Confucius said: "Keep away from ghosts and gods" means keep people away from ghosts and gods? Why would he say that?

Confucius said: "Keep away from ghosts and gods" means keep people away from ghosts and gods? Why would he say that? Confucius this sentence from the Analects of Confucius Yong also, the original text is as follows:

Fan Chi asked. Confucius said, "I know the significance of serving the people and staying away from ghosts and gods." Seek benevolence. He said: "A benevolent person can be said to be benevolent if he suffers first and then benefits."

Fan Chi asked what is wisdom. Confucius said: "It can be said that it is wise to devote yourself to what should be done in the world and stay away from ghosts and gods."

In the encyclopedia, "stay away from ghosts and gods" is interpreted as "respect but not approach." Refers to an attitude towards some people, that is, they don't want to talk to him, don't offend him, be polite to him, and never approach him. "

From the explanation, we can easily see that this actually expresses the reality and rationality of the saint. Why do you say that? Confucius advocated that we should neither easily believe nor blindly deny what we don't know. This was undoubtedly a progressive view at that time.

With the development of science and technology and the progress of the times, we understand many things that could not be explained before, such as "dogs eat the moon", such as the flame cloud, and the so-called "ghosts and gods" are just our imagination. But in the era of Confucius, technology was not so developed, and many unexplained things were attributed to ghosts and gods. Therefore, the monarch mainly led his subjects to pray for good weather, divining whether they were suitable to go out and praying for shelter by worshipping the gods ... At that time, people regarded the gods as their whole spiritual sustenance, which was a kind of belief.

Confucius did not simply answer this question with "faith" or "unbelief", but skillfully combined the two-"stay at a respectful distance from others". If you don't poke the absence of God, you won't violate people's beliefs and destroy everyone's spiritual sustenance; Not advocating ghosts and gods too much is also to avoid people getting deeper and deeper in the theory of ghosts and gods, and I hope people will be more pragmatic. Under the current social situation at that time, such a choice can be said to have achieved satisfactory results.