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Thanks for the great question.
Taoism is not so much based upon a "believe system".
As such is quite different from most western religions.
In Christianity, for example, to be Christian you need to believe that Jesus was The Christ. If you believe THAT you are Christian. You might be a good Christian, or a bad Christian. But you are a Christian in any case. Sinning, doesn't stop you from being a Christian. Because being a Christian is not related with what you do but with what you believe.
In Taoism things are a bit different. Oh, by all means Taoism has its fair share of crazy and unrealistic believes. If you think being born from a virgin is weird you should consider how it is to follow a religion where some people believe that the main founder (Lao Tzu) came out of a pregnancy of 81 years (...).
But Taoism has a long tradition. According to some 5000 years. 2400 of those years are historical. So through those years Taoists could observe that when people "believe" in things they eventually can turn nasty, and violent. Specially when something in reality crashed against their belief.
For this reasons Taoists developed particular mental Chi Gung techniques to relax the believes of a person. Making the person less fanatic about them. And in the process acquiring spontaneity.
But this did not stop all Taoists from believing crazy things. Taoisms have different groups, and subgroups, traditions, and sub traditions, and schools, and families, and so many divisions and sub divisions that most Taoists don't know them either. So different groups and different sects still tend to believe different things.
Another enlightening moment in Taoism came in the shape of a book in the midst of the Chinese Middle ages. At the time each emperor would chose if he favored Taoism, Buddhism or Confucianism. And whoever was favored would get temples, money, and security. While the others were often in for a hard ride. One of those emperors favored Taoism. And he wanted to strongly follow a Taoist lead in its way as an emperor. One of his main helper was not so happy. With a very scientific mind he composed a book full of Taoist inconsistencies. The book is amazing. It's called Laughing at the Tao, and offers a very humorist look on Taoist believes.
The Buddhist loved it. The Taoists... less ;-). But what was more dangerous was that the emperor hated it, and ordered all copies to be burned. Somehow a copy reached us. Amazingly the author was able to keep his head on the shoulders. Kudos to the emperor!
But the lesson of the book to stick with Reality was somehow taken deeper by the Taoists.
So right now inside Taoism you have a lot of different things. You have people who believe in gods, as you have people who don't care about gods. Chinese people often believe in ghosts, and you will find Taoists stories that have ghosts inside. For a Taoist they don't "believe" so much in ghost like a normal person would do... they believe in them like you "believe" in your chair. They banish them. They call them. They make rituals to them, with them, at them. Somehow ghosts are part of a Taoist reality. Do they "believe" in them... sure... but only for lack of a better term.
Generally the way a Taoist would "believe in something" is more similar to the way in which a scientist would believe in something: "I have looked at this thing from multiple possible point of views, and so far it seem to me that the best approximation of reality I can come up with is that...". But then would be ready to change their believes if a different perspective was brought to them.
So for example most Taoists would "believe" in the existence of Qi (energy). But they don't start with the belief. They start with the exercise. They start with doing Tai Chi, and Chi Gung. And in their practices they will start to feel weird sensations. And soon they will learn to move those sensations, they will learn how they can get healthy thanks to that. And soon the best description of the World they can come up with is the one where Qi is part of the picture.
Now you ask: "do you believe in taoism". What does it mean?
Does it mean to believe that the Taoist Gods exist?
Yeah, they probably do, but for a taoist that is worth its salt the existence of gods does not imply to change their life. Because the gods, like the human beings, ultimately follow the Tao. And the Tao follows (its own) Nature.
Or maybe you are asking if a Taoist believes in Ghosts? Again, yeah, maybe; again it doesn't matter.
Or maybe you are asking if we believe that Taoism is a way to salvation. Yes most Taoist would believe so. But a Taoist considers what he does as important,, not what he believes in.
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does anyone else belive in taoism ?
