Blang People - Religion

Religion

The Blang are traditionally associated with animism, ancestor worship, and Theravada Buddhism. Writing in 2011, James Miller described these overlapping traditions as follows, "The Blang, like many nationalities in southwest China are Theravada Buddhists, but their highly complex religious life is also informed by local beliefs and customs that relate to the traditional ecology, with special attention being paid to rice, water, bees, beeswax, and the various local spirits that are associated with them." An overtly Christian missionary source (i.e., with observations reflecting attempts to convert the Bulang) describes them as "ardent followers of Theravada Buddhism", and offers as an estimate that 80% of the Bulang are "professing Buddhists", with a lower estimate of 35% being "practicing Buddhists".

Read more about this topic:  Blang People

Famous quotes containing the word religion:

    In the religion of all nations a purity is hinted at, which, I fear, men never attain to.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    In full view of his television audience, he preached a new religion—or a new form of Christianity—based on faith in financial miracles and in a Heaven here on earth with a water slide and luxury hotels. It was a religion of celebrity and showmanship and fun, which made a mockery of all puritanical standards and all canons of good taste. Its standard was excess, and its doctrines were tolerance and freedom from accountability.
    New Yorker (April 23, 1990)

    Never has any one been less a priest than Jesus, never a greater enemy of forms, which stifle religion under the pretext of protecting it. By this we are all his disciples and his successors; by this he has laid the eternal foundation-stone of true religion; and if religion is essential to humanity, he has by this deserved the Divine rank the world has accorded him.
    Ernest Renan (1823–1892)