Bringing some live to this forum.

A little history of one of the school of thought in China.

The "Faist" or "Lawyers" first appear in China during the start of Chin dynasty (221 - 206 BCE). The founder is Guang Chong & finalized by Han Fei.
1 They are actively against traditional religions & are strongly against all religious thoughts & society's religious activities.
2 They are also strongly against the system of bloodlinage Theocracy rule.
3 They highly recommended the destruction of all religions.
4 They recommended the use of laws in governing the country with the "Li" (a kind of official) as teachers & laws as teachings & the emperor as the one behind the laws. Leaving the thinkings to the emperor alone.
5 Apart from all government commands & laws, they are against all forms of culture as well as religions.

Their view on philosophy are limited due to focusing only on the laws, rule & situations of politics. As to their views on religions, it can be summarised as follows :
1 There is no such thing as god, "Tien" (heaven or sky) is just natural.
2 The supernatural is nothing to belief in.
3 Against all forms of religions & religious practices.

There is also an idiom story (by Han Fei) as follow :

One day a guest of the king of Chi propose to draw a picture for him.
The king asked the painter "what is the hardest thing to draw ?"
" A horse" replied the painter.
"& what is the easiest ?" asked the king again.
" A ghost." was the reply.
"Why is it so ?" queried the king.
"Everyone knows what a horse looks like but I could just scribble anything & call it a ghost & nobody can say I'm wrong as none has seen one." the painter said.

The story is to show the absurdity of believing in the supernatural.

Last but no least actual actions.

During the Warring States (403 - 201 BCE) there is a follower of the Faist thought by the name of XiMen Pao. When he was appointed as the governor for the province of Ye, he asked the local elders what hardship they are facing. The elders reply that they have to arrange a bride for the river god & so are always in poverty.
The arrangement for a bride for the river god is to used money collected by the elders from the province & use it to buy a bride for the river god. The unlucky girl is of course sacrificed by throwing her into the river to become the bride.
Hearing this, XiMen Pao waited until the day comes for the "wedding" & he personally went to the site of the "wedding".
The high priestess of the river god & her followers, the elders, plus minor officers & the local people gathered at the river bank & are preparing for the ceremony.
XiMen Pao went to the high priestess & asked her to send for the bride. After seeing the girl, he commented to the priestess that the girl is ugly & commanded the priestess to go & inform the river god of his bride's uglyness. Without waiting for her reply, he commanded his soldiers to throw the priestess into the river.
Once he seen that the priestess has drowned, he next commanded one of the follower of the priestess to go & find out whats taking the priestess so long. Again he got his soldiers to throw that fool into the river. After repeating it to 2 more of the priestess followers, he turned his attention to the elders.
After throwing all the elders into the river, he next turned to the minor officers & this time the officers fearing for their lives immediately fall upon their knees & begged for their lifes.
From that day onwards the people of Ye stopped the cruel practice of arranging a bride for the river god.
Later XiMen Pao commandeered the people to construct canals along the river thus able to control the river from flooding & also bring water to irrigate the fields, bringing prosperity to the people of Ye.
(The reason why the people sacrifice to the river god is the rivers ability to cause bad floods bringing great difficulties to the people.)

Sadly the "Faist" lost their battle for a religion free state but their school of thought still survives within the theocracy itself.

PS They are 100% atheists !

Ah, so they were the good guys.

ohwilleke

Any thoughts on why the didn't make it?

The emperor subscribes to theocracy.
Althought Chin Shi Huang's (1st emperor to unite whole of China) rule is more towards Faist than theocratic & it also accounts for why the Dynasty of Chin falls after 2 generations (Shi Huang & his son). The guy is just too strict on his rules & his final years are spent trying to find immortality plus the fact that he killed countless building the great wall & his burial place, burning books, killing countless intellactuals plus some other nonsense poeple of that time can't stand.

The fa-ists, known in English as the Legalists, were Facists of the first rank. Other than their laudable opposition to religion of any kind, there is nothing to commend them.

They believed that Laws and punishments should be so clear that the law enforced itself (in this respect they retain the "spontaneous order" that so much Chinese thought retains). Punishments were to be so draconian no one would dare disobey the law. In a famous quote, the Legalists argued that it should be worse for the citizen to fall into the hands of his own police than into the hands of the soldiers of an invading power. The timorous should be put to death in the manner they most hate. In the army, the soldiers were to be divided into groups of five, and if one died, the other four were to be parted from their heads. After discussing how the people hate severe punishments, Han Fei, a famous Legalist thinker, wrote:

"From this I know well that benevolence, love and favour are not worth adopting, while severe punishment and heavy penalties can maintain the State in order."

Generally Chinese thinkers dealt with the social order rather than individual behavior per se, but came to differing conclusions about how to go about achieving social order.

In the end, Legalism fused with Confucianism and formed the authoritarian thinking of China we know and hate today.

Michael

Wow! That does sound Big Brotherish.

So much for being the good guys...

Correct me if I am wrong, but did not Confucius himself reject Faist thought? He thought the basic building block of society was the family and that simply making draconian laws would not change society. A relationship between ruler and ruled had to be cultivated on top of mutual respect and honor. On a related note, Confucius seems to have opposed the death penalty.

regards,

red dawn

Confucius may have opposed to Legalism but his thoughts are fused with Leagalist thoughts into the later system of Theocracy.
Its the teaching that is fused not the teacher.

He certainly did reject Fa-ism, and he rejected any attempts to make a religion out of his beliefs. Unfortunately, time was stronger than he was. Under the Song, particularly the infamous Chu Hsi, legalism slowly infiltrated Confucianism and took it over from the inside.

Michael