The answer is both. "Taoism" is an English term applied broadly to a great
variety of things, from texts like the Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, which are read
by some readers as philosophy and others as scriptures, to priest/magicians and
ritual healers like the one I worked in Taiwan, whose rites invoke, placate or
exorcise, or appeal for help to a wide variety of spirits, generally
classified as gods, ghosts, ancestors, while many, at least in different
avatars, appear to fit in multiple categories. Demonic beings who become gods
are, for example, fairly common.
In Chinese there are two terms used to distinguish (here I am switching to the
modern Pinyin romanization) Daojia 道家 and Daojiao 道教, of which the former is
said to refer to "philosophy" and the latter to "religion." In practice, what
belongs where is highly contested terrain. In which category, for example do
the Huang-Lao texts about "internal alchemy" that excited Carl Jung belong?
Opinions differ.
One problem here is that both "philosophy" 哲学 and "religion" 宗教 are themselves
modern (I'd have to check but likely 19th century) coinages. The problem you
pose is one that no Chinese of note considered before contact with the West
made it necessary to figure out what the foreign devils were trying to say.
There were ideas, there were rituals. Some, largely associated with ancestor
worship, were obligatory. The rest were, like items on a Chinese restaurant
menu, available to mix and match as individuals chose for themselves. The state
didn't intervene unless groups large enough to challenge the state emerged.
Then, along came Western missionaries claiming to preach one true religion, and
Western culture provided "philosophy" as a term by which mandarins who both
rejected that claim and regarded much popular practice as vulgar and beneath
their notice (they would learn to call it superstition 迷信, literally "confused
belief") could distinguish and defend their views.
Hope this is helpful.
John
Sent from my iPad
On Feb 2, 2016, at 3:31 AM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I think that you know who that is, here. :)
Briefly, is it accurate to describe Taoism as an atheistic religion ? I
offered this description, which seems to be supported by Wikipedia, in a
certain group but a person from Taiwan disagreed. She pointed to what seems
to be a practice of worshiping the deities or spirits contained in /
connected to animals, trees and so forth, in Taoist temples. Whom should I
trust, the Wikipedia or a person immersed in the culture ?
O.K.
