  Despite the genuine tone of reverence in the Mohists’ descriptions of Tian, some readers find Mohist religion to lack the sense of holiness, religious awe, and spiritual transcendence that contemporary Westerners customarily associate with religion, particularly in contrast with Confucian appreciation of the beauty of ritual or Daoist wonder at the mysteries of nature. The mundane tone of their religious thought is perhaps partly due to the Mohists’ general disregard of aesthetic and cultural value. Yet it would be indefensibly parochial to expect them to conform to a modern Westerner’s conception of religiosity, since the comparatively mundane character of Mohist religion is typical of much traditional Chinese folk religion. In fact, the Mohists are deeply dedicated to maintaining harmonious, reverential relations with Tian, ancestral ghosts, and nature spirits, and both their rhetoric and practices devote much energy to religious veneration. 