhists, which means they believe in Karma (cause-and-effect) and believe that the Buddha would save their "soul" in the next life.

Another thing to add: I won't side with my race here. I admit most Chinese are greedy. They pray to the God of Fortune (cai shen ye) hoping to strike lottery or win at mahjong games.

Supposing your question is sincere, I'll answer with some of my experiences with them from the last few years of casual conversation.

Any god outside China is foreign to them. They cannot readily accept stories that are almost second nature to westerners because they do not have any background at to stand on. A straight forward message of soul-saving good news sounds utterly and completely strange to them.

In China, belief in the money god range anywhere from real to simply superstitious. Either way, it reaches back into 5,000 years of untouched history and culture. That's older than Christian message of salvation for the world. The Chinese are astonishingly resilient to foreign influences, religious jargon is just another foreign concept.

Because Chinese people believe in an afterlife that's similar to the current, but instead of working, money is "earned" by paper offerings from family. So, in a way, it's something they don't have to worry about.

So, Chinese people are more worried about their current life. Hence, they would be more attracted to gods that can help them with current life situations, whether it be wealth, health, love, luck, career.

I agree with you, majority of the chinese people needs God of Wealth as top priority in their daily life.

I'm atheist, and all of the people I know are atheists, at most we're fascinated by haunting ghost stories.

Why are you directing this question directly to the Chinese? The Chinese believe in many different religions. They're not all people who believe in a thousand gods. This question just shows how ignorant you are.

Normally when Chinese are concerned, they will believe in anything and any god when they are in deep troubles. Chinese history showed that many are superstitious and greedy at times. The Chinese philosophy are, "eat first, die later" or "enjoy now and suffer later" and even "if you have wine today, get drunk today" are acceptable by not only to the Chinese but I believed, by everybody who is being practical. Next Life is concerned might be worst than this life. The choice is yours. So, why take risk?