The Western imperialistic view of the world is not the only correct one.
We should have a multi-polar world, where China and Russia also get to impose their views and values.
China Cracks Down on Churches
91–100 of 245 posts
Re: China Cracks Down on Churches
#92> ...Christianity, which by some estimates is China’s fastest-growing religion, promotes Western values and ideals like human rights that conflict with the aims of China’s authoritarian government and Mr. Xi’s embrace of traditional Chinese culture and Confucian teachings that emphasize obedience and order. > But the government’s heavy-handed efforts to obliterate several high-profile churches have been met with resi…
> ...Christianity, which by some estimates is China’s fastest-growing religion, promotes Western values and ideals like human rights that conflict with the aims of China’s authoritarian government
This is the part that confuses me.
I'm not sure what Christianity intrinsically promotes (ask 12 Christians and I suspect you'll receive 13 conflicting opinions). But practically speaking, governments and ruling classes have used it for nearly two-thousand years to promote social order and subservience.
It's been used to justify the Crusades, and slavery. Within living memory it's been used to justify Jim Crow laws, and the Salvation Army used as a tool against labor union organizing. It's been used to promote leftist regimes in Catholic South America, and the far-right "Protestant work ethic" class structure in the USA. It's been used everywhere to enforce a social order based on strict sexual norms and patriarchal gender roles.
Christianity became one of the Top Two religions on earth, precisely because of how malleable it is. In other words, in practice, it tends to promote whatever the ruling class in a given place and time WANT it to promote. It's been that way since Emperor Constantine.
So why try to violently suppress it? That's never been an effective strategy. Just co-opt it, and make it promote whatever Chinese/Confucian values you want like everyone else does.
Re: China Cracks Down on Churches
#93This hasn't started today, most forms of religious organizations were already heavily supervised in China
Re: China Cracks Down on Churches
#94This 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.
China represents almost 1/5th of the world's population, you can't simply ignore Chinas global presence. I suggest visiting china for a few weeks, exploring each of their major cities to gain some new perspective.
Re: China Cracks Down on Churches
#95I participate in Christian festivities and find them quite joyful. It's a wonderful time of the year for most of the world. However, whether countries should allow the propogation of religion and mythology is entirely up to them. Many countries have laws against various forms of deception - and religion straddles that line (of deception) so often. If action is being taken against the people who propagate "falsety" ra…
> However, whether countries should allow the propogation of religion and mythology is entirely up to them.
This isn't a democratic country, so you should rephrase your statement justifying this as "whether an authoritarian cabal should allow the propagation of a religion and mythology is entirely up to them"
A person's beliefs are up to them not their government.
Re: China Cracks Down on Churches
#96This is why it's frustrating when some make it seem that Christians are incapable of facing persecution, based entirely on their experiences in the US. The Christians in China are very brave for standing by their faith, and I wish them luck and peace.
>This is why it's frustrating when some make it seem that Christians are incapable of facing persecution, Literally no one does this. Western Christians are incapable of facing persecution in the current social and economic climate. This is because Christians by and large make up every pillar of Western society. It has nothing to do with someone being a Christian else where in the world. The sentiment you are attempt…
> Christians by and large make up every pillar of Western society
... except Hollywood, academia, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, K Street, much of the publishing industry, and the mainstream media. Fixed that for you.
And Merry Christmas!
Re: China Cracks Down on Churches
#97The paradox is that the more the government cracks down on Christianity, the more it will likely flourish.
Re: China Cracks Down on Churches
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can understand your point. My point is that "accepting all faiths" has gone too far. > It's better to let people have the freedom to make their own choices. But accepting the people's choices without examining the content is strange. Don't you think? Would you accept anything that you don't understand? I understand there must be some balance. And we might be biased to accepting a faith. But, at least, we should exe…
What do you mean by "accepting" a faith? Accepting its tenets as true, or accepting the presence of its adherents?
My use of English isn't very good, I apologize.
Let me give a thought experiment.
Let's say: one religion believes that the person who leaves that religion should be killed
Should I be ok with the person with this religion? Should I do something about this?
I want to say there are good practices and bad practices. But our ideology is to accept all of them. That's not good.
Re: China Cracks Down on Churches
#99Earlier 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.
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 sm…
My point is simple: If the US had not severed ties with Cuba and instead engaged with Fidel (as he initially tried to do with the US), chances are Cuba wouldn't have alienated itself with the Soviet Union, and Christians (and everybody else) would have been much better off.
Repression of the Church didn't happen until years after the revolution and the Soviet Union had become its main ally.
Cuba is worse off today than it was 60 years ago by the way, so in that sense, they aren't "stuck in the 60s".
What did the US lose? An ally and a potentially strong economy to trade with a few miles from US shore. Cuban music had quite some influence on the music of New Orleans, particularly jazz. Cuban musicians would regularly travel back and forth from Havana to New Orleans before the revolution (and the other way around).
Re: China Cracks Down on Churches
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That’s exactly how it panned out in Korea, Vietnam etc.
China is an outlier because of several reasons but size is perhaps the biggest. Chinese market is so huge it can support China specific versions of everything; the State realized this and used it to effectively control all the new sources of information (mostly internet stuff). No one thought they could do that effectively but hats off to them they did.