what is the common religion in China?
83388
taoism (includes folk religion & ancestor worship), buddhism & islam. confucianism is more on intellectual, business & family values, which may or may not considered as a religion. in my opinion, its not a religion.\nupdated:\nmarion is very much correct. christianity is indeed making its way into chinese lifestyle recently, slow but steady. i forgot about christianity, because during the chinese revolution, most chinese- christians fled to taiwan. the christian missionaries were told to leave, & the remaining chinese- christians (like all other religions) were being 'brain-washed'. religions are absolutely not tolerated.\nthanks marion, for higlighting christianity.
902808
Eastern:  Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, etc.\n\nWestern: Christianity
653568
Buddhism and Catholicism are religions, not ethnicities.\n\nThere are 55 or 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in China, including the Han (the largest group), the Zhuang, the Manchu, the Hui, the Miao, Mongolians and many others. See list below.
637472
China was ruled by emperors. They justified their rule using a concept called the mandate of heaven, which is similar to the divine right theory of European kings.  Depending upon the time period, their economy was for the most part based on agriculture, and they kept themselves pretty isolated. Government philosophy was based on Confucian philosophy
230883
Estimates vary.  One reason for this is that there is really a methodological debate about the lines between "religions."  For example, does one count all of Christianity as one religion, or are the different major traditions (Protestant, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Assyrian, Nestorian, Mormon, Coptic, Anabaptist, etc.) each separate religions, or are the individual denominations within those traditions (e.g., within Protestantism, the literally thousands of individual sects) "religions"?  Is Islam one religion, or are Sunni and Shi'a separate religions?  Is Buddhism one religion, or are Mahayana and Theravada traditions separate, or are the different Mahayana sects all different religions?--you see my point.\n\nSound complicated?  It only gets worse.  Because there is no one universal definition of what is and what is not a religion.  Are only "organized" religions included (official, self-declared sects)?  Or what about spiritual systems that are not organized in that way?  What about belief systems that are para-religious, like "agnosticism" or "secular humanism" or state-sponsored cults like the Juche belief system of North Korea, or the "cult of the Republic" of the United States whose religious holidays you might be observing without even noticing it on Memorial Day?\n\nHere's a safe rule of thumb:  by even conservative estimates, there are probably over 1,000 religions in the world today.  That doesn't count the vast numbers of religions that have largely disappeared from the past.  And by other estimates, the totals are closer to 20,000.  Now remember, many of those faiths might have relatively few adherents, compared to enormous sects like, say, Roman Catholicism within Christianity or Shi'a in Islam, but that's still quite a total--and even that doesn't include the enormous number of people who have essentially personal, idiosyncratic spiritual belief systems.\n\nGood luck working this question out.  But the important thing to know is this:  anyone telling you there's only One True Faith is not going to help you answer this question, because your question is about information-seeking, and that answer is about bigotry and proselytizing.  That may be mandatory in some faiths, but it's not very educationally helpful in understanding the family of world religions.  I would encourage you to check out the sites below to learn more about other faiths.
51188
"Chinese paper money"?\nDo you mean the paper money that traditional taoists, mostly Chinese, burn for the dead? If so, they burn these believing that the dead people in Hell need paper money like on Earth to survive, and burn lots of it to ensure they have a good life. If it helps, they also burn paper clothes, paper houses (yes, almost life-sized houses), even paper handphones, beepers, make-up, and basically your everyday items in paper.\nIn Chinese tradition HELL isn't the Christian idea of hell. It's basically just an afterlife called "Hell" which isn't a land of suffering. Heaven is reserved for the Emperor of Heaven and his subjects, as well as exemplary people who have done great or good deeds in their lives who are awarded a special position/status within his palace.\nThere is a Hell for punishing evil people, also called, and it's 16 levels. The lowest being a hell that you can never fully 'graduate' from. (Meaning that you just pay for your sins for a period of time depending on the degree of seriousness to it)
1052083
A pagan one. :-P Pagan religions were the majority until Christianity came along.
836988
reincarnation is not a buddhist idea...its a hindu idea. buddhist believes in rebirth.\n*****************\n(superstitions,) taoism, confucianism & buddhism will always be in every chinese's psyche. communism will never be able to erase it. \n-ask any 2nd generation ABC (american born chinese/ australian born chinese), we all agree that fillial piety comes 1st. (evidently, fillial piety is a confucian's virtue).\n-folk culture are also running high on every chinese. during chinese new year, the youngs will receive red packet, & pray to gods, with lion/ dragon dance...etc\n(that is evidently taoism & folk culture)\n- folk religion, like praying to ancestors, burning papers,etc are so closely connected to every chinese family.\n- shaolin temples (buddhist)/ wutang (taoist) may see a decline in  monks & disciples, but their temples are always full of visitors for prayers.\n- death is a BIG issue for every chinese...which funeral you see in chinese are simply buried? it has to go thru' taoist/ buddhist rites 1st. \nso, for all the sino- chinese in the mainland, with the relaxation of the religious rules, they may have lost touch with religions, it is never lost. it's gaining momentum...but still, money comes 1st, they are seeking out opportunites to earn money 1st before religions.\nnevertheless, like i mentioned, these 3 doctrines are deeply embedded in every chinese, mainland or overseas.\n***********\nislam came through to china from the silk road, hence you can see that the communities around the silk road routes are converted to muslims (example xinjiang). it has been in china for over 1500years, but its effects are still limited. the famous muslim in china is still: zheng he.\n**********\nchristianity/ catholic faith is slowly gaining in popularity. but presently, it is still having its setbacks. i believe the communist country is wary of it, with its association of its revolutionary past.\nshanghai was once a populous christian/ catholic city, before the 2nd world war. after that, most christians revoutionaries (pro- democracy) lost & retreated to taiwan.
45275
In fact, there are thousands of religions. The eight major ones in our world are Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Shinto, and Taoism. Hinduism, Shinto, and Taoism developed over many, many centuries. Each of the others bases faith on the life or teachings of specific individuals: Prince Siddhartha Gautama, who became known as Gautama Buddha, for Buddhism; Jesus Christ for Christianity; Confucius for Confucianism; Muhammad for Islam; and Abraham and Moses for Judaism
968472
christian religion follow god \nbuddism follow stons and pagans
359934
Any person who practices a religion (other than the state-sponsered church) or anti-government politics is jailed. This has happened for chinese Muslims, Christians and pro-democracy advocates.\n\nFalun Gong is seen as a anti-government organization that is hidden being the face of a religion, by the Chinese government.  I think one fear by the China is that as they gain more followers, their leader (some say it is cultist) will order the faithful to turn against the government.
389671
The most prevalent forms are the Mahayana Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.  This has been popularized by the Dalai Lama.  The next is Zen Buddhism which came to us from Japan and is popular because Japanese buddhists have immigrated throughout the US and shared their beliefs with other Americans.
127633
Sometimes you will hear of "8 Great World Religions" and those are:  Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Shinto.  But these are certainly not the only religions.  They are called "great" because of sheer numbers, or their influence on a culture or people.\n\nOther religions less known include:\nZoroastrianism  (the Parsees of India)\nJainism\nSikhism\nBon (a native Tibetan religion)\nCao Dai\nBahai\nAnimism\nWicca/Neo-Paganism\nVoodoo\nSanteria\nChinese Folk Religion\nShamanism/tribal religions\nEckankar\n\nOk, the list goes on and on and on.\n\nThe answer is in the thousands, but usually we can group the religions into a few categories.  I have heard of the number 4000 religions, but I'm not sure if that includes denominations, etc.  Remember, aside from religions, each of the religions usually has several denominations or sects.
715060
yup, that's why there are so many different branches of basically the same religion, mormons, jesuit, RC, church of england, jehova's witnesses, ahmish, methodists etc etc. They all follow certain parts of the bible more than others. I've always wondered whether what is written down is accurate or happened at all. A good similie would be chinese whispers on a massive scale. Personally I don't believe in any of it, a massive sceptic here. If there is only one god, why are there so many different religions? Why don't we all believe the same thing?
608899
Don't see... many... Buddhists? Don't live in China, do you? Estimates vary, but even low estimates are around 300 million worldwide. That's a little more than the population of the entire united states, for comparison.
258266
Mandarin is the main Chinese dialect of China.  Only a small portion (southern China) speaks Cantonese.
948660
Confucianism is said to be strict while Daoism(it can be Daoism or Taoism) is sort of free and wild. They therefore complete eachother.