Matthew Stuckey here and I want to make a quick video giving you three common
myths of the religion or philosophy of Taoism. Three common myths of the
philosophical system of Taoism. Now myth number one is this that Taoism is not
that common it's just very rare and so if you tune into our ministry you might
wonder why we've made so many videos and talked about Taoism so much and you
might think this isn't even a big thing but I would say that's actually quite a
big myth and I want you to realize part of the confusion comes because it's
really hard to determine how many people you would actually call as Taoists
because what happens with these kind of Eastern philosophical systems is they're
known as syncretic religions meaning that you can worship one thing while
being also another religion at the same time. For example you could be Buddhist
and Taoist at the same time and many people that are Buddhist are also Taoist
as well they practice those philosophical systems so it's not really
like the Bible where it's like I am the way the truth and the life but they accept
you being part of a couple different philosophical systems or several
there's really kind of no limit and so that's kind of part of the confusion
because if you look at Taoism on charts of the most common religions they're not
going to appear there except they're going to appear under Chinese traditional
religions and so they are one of those and how you really determine how many
people are part of it it's hard to tell but I would say hundreds of millions of
people actually follow Taoism to some degree but just give you some kind of
proofs that Taoism is pretty common actually their book the Tao Te Ching is
actually the second most translated book ever the second most translated book
ever behind only the Bible and so being the second most translated book ever
well that's definitely very common above the Quran above you know scriptures of
other religious systems above any you know literary works of art it's the
second most translated book ever so that definitely shows that it is actually
pretty common this philosophical system how strongly people believe in this
philosophical system that is up for debate
however their their biggest sacred scripture is the second most translated
book the other thing is this the movie Star Wars is based off of Taoism and so
that's something that you know a lot of people probably aren't aware of but Star
Wars you know watching it as an American growing up in the u.s. it's an
entertaining movie you know I enjoyed it as a kid and everything like that and I
always took it as something that was just kind of fake and it wasn't really
real you know of course this stuff can't really be true and stuff like that and
yet the movie Star Wars is actually based on the philosophical system of
Taoism now one thing I'll say is this that people are very who are very strict
Taoists would listen to that statement and they would basically kind of
criticize Star Wars a little bit and the reason why is because although Star Wars
is based off Taoism they do get some things wrong for example in Star Wars
the ultimate goal is to you know get rid of the dark side however in Taoism you
know you actually need both sides both the good and the bad and I'll talk about
that here in a little bit so it's not actually the goal to get rid of evil
because evil and good are basically you know intertwined okay which we'll talk
about here but Star Wars is based off the philosophical system of Taoism and
you know you you might say man that you know the the the fights and all this you
know using the force and everything like that but if you've ever paid any
attention to Chinese martial arts and you know Chinese martial arts is you
know very much based on a similar sort of system because Star Wars is based off
of the philosophical system of Taoism of course there is crossover with other
Eastern philosophical systems but Taoism is what it is based off of and another
thing that shows that it's actually very common is you say I've never heard of
Taoism but I'm sure all of you have seen that circle of the yin and the yang
where you have the black and the white on different sides and you've got that
curved line and in the black side you've got this little white circle and on the
white side you've got this little black circle the yin and the yang and so that
is actually with Taoism that's where it comes from of course as a kid I just
thought it was a cool little drawing cool little picture but it actually
comes from Taoism so myth number one is that Taoism is not that common it's
actually a lot more common than you realize and people that you know love
the movie Star Wars are subtly being influenced by this philosophical system
myth number two is this that in Taoism with that yin and the yang with the
black and the white that the black and the white are opposed to one another
opposed to one another that the black and the white are against one another
that the bad and the good are against one another but that's actually not the
case see in Taoism the black and the white are both necessary to complete the
whole and so basically they are intertwined they intersect with one
another that's why you see the white circle on the black side with that
curved line there's that little white circle in the section with the black and
there's that little black circle in the section of the white and what Taoism
teaches is there can be no good without bad and so good and bad are basically
necessary things you can't have good without bad you can't have bad without
good so there's really no bad there's really no good they're actually both
necessary they're actually the same and so yes that's contradictory but Taoism
has no problem with things being contradictory and I'm not just saying
that to criticize their philosophical system but they would say yes you know
there are contradictions that that is okay actually and so good and bad are
not opposed to one another and that yin and the yang but they actually complete
one another day and night they complete one another male and female order and
chaos these are some of the things where they would say you cannot have one
without the other and so basically you know there are two sides of the same
coin you can't have that coin unless you have both and so in that yin and the
yang the black and the white are not actually against one another they
actually complete one another so in the system of Taoism even though they
believe that they are the way and the true religion they say that all these
other false religions were actually necessary to bring about everything that
has actually happened in this world and so those systems are not necessarily like
a bad thing that we should not want them but they're actually necessary to bring
us about to our present state and they would say that there's really no such
thing as being a sin or something because sin or being you know evil or a
moral law because they don't believe in a moral creator they believe that
basically a big bang sort of beginning and basically the rules are governed by
the laws of nature and things such as that so they don't believe in a creator
God but they believe in this this overriding Taoist system and this this
mystical philosophical idea but they do not believe that the black and the white
are opposed to one another and that they're fighting one another they
actually complement one another and are basically one in the same in their
teaching so myth number one is that Taoism is not that common
Taoism is actually pretty common myth number two is that the black and the
white are opposed to one another in that drawing of the yin and the yang but it's
actually showing you that they complete one another and they intersect and
they're essentially the same thing myth number three is this that Taoism was
created by Lao Tzu that Taoism was created by Lao Tzu there's many many
pronunciations I've heard of this man's name obviously I'm not a native Chinese
speaker but Lao Tzu is is one of the the pronunciations and he is credited by
most people to having created Taoism what's interesting in you know Chinese
philosophical systems is another common system is it was created or is
known or represented by Confucius Confucianism Confucius never claimed to
be the originator of his beliefs he said he was basically bringing back
traditions that had been kind of forgotten kind of misplaced and he was
bringing them back to being popular but he did not claim to be the creator of
his philosophical system well it's actually the same with Lao Tzu although a
lot of people don't really realize that that when he wrote the book the Tao Tei
Ching he did not claim to be the originator he is basically gathering
together this old philosophical system and bringing it back to the forefront
and making it popular but you can actually see that this philosophical
system predates Lao Tzu and so some of the examples of this are that in the Tao
Tei Ching which you know there's kind of a debate about when this was written
between the 8th to 3rd century BC but in the Tao Tei Ching he talks about the Tao
masters of antiquity in chapter 15 of the book so he refers to the Tao
masters of antiquity and what he's referring to is the fact that there were
people that were already practicing this and so basically he wasn't taking
something brand-new but he was taking something that already existed and he
brought it back to popularity and he wrote the book the Tao Tei Ching and
became very popular and very widespread but he's not actually the originator nor
did he ever actually claim to be the originator and not only that but you
know the Yellow Emperor who H-U-A-N-G-D-I Huangdi if that's how you
pronounce it who was said to be between 2697 and 2597 BC before Christ was
actually associated with the origin of Tao as well and associated with that
philosophical system now of course I'm not claiming that every single date is
correct obviously things were not written down perfect historically I
believe that date would actually be have to be inaccurate when you look at
the biblical flood which was approximately 4,400 years ago but I
would say that you know and whether or not he fully existed or not you know
there's a lot of debate about these historical figures because quite honestly
you know history was not really written down that well the Greek Empire was
pretty much the first ones with Herodotus known as the father of modern
history who really you know wrote everything down and that's why we know
that the Bible is the best source of knowledge because the Bible is pure and
is perfect so whether that Yellow Emperor existed or not it said that you
know in the middle of the third century or third millennium BC between around
2500 BC which that date could be off of when this person actually existed that
he was associated with the Tao however we do know from chapter 15 of the Tao
Te Ching written by Lao Tzu that he does talk about these Tao masters so he did
not claim to originate this system and so three myths of Taoism are this number
one that it is not a very common system that's actually not true Star Wars is
based off of it everybody knows the yin and the yang and the Tao Te Ching is the
second most translated book myth number two that the black and the white and the
yin and the yang are actually opposed to one another they actually complement one
another in their philosophical system and myth number three is that Lao Tzu was
the creator of Taoism he actually made it popular but he didn't actually
created now I want you to understand this though Taoism is a wicked
philosophical system I haven't really said anything against their
philosophical system in this video because I'm just giving information but
Taoism claims to be the way and they claim that there are syncretic religion
and you can be Taoist in something else as well however they still claim to be
the way and here's the thing Jesus Christ claimed to be the way he said I
am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the Father but by me
and if you follow the way of the Tao not only will you destroy your life but
you're going to send yourself to hell forever because you rejected the actual
way which was Jesus Christ who died and paid for all of our sins
thank you and God bless