Why Do So Many Westerners Think the Tao is a God?

[Desert Snake]

That is why I have listed my religion as □
On occasion. That is what that means.

 

[PureX]

Taoism does not promote the idea of God/gods, but neither does it discourage it. It is a part of the way of mankind to need, want, and perceive of gods, so it is accepted as a manifestation of tao.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

This thread has reminded me of when my sister asked me "what are the Buddhist 10 commandments?" It took me forever of me explaining they don't have anything like that for her to realize that, despite her belief and want of such a thing, Eastern religions and philosophies really don't translate over to Western religions, and vice versa.

 

[Samantha Rinne]

Why do so many Westerners mistakenly believe either that the Tao is a god or that the Tao did not exist before the gods?

I've never met anyone who called the Tao a god. I have met people who see the Tao as a sort of stand-in for the concept of God (some Taoists have a theistic background, and can only really grasp the Tao as a sort of centralized Force).

I think CS Lewis used Tao instead of Logos, so yeah this is part of this. I'm not sure this is a terrible thing either. If we're defining the Tao as what it's not (saying it has to be a sort of atheism), we've just named the tao. That's like rule #1.

 

[columbus]

Around here, the overwhelming majority of people who can even spell Tao probably think it's a character from a Winnie the Pooh story.
Tom

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Why do so many Westerners mistakenly believe either that the Tao is a god or that the Tao did not exist before the gods?

I've studied Taoism in great detail. I don't think I could tell you what Tao is if you asked me, although I experience Tao all the time. I've worked on committees that have translated the Tao te Ching. Let me offer you this, using the Feng and English version as an inspiration:

Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
I do not know its name.
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it God.

I have found that many of those that have your difficulty understanding our connection of Tao with God usually have a concept of God that is too defined.