Hell is all forms of suffering.
Heaven is the absence of suffering.

>>18546563
Why use western concepts to conceive something eastern? Surprised you know about teotl but not know about heaven.

In the modern day, Confucians would say Heaven is an abstract force of morality that controls who governs, favors those who uphold their terms of righteousness, etc etc. folk/ethnic religion practitioners believe its a place where the gods dwell and govern their realm with the best of virtues(?), which is separate from the ruler of earth. Taoists believe it is both a force and a place where the gods and immortals dwell but that as a force it is an almost perfect imitation of the ways of the dao. It doesn’t really matter that both conflict, they both are correct in the eyes of the Chinese.

Also important to note that the Tian( Heaven) worship cult was starting to gain traction after the collapse of the ancient Shang Dynasty and the start of the Zhou, and replaced and became synonymous with the Shang’s primary deity, Shangdi (a deity that somewhat resembles Brahman in meaning).

>>18546563
Having the mandate of heaven means that your group is of the Spirit and acting in alignment with the nature of the Spirit.
>>18546732
This is new age atheist gibberish

>>18546563
the Jews obscure the true meaning

>>18546769
that's interesting. I wish you'd said more

>>18546563
Are you asking if the meaning of the word "heaven" in "mandate of heaven" is the literal sky?

>>18546563
天

>>18547532
Sorry, I’m not so sure what else to add. I guess to add some more information about the folk beliefs of the Chinese today regarding Heaven as a place, while everyone goes through hell (which is a dark chasm/cave with a bunch of judges to judge our crimes) if you successfully pass them, you get to go to two types of heaven, if you’re more aligned with Buddhism, it’s the Pure Land, then another for Taoism which I don’t know the name of, or its intepreted as different categories of deeds bring you to mainly two different types of Heaven.

>>18547723
can you recommend any good books or papers for further reading?

>>18546563
Pretty much this >>18546848.
It is something like Plato's realm, but I wouldn't exactly call it "abstract". Abstraction is a process of removing particularity and moving on to class membership. Heaven doesn't necessarily work this way from what I understand ancient philosophies are saying.

>>18548181
For religious stuff not really, I mainly picked it up when attending temples as a kid and asking relatives or the head of the temple why do we pray to this god on this date or pray in this order or pray using a different number of sticks.

I remembered about this Heaven question thing as some temples have an empty incense bowl right outside the temple directly to the sky as its meant to pray to this heaven, so when I ask about if Heaven is a place for the gods, why do we pray to it directly too.

Praying to unpersonified concepts is more common that thought out I guess? I saw in Thailand many chinese temples include a large pillar where you pray for all of your ancestors back in the homeland (dead and alive in general). In Malaysia I saw small shrines dedicated to the locals of the area or to the line of village chiefs who allowed the Chinese to stay and settle.

>>18548259
>or pray using a different number of sticks
why is this done? mesoamericans did that too

>why do we pray to this god on this date or pray in this order
also curious what the reasoning was here

>>18548753
Different amount of sticks is to show different amounts of reverence I think but usually it’s always just 3. But if you’re praying to your ancestors it’s mainly just 1.

The other two it’s to commemorate a god’s birthday or a deed that was supposedly done on that date by said god on the lunar calendar. Praying starts with the highest level deity at the temple usually the heavenly emperor or whoever the shrine is most dedicated to, then the temple guardian then to everyone else but it still follows an order like deities from the underworld are usually last.