Abstract:

According to Durkheim, the collective life in religion and the collective consciousness and mind based on it are very important. In essence, the religious life is a collective life, which means the interval between religious gatherings should not be too long. The reason why the regular collective life should be maintained lies in that there is fundamentally a demand of keeping religious morals and ideals. Chinese religions, however, are obviously short of collective consciousness and spirit. Neither Taoists nor Buddhists have a strictly fixed collective life. Moreover, polytheism crumbles such a possibility indeed. Furthermore, owing to a lack of encouragement under higher aims in the collective life, Chinese religions are simply satisfied with utilities without a pursuit of morality and ideal.

Key words: China, religion, collective consciousness, lack