Daoism/Taoism were/are not religions but more a way of life as expressed in the works of Laozi and Zhuangzi. There is no word for 'God' in Mandarin and the only word that could be used is Ziran which is far from being close in meaning. Ziran refers to the way of nature, that which is natural or in and of itself.
When Laozi refers to ' the way of heaven and earth ' he is not referring to some celestial place rather more the earth, the sky and what lies beyond it in the wider universe. No worship is involved as it is a philosophical perspective.
Why would Nature care, and how? If you mean you glory in it's beauty, marvel at the power of storms, etc etc, why call it "worship"?
Agreed. I am in total awe of nature but worship of nature is absurd as there is nothing to worship.
Only if you are trying to organize your beliefs. At first you will be considered a weird cult, then eventually when you have been around you are a religion and then thousands of years later you will be a Myth. That is the cycle! When does Chiristian Myth come?
I don’t think the use of the word “worship” is appropriate in the dictionary definition of the word. It clearly states that worship includes a deity or personage (as in hero worship). I think you mean having respect and awe for nature and the natural world, rather than any form of actual worship.
The English title; Worshipful is used for those we respect or are distinguised.
This opposed to 'worship', which implies the extreme of having no flays and blindly follow.
If you reject theistic religion then of course nature has to fill some of the roles that religious people get from organized religion anyway. For example, science, which was once called "natural philosophy" usually becomes the way we explain a lot of the worlds workings, including creation and the origins of life. While it would be natural for an atheist/agnostic to see nature as the main source of beauty, pleasure and morality, whereas a theist would say that those came from god.
Yet I do not think that nature would have any interest in being worshiped or prayed to; and in some ways therefore, I would say that the cool indifference of nature is much to be preferred to the active cruelty of gods and many of the humans who use gods to try to give their deviant, and usually selfish morals, extra authority. Beware only that some people on the theist side will then say that you too have a faith which needs just as much justification as theirs, and will use this to belittle your views, but if you can cope with that then go ahead.
The original meaning of the word religious was to deliberately tie or bind yourself to something anew (from Ligia to bind, the same root as the word ligature) so restricting your life for the purposes of lifestyle, faith and worship is technically religious no matter what the object.
The word religious has gained a very specific meaning in the English language over time but still pretty much amounts to a strong association to a particular focus in life.
Thanks for this. I consider myself religious because I am a lifelong Unitarian Universalist and lay speaker—I visit congregations and deliver Sunday sermons. At the same time, I am a non-theist humanist. My religious practice has nothing to do with worshipping deities.
This is a very difficult question to answer. It would depend if there were regimented practices, A defined belief system, ritual etc...