When in the course of pursuing wisdom, one often seeks the words of wise people before them. Two very influential people in the perspective of intellectuals are Confucius of Eastern China and Jesus Christ of Nazarene. These men took two different approaches at explaining how to live life and the experience beyond. Some would say that their words and thoughts were not all that different. However, throughout the course of this review of words the reader will hopefully discover how different these men thought.
Confucius lives in China more than 500 years before Christ was born. Throughout time his way of teaching became know as Confucianism. From his writing Analects, Confucius writes, "He has not lived in vain who dies the day he is told about the Way." Confucius is constantly talking about the "Way". One might ask what is the "Way"? Where does it go? Confucius, unlike other "religious" teachers, is not talking about a way to an afterlife. In fact, Confucius does not even believe in an afterlife. He believes that life is only as good as you can make it here on Earth, not after. Confucius says:.
Have the firm faith to devote yourself to learning, and abide to the death in the good way. Enter not a state that is in peril; stay not in a state that is in danger. Show yourself when the Way prevails in the Empire, but hide yourself when it does not. It is a shameful matter to be poor and humble when the Way prevails in the state. Equality, it is a shameful matter to be rich and noble when the Way falls into disuse in the state (Book 8:13).
Here Confucius argues that the way of a good life will produce a good society. However, he contradicts himself in the same statement by saying "hide yourself when it (The Way) prevails"(Book 8:13) meaning that he himself is unsure if his teachings are even able to prevail. Furthermore seeing that Confucius is unsure of himself he says, "Even with a man who urges himself on his studies as though losing ground, my fear is still that he may not make it in time"(Book 8:17).
