Even the Axial Age religions are often startlingly lacking in the plethora of supernatural forces seen before and after: as witnessed by continued debates over whether Buddhism even is a religion, since it rejects any notion of a supreme being, or whether Confucius’ admonitions that one should continue to venerate one’s ancestors was merely a way of encouraging filial piety, or based on a belief that dead ancestors did, in some sense, continue to exist.
