on Shangdi

Was writing a paper on Chinese religion for one of my GEs today. basically looking over Shangdi's role in centuries and centuries of Chinese religion - especially Shang oracle bones and the big three religions of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism.

but what's struck me all is that in the beginning, the Shang had it right. Shangdi was a god meant to be feared and revered, he was a god whose approval needed to be asked.

Yet as Chinese history goes on, vain philosophy and Buddhism takes over. Di's worship diminishes until it became something perverted as selfish local worship for protection/favors. Basically, Di was reduced to a vending machine.
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my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
"Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also reject you as my priests;
because you have ignored the law of your God,
I will also ignore your children.
~Hosea 4:6
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Israel did that, didn't they? traded their worship to the perfect God for an imitation and chanting of foreign gods. Amitofu amitofu etc. The names are different, but adultery is adultery...

Thank goodness our God is forgiving and in the business of redemption.
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Assyria cannot save us;
we will not mount war-horses.
We will never gain say 'Our gods'
to what our own two hands have made,
for in you the fatherless find compassion

"I will heal their waywardness
and love them freely,
for my anger has turned away from them."
~Hosea 14:3-4