Religious skepticism in China: An historical and ethnographic investigation
Principal Investigator
Ze Hong
Department of Sociology
University of Macau
Start and end dates: 1 August 2023 – 30 June 2024
Award: £32,809
Relatively little research exists that examines how post-enlightenment science and philosophy, and its impacts upon the role and functions of religion in society, spread beyond Europe to other parts of the world. Understanding the processes involved in this transmission is important for two reasons: it can provide historical and contextual details on the spread of western science and science related cultural products in the midst of colonialism; and it has the potential to provide causal accounts of a top-down secularisation process.
This project will use China as a case study to closely examine how a deeply religiously oriented society transformed into one of the least religious nations in the world. Drawing on primary sources (newspapers, books and scholarly correspondence ), we will conduct a historically informed mixed methods analysis of critiques and arguments against religion offered by western educated elites in the late Qing (mid 18th century-1912) and Republic (1912-1949) periods. Focusing on identifying dominant themes, opinions and arguments regarding religion and how religious beliefs and practices are portrayed in these texts will provide important insights into the religious-secular transition and the context in which it occurred.
The project will then seek to infer the effects of such discourses through fieldwork with contemporary populations, specifically investigating the types of argument that challenge people’s confidence in religion in various ways. Fieldwork activities will include focus groups, semi-structured interviews and tests based on vignette scenarios and will take place with two populations in Southwest China: the Nuosu in Liangshan Prefecture and the Han Chinese in rural Southwest China. The Nuosu people retain much of their polytheistic beliefs, with spiritual aggression being a primary explanatory factor in their main theory of illness. Most individuals in the population grow up believing in ghosts and spirits, but some turn skeptical at some point in life. Han individuals in rural villages typically possess some mixture of Daoist-Buddhist theistic beliefs, with rather pragmatic attitudes. In contrast with the Nuosu, more Han individuals (especially young people) are skeptical of the existence of deities and the efficacy of instrumental practices involving interaction with these deities.
We aim to test two hypotheses through the historical component of the study. First, we predict that arguments that directly challenge the theoretical basis of religion are likely to be the most effective at turning one into a disbeliever not only in terms of doubt around the instrumental utility of religion but also the existence of supernatural entities in general. Second, that instances where instrumental religious action fails will lower people’s confidence in the success of future instrumental religious actions but will rarely challenge core doctrines of religion (e.g., the existence of the gods and deities). Our field data will provide additional evidence on the effectiveness of theoretical arguments that the intellectual elites utilized at the turn of the twentieth century which importantly contributed to the downfall of religion as a respectable and accepted institution and the marginalization of various kinds of folk religious practices.
