China Cracks Down on Churches • Hacker News Board

Re: China Cracks Down on Churches

#51

Post by phreeza » Tue, Dec 25, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

n-gate wrote: post #42

dgut wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary. I think our leaders should spend more time together. Maybe they should even vacation together. The US severed economic ties with Cuba in the 60s and look what happened (only recently celebrating Christmas became legal, and property that belonged to the church was returned). There are countless examples like that.

Except china has a population of 1.3B and economic progress is the only thing keeping people subservient.

10 years ago or so the story was the opposite: economic progress will lead to a rising middle class, which will lead to more political freedoms.

Re: China Cracks Down on Churches

#52

Post by geofft » Tue, Dec 25, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

dahidahi1 wrote: post #37

nyolfen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is "borderline terrorism"? the churches in the article were targeted for criticizing corrupt officials, in china

Why is the church indulging in criticism? Who are they? What right do they have to do that? How do they know that the officials are corrupt? How do you know that is the only thing the church did, if they even did that? How do YOU know for a fact that the official was corrupt? Too many questions & you seem to be naive enough to take everything at face value. Again, why does the church interfere in such things? Isn't t…

Wrongly criticizing an official is not a crime. Nor does it result in death and destruction.

Re: China Cracks Down on Churches

#53

Post by TheVikingOwain » Tue, Dec 25, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

somethingle234 wrote: post #23

I'm not supporting China here, but the ideology "accepting all faith" is strange and, maybe, dangerous. Bible contains some cruel stories. But Christianity has a leader, which is Pope, who has ties with modern world and updates/rejects the stories from Bible, so it works decently enough with modern world. Other religions don't have that kinds of checks and balances. some religions just interpret whatever ancient book…

The pope leads Catholics. As an Anglican, Methodist or God forbid (pun intended) a Quaker if the pope leads them and they’d get a good laugh. There are absolutely Protestant denominations that accept biblical stories as absolute truth.

Re: China Cracks Down on Churches

#54

Post by maratd » Tue, Dec 25, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

gammateam wrote: post #21

saagarjha wrote: post #5

Regardless of your faith (or lack thereof), I hope you agree that this is pretty horrible from a freedom of expression perspective :/

(disclaimer, this is more of a FYI than my opinion about anything) > From the article: The government requires religious groups to register. China allows for the operation of pretty much all religions including the world's favorite Abrahamic ones. Unregistered religions pique the interest of countries founded on religious persecution, and ignore the operation of registered ones. Registered ones are able to continue v…

This is horrendously inaccurate. Yes, if you're a part of a sect controlled by the Communist Party, you're ok. The idea that this is a viable alternative ... I'm beyond words. The fact that you cannot purchase books at the heart of those Abrahamic religions says enough. You cannot even practice in the safety of your own home.

Re: China Cracks Down on Churches

#55

Post by dorian-graph » Tue, Dec 25, 2018, 5:16 PM UTC

dahidahi1 wrote: post #37

nyolfen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is "borderline terrorism"? the churches in the article were targeted for criticizing corrupt officials, in china

Why is the church indulging in criticism? Who are they? What right do they have to do that? How do they know that the officials are corrupt? How do you know that is the only thing the church did, if they even did that? How do YOU know for a fact that the official was corrupt? Too many questions & you seem to be naive enough to take everything at face value. Again, why does the church interfere in such things? Isn't t…

> There is nothing but death & destruction we have gotten from these desert cults.

_Nothing_? That’s quite a bold statement

Re: China Cracks Down on Churches

#56

Post by dahidahi1 » Tue, Dec 25, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

CapacitorSet wrote: post #28

dahidahi1 wrote: post #16

[flagged]

>Finally someone has the balls to call out what is a total & unequivocal anti-mankind force. That would be nice, but it's not the case of China. As the article mentions, the crackdown merely affects independent churches.

IMO — There is no such thing as "independent" churches. It's a very big ecosystem, an ecosystem that has forced us to invent the word "Secularism". Not sure if you have forgotten...

Re: China Cracks Down on Churches

#57

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 25, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

xvilka wrote: post #34

intralizee wrote: post #20

Writing from the perspective of a person who literally had a life ruined by religious ideology impairing the mental judgement of parental figures. This is literally one of the best things I've read in my life. Going to be unpopular opinion because of people indoctrinated into freedom of expression but why not. Religious ideology has done more damage than terrorism to LGBT people. The result has lead to suicides and t…

Not only LGBT, religion (not only Christianity) had done an enormous harm to women in all times (and still does).

[deleted]

Re: China Cracks Down on Churches

#58

Post by olcor » Tue, Dec 25, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

dahidahi1 wrote: post #16

[flagged]

> Islam and Christianity are just two sides of the same coin

As an agnostic Indian (Hindu family), I’d prefer if you don’t color entire religions and people with a broad brush. As for Christian missionaries abusing laws and forcibly converting people, please cite sources.

Religious and tribal dogma isn’t confined only to certain religions; feel free to believe what you want but try and exercise restraint against unequivocal labeling of others.

Re: China Cracks Down on Churches

#59

Post by kumarvvr » Tue, Dec 25, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

lgleason wrote: post #4

This is why we need to sever economic ties with China. The more we support this the worse this type of thing will intensify, including beyond China's borders....and it won't stop at just Christianity, they have targeted Islam and, Buddhists etc. as well.

> This is why we need to sever economic ties with China

Then someone else will step in. What needs to be done is clever diplomacy. A carrot and stick policy and long-term thinking.

Re: China Cracks Down on Churches

#60

Post by wintom » Tue, Dec 25, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

dgut wrote: post #9

lgleason wrote: post #4

This is why we need to sever economic ties with China. The more we support this the worse this type of thing will intensify, including beyond China's borders....and it won't stop at just Christianity, they have targeted Islam and, Buddhists etc. as well.

On the contrary. I think our leaders should spend more time together. Maybe they should even vacation together. The US severed economic ties with Cuba in the 60s and look what happened (only recently celebrating Christmas became legal, and property that belonged to the church was returned). There are countless examples like that.

What exactly happened after the U.S. severed ties with Cuba? You make it sound like we lost something.

They are still stuck in the 1960s, their economy is absolute garbage and the people are dirt poor, they lost multiple generations of opportunity.

Have you been to Cuba? It’s like going back in time 70 years.. the country itself is beautiful if they had taken a different path they could be incredibly propsorous. A small country like Cuba could get by on tourism alone and do much better than they do now.

Everyone needs to take their own path, if suppressing people’s religions and no freedom is that path the Chinese want to take then that’s their choice.

Our government and our corporations should not support that.