I think just because atheists don’t tend to care for the book. But yeah we’re typically less in to banning books than religious people so it is an odd comment.
Athiests (the community) are known for being outspoken about the damage that certian religions have caused and are causing, but they're also known for supporting the free exchange of ideas including those that they think are harmful. Atheists (the definition) aren't known for anything because atheism doesn't demand any specific behaviors.
I wonder if there have been any explicitly Athiest regimes? That is, governments based on an ideology that explicitly denies the existence of God and devalues all religions?
If only we had historical examples of such regimes, perhaps we could see if they were benign or murderous.
My understanding is that most Communistic regimes were explicitly Atheist. I'm not a historian so I may not have my facts completely correct, but my understanding is that:
The Soviet Union more or less outlawed religion.
China is officially Atheistic but tolerates certain recognized religions. My understanding is that they outlaw/suppress certain things they view as "superstition" (such as supernatural and moral aspects of Qigong) in a way that would be considered questionable in the west.
On a more positive side, I wonder if there are any of the Scandinavian countries that could be considered to more or less implement Humanism. I say that because it seems like Humanism fills a lot of the same roles for Atheists (moral system, providing hope, providing meaning etc.) that religion does for theists.
> I wonder if there have been any explicitly Athiest regimes?
Some, but not all, regimes in the Leninist (and Stalinist, etc., derivatives) tradition were/are, and early the French Revolutionary regime briefly was during the period of the establishment of the Cult of Reason (which, while called a “cult” with good was, was atheistic and thus not a religion in the theistic sense), but that was soon replaced by the Cult of the Supreme Being (which was deistic, but not atheistic) during the Terror.
I seriously doubt you're correct. The communist regimes (as well as their demented cousins such as DPRK, Pol Pot, Viet Kong, etc.) murdered millions upon millions of their own people in the 20th century. These regimes could not have been atheistic as such horrendous genoicidal bloodshed is typically the result of Christisnity. I know this to be true, as I've read it many times here.
Stalin and Pol Pot and Mao and Kim were undoubtedly Christians. Atheists are generally rational and not given over to such genocidal tendancies. You need to check your facts.
Atheists have a reputation for being anti-religion. This certainly isn't inherent to Atheism or reflective of all Atheists. However, I have met many Atheists who were highly intolerant or disrespectful of religion.
I agree that we shouldn't ban something just because we dislike/disrespect it; instead I meant that, unfortunately, many people (on both sides) don't see things that way. Sorry if that's not what it sounded like I was saying in my original post.
I understood what you're saying; what I'm saying is that we should be careful not to assume someone want to ban something just because they're being disrespectful to it.
The religious people of all monotheisic religions don’t believe in almost all the same gods as the atheists. The atheists just don’t believe in one more.
I'm really not trying to start a tit for tat who is worse argument as all religions, including mine (Christian/Catholic) has their fair share of atrocities, but certainly many people were murdered and otherwise oppressed under state atheist regimes in Communist countries. It's worth calling out and remembering.
As an atheist i can't even see why they would ban it. It's a mish mash of traditional views, fallacies , contradictions and stories. Studying it should teach you see all these things.
The stories include a historical person named Jesus who started a new religion after he died and was seen by his followers being alive after he was dead. These followers went on to become martyrs voluntarily.
I think it's pretty obvious why the Chinese government is so afraid of the Bible, since historically, people's lives have been changed dramatically based on what is inside the Bible. The Bible can only lead to instability.
Why "even atheists"? Historically, atheists are not even close to the biggest aggressors against Christians. That would be other Christians, probably followed by Muslims (during the ascendancy of the Caliphates).
Christians have been persecuted by polytheists, atheists, Muslims, and many others. Ancient Rome sent many Christians to the lions. The USSR had official state atheism, for example, and persecuted Christians. Certainly Christians have persecuted other Christians, but I think there's little evidence that Christians have been the dominant ones. Much more info is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians
On the other hand, clearly many atheists allow others to have different beliefs, including Christian beliefs, and to allow religious texts to be distributed (such as the Bible).
This seems to be much more about power and control over the Chinese people.
That page simply ignores the Christian-on-Christian violence. Where's the Thirty Years' War, "one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in human history"?
Quote from that page about the Thirty Years War:
"Initially a war between various Protestant and Catholic states in the fragmented Holy Roman Empire, it gradually developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers. These states employed relatively large mercenary armies, and the war became less about religion and more of a continuation of the France–Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence."
In particular, you have Catholic France against the Catholic Habsburgs, and the issues were not doctrinal. Not what you would expect if this was a war about religion. This was not a war about religion primarily, by the time most of the deaths occurred.
Late Christopher Hitchens had a brilliant answer to the atheistic USSR persecuting Christians: Stalin was building his own cult. As an ignostic or anti-theist (depending on when you ask me) I do not want to have anything in common with the cult-building monsters of past, present or future.
I assume it's because the Chinese government is officially atheist. (You could also add 20th century Communism to your list of significant persecutors -- not the same as the modern Chinese Communist party, but surely atheist.)
This has nothing to do with religion or what people believe. This is about control. Religion is another source of authority, which the Chinese government will never tolerate. This is also why there is a campaign to promote the more traditional Confucian values: obedience to your elders and emperor (now replace emperor with government) and be a useful member of a hierarchy.
Bill Maher is a TV personality. I’d not consider a representative of atheism. Richard Dawkins or Christoper Hitchens would be better candidates. Bill Maher is mostly a comedian.
Thanks for the downvotes btw, as a Christian critical of evangelists and similar conmen I don’t really care.
You should read some writings of Einstein and other great scientists btw, hardcore atheism is very radical niche and even most evolutionary biologists and theoretical physicists don’t believe it.
What are the Chinese government so scared of! They have complete control in a way not possible in the West, I can’t really foresee how the state would be overthrown by the people there?
They are afraid of other power blocks and that's what churches really are when you strip away the veneer.
You can still see this all over Europe, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Germany, Ireland, England, Spain and Italy have very powerful religious entities, and in many other countries even though the religious fractions are not quite that powerful they still have lot of power to influence politics and life in general.
The church has literally zero power to do anything in the UK.
We live in secular societies and I cannot believe your statement is provably true. No church/religion will ever go up against the power of the Chinese state, unless God herself returns to Earth...
I think your perception of "power" is too narrow. Influence into the behaviors and opinions of people is power. The money they bring in and distribute is power.
And the fact that the Queen of Britain is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England gives the Church importance - and therefore power - over many other influences.
> The church has literally zero power to do anything in the UK.
That's not for lack of trying and a direct consequence of doing exactly that.[1] Also: (edit: Northern) Ireland is very much a part of the UK and the church has a lot of power there.
> We live in secular societies and I cannot believe your statement is provably true.
You don't have to believe it, that's fine by me. Having lived in Romania and seeing a poor country dump 100's of millions, much of it government funds into a church in a city that already has a ridiculous number of churches is one datapoint I have. Having lived in Poland and seeing how much power even local priests have over their subjects (typically more than the local government representatives) is another.
Seeing the German state collect taxes on behalf of the Church is a third.
If you feel that Italy and Spain are free from religious influence that's also fine by me.
As much as I would like to see that we live in 'secular societies' it seems to me that this is not the case based on the evidence before my eyes. Even Donald Trump goes to church to keep up appearances because it is said that no atheist could ever be elected President of the USA.
> No church/religion will ever go up against the power of the Chinese state
Well, that would simplify one of the thorny issues in Brexit, but, no, it's really very much a separate sovereign nation, and not even one of the UKs former possessions that still shares a monarch with the UK.
> Ireland is very much a part of the UK and the church has a lot of power there.
Only 27% of Irish people hold a favorable view of the Church. The population are very much cultural Christians, most recently voting in favor of gay marriage and likely to rewrite the constitution to allow for limited abortion.
The power of the Church is very limited and waning. Although just a few decades ago they did have considerable power, it's kind of incredible in retrospect.
Ireland is one of the few countries that has seen up close how even splinter groups of what is essentially the same religion can go to war with each other.
Between Ian Paisley and the IRA Ireland has learned a large number of super expensive lessons many of which have their roots in the protestant and catholic movements, handily used by the English to keep everybody divided. That's a very black chapter in European history.
> the same religion can go to war with each other.
Sure, although the Troubles were about nationalism and civil rights and not religion. Religion did delineate the two main factions but there was little in the way of theological debate. It was an ethno-nationalist conflict.
That's more about the monarchy; the monarch is not the spiritual head of the church, and the fact that they are considered the lead if anything shows how the state triumphed over religion.
I don't know what you mean "have gained control...to a shocking degree" -- Christians are the ones that founded the country.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights"...
Show some gratitude for the religion from which grew the very concept of human rights you now take for granted in the West and for the faithful who overthrew monarchs to enshrine those rights, which they believed were given to them by God.
>Show some gratitude for the religion from which grew the very concept of human rights you now take for granted in the West and for the faithful who overthrew monarchs to enshrine those rights, which they believed were given to them by God.
Those same monarchs believed they held the divine right to rule given to them by the same God, and those same Christians believed that same God justified their enslavement of their fellow men, rape and subjugation of women, persecution of Jews, and the genocide of indigenous and "pagan" cultures that refused conversion.
You've got cause and effect reversed. The modern concept of universal human rights as espoused by the Founding Fathers comes from Enlightenment principles, not Christian.
...will ever go up against the power of the Chinese state.
There are lots of examples of religious fervor going up against a state and winning. If a movement gains sufficient mindshare and it’s adherents are sufficiently galvanized then things that get in the way have a tendency to fail. This possibility should not be discounted so cavalierly.
Poland and Ireland yes, but that's because of popular support. The church despite its past popularity as well as its resources has little influence on politics in Spain, Italy, Germany.
In Germany the Church still manages to use the government to fill its coffers, and the Christian Democratic party has been a major force in politics for decades.
That it is with 'popular support' is obvious to me, that's the whole point of these movements, to get so many people into their organization that you're going to have to take them into account. That's been their strategy for centuries, if it was just a bunch of priests nobody would care.
It may be oversimplifying to say that they're concerned with a power block arising from Christian churches.
They could be concerned with the cultural and viral ideas of the texts themselves. Religious texts beget mindsets, attitudes, ways of life. That could be the disruption to status-quo social order that they're worried about. It may be secondary for power-blocks to arise from people organizing around those uprising belief systems.
Anyway this might be just an administrative stepping stone; maybe just being more consistent in their long-existing sorta-soft-ban on religions, rather than deliberately taking a new step towards banning them even harder. Can anyone here advise how significant this is relative to the status quo?
The NYT article itself provided good context: the Bible is available at church bookstores but no longer online. They even give an estimate of how many copies have been printed.
It's odd to see you speaking of the power of religious entities in Europe and staying silent on the Middle East, where they truly are a force that can topple kings.
> What are the Chinese government so scared of! They have complete control in a way not possible in the West
And they rely very heavily on maintaining that, and vendors of competing ideologies are a threat to that.
> I can’t really foresee how the state would be overthrown by the people there?
If the history of authoritarian regimes being overthrown is any guide, with intense violence by both outsiders and non-top insiders of the current regime against top insiders andnl those who remain loyal to them. The risk per year is much lower than, say, the risk per year of the leadership of a western democracy being replaced, but the lifetime risk is probably reasonably concerning on the absence of active steps to destroy alternate sources of ideology and identity, and the consequences for the leadership should that risk be realized are quite severe.
There is a great two pay PBS documentary called "China - A Century of Revolution". It's fascinating to watch. It shows how the was just one BS revolution after another, each of them leading to destruction and unfathomable suffering. By the time you get to the protests leading up to the Tianmen massacre you'll go "Fuck no! Not again!" It's incredible to watch that in yourself and leads to greater understanding of Chinese politics. Not saying that what they are doing is right or did be supported, but at least it makes it so you can understand it beyond a "they are just evil and power hungry" angle. Stability looks suddenly very attractive.
Popular overthrow of the government is an integral part of the historiography of China. While China never (except for very briefly) had democracy, ever since its first dynasties there was the idea of the "Mandate of Heaven". Emperors ruled via that mandate but unlike the Western "Divine Rights", the mandate can be lost if the emperor does a bad job. How? A popular revolt. Emperors can rule with absolute power but the people has the "right" to overthrow him. A revolt that is successful is considered blessed by heaven. Most Chinese dynasties are the results of popular revolts. This what gives rise to the dynastic cycle of China. Chinese governments of the past weren't any less powerful in regards to what they can do but that has never stopped them from being overthrown.
The escape from this cycle is a non-violent change of government, i.e. democracy, but China just took a giant step in the opposite direction by getting rid of term limits. So back to the cycles!
This is bad. I get that religion has taboos, but religion also has an influence on morals. Yes, there are ways to be a good moral person without the Bible, but are we really giving people agency and the ability to choose if they are sensored? Human rights are human rights and as a human I should have the right to obtain a Bible if I so chose and live the consequences there of.
there's already a ton of censorship deployed worldwide, one of those is ban on literature spreading hate, killing and humiliation of others, and frankly - most parts of bible aren't very different in this. bible "morals" are extremely outdated
Apart from the fact that your statement is simply not true, every value "discriminates" towards opposite values.
In every hierarchy, when you define something as better, you automatically define something else as worse. That's how you make any decision in your life. The alternative is inaction.
It has nothing to do with religion. It's an axiom of every value system.
> every religion teaches intolerance to other beliefs.
Not so. Big difference (and spectrum) between a Buddhist saying "I think my way is better, try it for yourself, or don't!" and a (insert fundamentalist sect here) saying "You deserve to die if you don't think like me." You don't even have to be religious to claim the latter, some political belief systems will also do just fine.
It's been spiraling down for a while now. I know quite a few Chinese who moved from China to the U.S. now, while they can. A couple of them are LGBT, where it was made clear they weren't welcome - even with PhD's in Chemical Engineering and Physics.
The government wants to maintain power at all costs, what's best for the country and it's citizens is irrelevant. If a large number of Chinese begin to value the word of god more than glorious leader Xi, that's a threat to the status quo.
They have plenty of people, last I heard. Plus or minus one million people here or there doesn't really make any dent on their society and getting rid of "undesirables" without mass murder looks very beneficial in the eyes of the authorities.
For an authoritarian government to work long term they have to be the highest power. This is why the Soviets worked so hard to destroy the church as well as the concept of family, people who value god or family above the government are a threat. In effect the government has to become god.
Is this true? I always found it strange that the Kremlin literally has five churches inside of it... I mean Communism and Christianity have a surprising amount of commonality.
> For an authoritarian government to work long term they have to be the highest power. This is why the Soviets worked so hard to destroy the church as well as the concept of family, people who value god or family above the government are a threat.
The Soviets did that largely because that's part of Marxist doctrine that Lenin didn't explicitly abandon, not because it is objectively useful for authoritarian regimes’ longevity (as evidenced by the fact that authoritarian regimes where the state was unified or allied with religious authority and promoted the value of family have done quite well, and were long the norm.)
Any Chinese interested in reading a Bible will just download it. Restricting access to the printed version will have very little impact and will likely increase demand, because banning books usually does that.
Religious conversion is not about making a religion available to those who are interested. Money, muscle, propaganda, deceit -all are used to recruit new members.
Its worth noting the absolutely insane impact that cargo cult Christianity had on China which arguably caused the Chinese civil war.
That might be some context as to why Christianity has been singled out?
these people should read the link. Its a fascinating piece of history. If one had that native history one could understand a little more why they might persecute Christianity a bit more strongly than other religions.
None of that in any, shape or form ever seeks to justify it. Just understand it.
If you disagree with the justification, it would be better to explain that position. Otherwise it appears that you are starting from the premise that this is bad so any justification presented must necessarily be dismissed regardless of validity.
Not really... That is a symptom, not the cause of the Chinese civil war(s). The arrival and the dominance of the Western powers eroded the strength and faith people had in the Qing Dynasty. The Taiping rebellion was a reaction to that but just one event in a long series of the fracturing of China as the Qing declined.
Christianity isn't being singled out. Islam is also a target. They oppress the hell out of the Uighurs too. (Although they do tolerate the Hui but the Hui have been in China for centuries and are generally assimilated)
They also targeted the Falun Gong.
As a rule of thumb, anything that represents an alternate source of authority in China will be targeted and oppressed.
> As a rule of thumb, anything that represents an alternate source of authority in China will be targeted and oppressed.
to be fair its the mistake that most autocrats make in not seizing control of religion. Religion is often the one available source of dissent. As the Shah learned in Iran; its a terrible mistake to make.
You are correct. Few realize that China -- nearly all of it -- had been exposed to Christisnity; albeit, a really bizarre form of it preached by Xiuquan.
I don't believe this period of China's history is taught much in China and, after all of the purges and communist stuff that happened later, I don't think it's part of the collective consciousness. Could be wrong. But, my Chinese friends had never even heard of the Xiuquan episode. (There are similar 'wierd' periods in European/Americsn history that are likewise glossed over and forgotten.)
His name was Hong Xiuquan, with Hong being the family name. The movement is known as Taiping Rebellion. It is taught but is portrayed as a just peasant rebellion against the Qing. However the connection with Christianity is only obliquely hinted at.
A friend of mine has a theory that as China grows in power, it will eventually push its own alternative calendar as an ideological statement, as the calendar we currently use is based on the birth of Jesus Christ, something the Chinese government does not particularly care about.
Unless you can point me to otherwise, I believe it is still the year 2018 of our lord and savior Jesus Christ as far as China is concerned in all of its international business and political dealings.
The Nationalist Party of China in the 1920s adopted the Gregorian calendar. This is the group that the communists overthrew and they retreated to Taiwan in 1949/50. The communists never changed back... so the Chinese calendar is only used for traditional chinese events (like the chinese new year).
This is part of the period in china known as the Century of Humiliation (1839-1949)... which includes the invasions of western powers, opium wars, etc.
Certain cardinals in the Vatican supported the Nazis. I don't see how the Kirchenkampf, Mit brennender sorge and the actions of Catholics in the camps were outweighed by those cardinals' actions, any more than the Belgians were Nazis because of Leon Degrelle.
Not strong supporters by any means, and many resistors. Wikipedia has a good page explaining the history. The most you can say is that some Catholics leaders were too compliant and did not protest enough, but countless other Catholics worked actively to save Jews from the holocaust and to counter Naziism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_Nazi_Germa...
Is censorship even effective? I'd love to see an academic treatment of the reality of censorship minus the obvious moral qualms. I suppose it's probably an impossible thing to measure.
I don't think that would be impossible to measure. Would you be more interested in a controlled experiment or more of a study on real world censorship?
> They are still allowed to purchase the Bible from official church bookstores.
Official churches in China (even those notionally identified with other global denominations) are significantly state controlled, monitored, and censored.
> This is probably more about finding out exactly how many Bibles are being sold
And he said unto them, "Whose is this image and superscription?"
They said unto him, "Caesar's." Then said he unto them, Render
unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the
things that are God's.
Please forgive the invocation of a meme on Hacker News but ...u wot m8?
Another sign (among many) that China is preparing for significant social unrest and probably global instability. I suspect the CCP has concluded that a rebalancing of its economy is inevitable, close at hand, and will be painful for most Chinese. The scale of China's challenge, maintaining order in a nation of its size, guarantees there will be overreach.
I thought we might see mesh-networking emerge in Iran as a means for protestors to organize and communicate. Didn't happen. Now I think there's a pretty good chance China's restrictive communications networks are going to result in some real innovation in ad-hoc networking and covert communication as the months and years progress. The next Twitter may be found among USB keys embedded in brick walls, or rogue routers covertly attached to outlets in public bathrooms.
Ironically, the outcome would be better for all concerned if China allowed the debate and unrest to play itself out and impact policy. History proves bottoms-up accountability delivers much better outcomes than top-down oversight.
"History proves bottoms-up accountability delivers much better outcomes than top-down oversight."
Oh I'm not so sure about that. At least for results people can see within a short amount of time, a strong, competent authoritarian government can deliver results much faster and people like that. Democracies are messy and difficult. I'm not saying this because I am pro-authoritarianism but rather as an admonishment against the notion that democracy will somehow win as if it is a law of nature and things will just flow that way ("end of history" stuff and all that). Democracy requires work and faith that it is better in the long run. Authoritarianism arises when people lose faith and patience and the demagogue promises quick results through the application of unbridled power. If we want democracy, we have to be vigilant and participate and have a good dose of patience. It requires more from the individuals than authoritarianism.
I get the impression this is much more likely to happen when one group of elites gets the country into an economic situation that will make them lose their power. In a way, they fucked up, but of course they don't see things that way. (I have never read in the history books about an elite that saw their actions justified by economic results. No their actions are "from God", "noble", "good for the planet", "socially just", "for the plebs", ... and so on. None of them accept the judgement that comes from the real world in terms of economic performance, in fact usually right before they lose power they attempt to falsify economic indicators on a very large scale, because at least some of them do realize that their justifications are bullshit and the result in the real world is all that matters. Those results are usually less than perfect)
Then the old elites and the powerless masses have something in common : they need the government to repress things with a heavy hand. The elites need the government to repress people, because otherwise their power is under threat, or even their persons. The powerless masses want the government to be heavy-handed because they want all the shenanigans and "gentlemen's agreements" that exist with the elites blown up, and they want their newly elected people to have the power to blow those up.
You see a sort of mini version happening currently. Both the middle Americans that elected him and the Bay Area progressives that hate him want Trump to have more power. Obviously things like legislating solutions to "fake news" are very, very bad for both of them, yet they both want it. I even understand how the reasoning works, and where they're both very very wrong.
The progressives want heavy handed government because "they're right" (they mostly are, of course, but) and the population just doesn't see that. So we must legislate and put rules for what the population sees, hears, and so on. Otherwise climate change action, future democratic/progressive politics, open borders, ... and so on are all in great danger.
... except of course with Donald Trump in charge of enforcement actions for this ... things are not going to go well for these causes regardless of the heavy hand. And the rights and powers that the executive power acquires as a result of this legislation ... will be aimed straight at them.
The middle Americans are tired of being marginalized and not listened to. They want their jobs (their industries) protected and left alone. They want limits on imports. Imports of people that complete on the job market, and imports of goods that put their employers out of business.
... except of course automation means this is useless. Furthermore, economically speaking these limits will lead to inflation, and they'll be the last ones to get wage increases. So if this indeed happens (as it appears it will) it will make their situation that much worse, not better. And of course that heavy hand will lead to more government bureaucrats interference in their lives and companies, not less.
I think that's a very compelling argument: that China's swerve towards totalitarianism in the past few years is motivated by the fact that the government sees an economic depression coming.
This isn't about Bibles, the Bibles are just one aspect of a tightening grasp on society that's been going on for a while now. You could just as easily focus on their attacks on feminism or homosexuality, with a completely different attendant set of armchair socio-historical theories.
The economic explanation is the only one I've heard that makes sense to me: at present, civic peace is largely predicated on continuing economic growth. The main reason the populace tolerates the current regime is that it has provided steadily-increasing prosperity. If the government anticipates a bump in that process, it makes a lot of sense that they would now be battening down the hatches.
China grew tremendously by using domestic controls to suppress wages WRT the foreign markets with which it was competing.
What makes anyone think the approach will be any different, in transitioning the current structural changes? Big pressures, but they've also had a couple of decades to greatly increase the tools they have with which to control and navigate this.
Plus, the "leader of democracy" -- the U.S. -- has a leadership that is demonstrating its moral bankruptcy with respect to practicing what it preaches.
This is not new - China has been destroying churches, bulldozing them whenever they believed they could.
Any identity or belief system other then that which the state provides is a threat to totalitarian states. You see this clearly over the last two hundred years with the criminalization of Christianity not only in China and Russia, but Nazi Germany (which alternatively tried to co-opt and then destroy churches), the middle east (which has had a open war between various Muslim sects and states for the last 75 years), South East asia, etc. Hell, even the french revolution attempted to suppress religion - with the Martyrs of Compiègne and the cult of the supreme being, and the cult of reason.
States which promise Utopia cannot accept any alternative to the state vision of how to reach Utopia.
The difference now is that the amount of power that a modern state has far outstrips the power the Hitler and Stalin's Gestapo and NKVD.
How much you want to bet that your Chinese "credit score" goes down if you read the Bible? Or 1984. Or Sanzijing.
Christianity has become a political tool now. It's a bit similar to how America feared and still does not allow members of communist party to become US citizens [1].
On the power of evangelical christianity, just look at some parts of central America, where there has been a strong conversion to evangelical Christianity. So strong that, is considered one of the reasons Hounders and Guatemala voted along with Trump administration on UN Jerusalem resolution. [2], [3]
Christianity has always been a political tool. I'm not saying that religion in general is incorrect or that it cannot exist outside of political use in a genuine way-- only that Christianity in particular has always been used in that way.
There is going to be repercussion. The Chinese government starts to treat Christianity as a cult like Falun Gong, to which it used the same tactic. But unlike Falun Gong, which is more of a home-brew quasi religion from the 90s, Christianity and missionary activities have been intrinsically rooted in major cities like Nanjing and Shanghai, especially during the wartime.
This also sends a danger sign to the Uyghur area, which is Muslim dominated, making Uyghurs worry that Muslim might be the next religion to crack down. If the Chinese government wants stability and total control of its people, this is not the way to do it. And unlike two decades ago, there are now hundreds of ways to uprise and much harder to crack down.
One can only presume the same kinds that they faced between 1949 and 1994 or so. So essentially ... none at all.
What baffles me about Chinese people is how acquiescent they are. Ironically the fact that Chinese people trust their government so much is, at least partly, the cause that their government (especially on local level) is so ridiculously untrustworthy.
How untrustworthy ? It is generally accepted that about 80% of Chinese published economic indicators from public institutions are outright fabrication. If you look further into this and what it means, it is baffling. They are lies, and not just lies, but they are lies by people who do not themselves know the true numbers.
About the whole financial community is convinced that the Chinese government itself has no idea about the economic performance of the country because of this pervasive and onmipresent falsification.
In one famous case, a local governor from Mongolia is known to have promised to reduce steel producing capacity by about 20%. Not only did he not do it. He lied about it, and it took the central government about 4 years to realize it had happened (or at least, took 4 years before it was even mentioned anywhere).
The attitude in China must change. I mean, even if the communists just want to remain in power, they must find a way to at least get decent data themselves, as well as trustworthy governors.
Part of the problem for the Chinese government is that in a little more than a century, the country has been through 4 quite different political and economic systems. There was traditional Confucianism, then the Western-inspired Nationalist regime, then Maoism,and then the more moderate era that started under Dung Jao Ping. And now Xi is creating a new, more authoritarian system.
As a result the population has no real loyalty to the political system, it just keeps its head down and tries to do as well as it can. And so it will free free to revolt if it gets unhappy enough.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 196 ms ] threadIf only we had historical examples of such regimes, perhaps we could see if they were benign or murderous.
Oh what a pity we don't have such examples.
On a more positive side, I wonder if there are any of the Scandinavian countries that could be considered to more or less implement Humanism. I say that because it seems like Humanism fills a lot of the same roles for Atheists (moral system, providing hope, providing meaning etc.) that religion does for theists.
Some, but not all, regimes in the Leninist (and Stalinist, etc., derivatives) tradition were/are, and early the French Revolutionary regime briefly was during the period of the establishment of the Cult of Reason (which, while called a “cult” with good was, was atheistic and thus not a religion in the theistic sense), but that was soon replaced by the Cult of the Supreme Being (which was deistic, but not atheistic) during the Terror.
Stalin and Pol Pot and Mao and Kim were undoubtedly Christians. Atheists are generally rational and not given over to such genocidal tendancies. You need to check your facts.
This is just plain wrong as can be verified by reading up on history.
And this is circular reasoning:
> These regimes could not have been atheistic as such horrendous genoicidal bloodshed is typically the result of Christisnity.
I'm no Catholic and have never been.
But honestly: while Catholics has done much wrong they don't come anywere near Pol Pot, Stalin, the Reign of Terror etc
And by the way, since that's not clear from my first post: I'm a Christian as well, just not Catholic.
I think it's pretty obvious why the Chinese government is so afraid of the Bible, since historically, people's lives have been changed dramatically based on what is inside the Bible. The Bible can only lead to instability.
On the other hand, clearly many atheists allow others to have different beliefs, including Christian beliefs, and to allow religious texts to be distributed (such as the Bible).
This seems to be much more about power and control over the Chinese people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War
In particular, you have Catholic France against the Catholic Habsburgs, and the issues were not doctrinal. Not what you would expect if this was a war about religion. This was not a war about religion primarily, by the time most of the deaths occurred.
But to your specific point, France only entered the war almost twenty years after it started.
It's just easy to mock an overgrown persecution complex and blatant hypocrisy on high-profile Christian/evangelists.
Thanks for the downvotes btw, as a Christian critical of evangelists and similar conmen I don’t really care.
You should read some writings of Einstein and other great scientists btw, hardcore atheism is very radical niche and even most evolutionary biologists and theoretical physicists don’t believe it.
You can still see this all over Europe, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Poland, Germany, Ireland, England, Spain and Italy have very powerful religious entities, and in many other countries even though the religious fractions are not quite that powerful they still have lot of power to influence politics and life in general.
We live in secular societies and I cannot believe your statement is provably true. No church/religion will ever go up against the power of the Chinese state, unless God herself returns to Earth...
And the fact that the Queen of Britain is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England gives the Church importance - and therefore power - over many other influences.
That's not for lack of trying and a direct consequence of doing exactly that.[1] Also: (edit: Northern) Ireland is very much a part of the UK and the church has a lot of power there.
> We live in secular societies and I cannot believe your statement is provably true.
You don't have to believe it, that's fine by me. Having lived in Romania and seeing a poor country dump 100's of millions, much of it government funds into a church in a city that already has a ridiculous number of churches is one datapoint I have. Having lived in Poland and seeing how much power even local priests have over their subjects (typically more than the local government representatives) is another.
Seeing the German state collect taxes on behalf of the Church is a third.
If you feel that Italy and Spain are free from religious influence that's also fine by me.
As much as I would like to see that we live in 'secular societies' it seems to me that this is not the case based on the evidence before my eyes. Even Donald Trump goes to church to keep up appearances because it is said that no atheist could ever be elected President of the USA.
> No church/religion will ever go up against the power of the Chinese state
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England
Northern Ireland remains in the UK because of the Protestants. Is the Anglican (or any other protestant church) powerful there?
And if the Catholic Church (and the Catholics) were actually powerful in Northern Ireland, would it remain part of the UK?
Well, that would simplify one of the thorny issues in Brexit, but, no, it's really very much a separate sovereign nation, and not even one of the UKs former possessions that still shares a monarch with the UK.
Germany's church tax is only paid by members of a particular religion.
Only 27% of Irish people hold a favorable view of the Church. The population are very much cultural Christians, most recently voting in favor of gay marriage and likely to rewrite the constitution to allow for limited abortion.
The power of the Church is very limited and waning. Although just a few decades ago they did have considerable power, it's kind of incredible in retrospect.
Between Ian Paisley and the IRA Ireland has learned a large number of super expensive lessons many of which have their roots in the protestant and catholic movements, handily used by the English to keep everybody divided. That's a very black chapter in European history.
Sure, although the Troubles were about nationalism and civil rights and not religion. Religion did delineate the two main factions but there was little in the way of theological debate. It was an ethno-nationalist conflict.
That's not zero power.
In the United States, Christianity has obtained government influence to a shocking degree thanks to huge blocks of Christian voters.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights"...
Show some gratitude for the religion from which grew the very concept of human rights you now take for granted in the West and for the faithful who overthrew monarchs to enshrine those rights, which they believed were given to them by God.
Those same monarchs believed they held the divine right to rule given to them by the same God, and those same Christians believed that same God justified their enslavement of their fellow men, rape and subjugation of women, persecution of Jews, and the genocide of indigenous and "pagan" cultures that refused conversion.
You've got cause and effect reversed. The modern concept of universal human rights as espoused by the Founding Fathers comes from Enlightenment principles, not Christian.
There are lots of examples of religious fervor going up against a state and winning. If a movement gains sufficient mindshare and it’s adherents are sufficiently galvanized then things that get in the way have a tendency to fail. This possibility should not be discounted so cavalierly.
In Spain we have this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Party_(Spain)
And in Italy we have the Pope as one powerful element, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_(Italy) (which is Christian 'left').
That it is with 'popular support' is obvious to me, that's the whole point of these movements, to get so many people into their organization that you're going to have to take them into account. That's been their strategy for centuries, if it was just a bunch of priests nobody would care.
They could be concerned with the cultural and viral ideas of the texts themselves. Religious texts beget mindsets, attitudes, ways of life. That could be the disruption to status-quo social order that they're worried about. It may be secondary for power-blocks to arise from people organizing around those uprising belief systems.
Anyway this might be just an administrative stepping stone; maybe just being more consistent in their long-existing sorta-soft-ban on religions, rather than deliberately taking a new step towards banning them even harder. Can anyone here advise how significant this is relative to the status quo?
And they rely very heavily on maintaining that, and vendors of competing ideologies are a threat to that.
> I can’t really foresee how the state would be overthrown by the people there?
If the history of authoritarian regimes being overthrown is any guide, with intense violence by both outsiders and non-top insiders of the current regime against top insiders andnl those who remain loyal to them. The risk per year is much lower than, say, the risk per year of the leadership of a western democracy being replaced, but the lifetime risk is probably reasonably concerning on the absence of active steps to destroy alternate sources of ideology and identity, and the consequences for the leadership should that risk be realized are quite severe.
It's a book on the history of these revolutions from 1850 onward.
The escape from this cycle is a non-violent change of government, i.e. democracy, but China just took a giant step in the opposite direction by getting rid of term limits. So back to the cycles!
remember that every religion teaches intolerance to other beliefs. if not directly by simply suggesting it is the only truth.
In every hierarchy, when you define something as better, you automatically define something else as worse. That's how you make any decision in your life. The alternative is inaction.
It has nothing to do with religion. It's an axiom of every value system.
Not so. Big difference (and spectrum) between a Buddhist saying "I think my way is better, try it for yourself, or don't!" and a (insert fundamentalist sect here) saying "You deserve to die if you don't think like me." You don't even have to be religious to claim the latter, some political belief systems will also do just fine.
Every religion teaches disagreement with other beliefs, not every one teaches intolerance of them.
It's been spiraling down for a while now. I know quite a few Chinese who moved from China to the U.S. now, while they can. A couple of them are LGBT, where it was made clear they weren't welcome - even with PhD's in Chemical Engineering and Physics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism
As for persecution of clergy is true, I suppose it depends if you count mass murder, torture, and shutting down churches as persecution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-religious_campaign_during...
The Soviets did that largely because that's part of Marxist doctrine that Lenin didn't explicitly abandon, not because it is objectively useful for authoritarian regimes’ longevity (as evidenced by the fact that authoritarian regimes where the state was unified or allied with religious authority and promoted the value of family have done quite well, and were long the norm.)
Crisis and Leviathan by Robert Higgs is an essential read on this.
It's that those who are Christian can't freely practice their religion.
Then there's the whole downloading an illegal book getting you into trouble angle, too.
You just lost access to public transportation.
EDIT: why would you downvote this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Heavenly_Kingdom
From the source:
> A self-proclaimed convert to Christianity, Hong Xiuquan ... [claimed] ... that he was the second son of God and the younger brother of Jesus.
None of that in any, shape or form ever seeks to justify it. Just understand it.
Christianity isn't being singled out. Islam is also a target. They oppress the hell out of the Uighurs too. (Although they do tolerate the Hui but the Hui have been in China for centuries and are generally assimilated)
They also targeted the Falun Gong.
As a rule of thumb, anything that represents an alternate source of authority in China will be targeted and oppressed.
to be fair its the mistake that most autocrats make in not seizing control of religion. Religion is often the one available source of dissent. As the Shah learned in Iran; its a terrible mistake to make.
I don't believe this period of China's history is taught much in China and, after all of the purges and communist stuff that happened later, I don't think it's part of the collective consciousness. Could be wrong. But, my Chinese friends had never even heard of the Xiuquan episode. (There are similar 'wierd' periods in European/Americsn history that are likewise glossed over and forgotten.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era
This is part of the period in china known as the Century of Humiliation (1839-1949)... which includes the invasions of western powers, opium wars, etc.
https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/09/what-makes...
http://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/censored.pdf?m=14...
https://citizenlab.ca/2016/11/wechat-china-censorship-one-ap...
Some interesting answers on Quora:
https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-that-a-lot-of-Chinese-people...
They are still allowed to purchase the Bible from official church bookstores.
This is probably more about finding out exactly how many Bibles are being sold in the country rather than completely stopping them from being sold.
Official churches in China (even those notionally identified with other global denominations) are significantly state controlled, monitored, and censored.
> This is probably more about finding out exactly how many Bibles are being sold
And to whom.
I thought we might see mesh-networking emerge in Iran as a means for protestors to organize and communicate. Didn't happen. Now I think there's a pretty good chance China's restrictive communications networks are going to result in some real innovation in ad-hoc networking and covert communication as the months and years progress. The next Twitter may be found among USB keys embedded in brick walls, or rogue routers covertly attached to outlets in public bathrooms.
Ironically, the outcome would be better for all concerned if China allowed the debate and unrest to play itself out and impact policy. History proves bottoms-up accountability delivers much better outcomes than top-down oversight.
Oh I'm not so sure about that. At least for results people can see within a short amount of time, a strong, competent authoritarian government can deliver results much faster and people like that. Democracies are messy and difficult. I'm not saying this because I am pro-authoritarianism but rather as an admonishment against the notion that democracy will somehow win as if it is a law of nature and things will just flow that way ("end of history" stuff and all that). Democracy requires work and faith that it is better in the long run. Authoritarianism arises when people lose faith and patience and the demagogue promises quick results through the application of unbridled power. If we want democracy, we have to be vigilant and participate and have a good dose of patience. It requires more from the individuals than authoritarianism.
Then the old elites and the powerless masses have something in common : they need the government to repress things with a heavy hand. The elites need the government to repress people, because otherwise their power is under threat, or even their persons. The powerless masses want the government to be heavy-handed because they want all the shenanigans and "gentlemen's agreements" that exist with the elites blown up, and they want their newly elected people to have the power to blow those up.
You see a sort of mini version happening currently. Both the middle Americans that elected him and the Bay Area progressives that hate him want Trump to have more power. Obviously things like legislating solutions to "fake news" are very, very bad for both of them, yet they both want it. I even understand how the reasoning works, and where they're both very very wrong.
The progressives want heavy handed government because "they're right" (they mostly are, of course, but) and the population just doesn't see that. So we must legislate and put rules for what the population sees, hears, and so on. Otherwise climate change action, future democratic/progressive politics, open borders, ... and so on are all in great danger.
... except of course with Donald Trump in charge of enforcement actions for this ... things are not going to go well for these causes regardless of the heavy hand. And the rights and powers that the executive power acquires as a result of this legislation ... will be aimed straight at them.
The middle Americans are tired of being marginalized and not listened to. They want their jobs (their industries) protected and left alone. They want limits on imports. Imports of people that complete on the job market, and imports of goods that put their employers out of business.
... except of course automation means this is useless. Furthermore, economically speaking these limits will lead to inflation, and they'll be the last ones to get wage increases. So if this indeed happens (as it appears it will) it will make their situation that much worse, not better. And of course that heavy hand will lead to more government bureaucrats interference in their lives and companies, not less.
This isn't about Bibles, the Bibles are just one aspect of a tightening grasp on society that's been going on for a while now. You could just as easily focus on their attacks on feminism or homosexuality, with a completely different attendant set of armchair socio-historical theories.
The economic explanation is the only one I've heard that makes sense to me: at present, civic peace is largely predicated on continuing economic growth. The main reason the populace tolerates the current regime is that it has provided steadily-increasing prosperity. If the government anticipates a bump in that process, it makes a lot of sense that they would now be battening down the hatches.
What makes anyone think the approach will be any different, in transitioning the current structural changes? Big pressures, but they've also had a couple of decades to greatly increase the tools they have with which to control and navigate this.
Plus, the "leader of democracy" -- the U.S. -- has a leadership that is demonstrating its moral bankruptcy with respect to practicing what it preaches.
Any identity or belief system other then that which the state provides is a threat to totalitarian states. You see this clearly over the last two hundred years with the criminalization of Christianity not only in China and Russia, but Nazi Germany (which alternatively tried to co-opt and then destroy churches), the middle east (which has had a open war between various Muslim sects and states for the last 75 years), South East asia, etc. Hell, even the french revolution attempted to suppress religion - with the Martyrs of Compiègne and the cult of the supreme being, and the cult of reason.
States which promise Utopia cannot accept any alternative to the state vision of how to reach Utopia.
The difference now is that the amount of power that a modern state has far outstrips the power the Hitler and Stalin's Gestapo and NKVD.
How much you want to bet that your Chinese "credit score" goes down if you read the Bible? Or 1984. Or Sanzijing.
On the power of evangelical christianity, just look at some parts of central America, where there has been a strong conversion to evangelical Christianity. So strong that, is considered one of the reasons Hounders and Guatemala voted along with Trump administration on UN Jerusalem resolution. [2], [3]
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/aug/16/communist-pa... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/un-jerusal... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/guatemala-...
This also sends a danger sign to the Uyghur area, which is Muslim dominated, making Uyghurs worry that Muslim might be the next religion to crack down. If the Chinese government wants stability and total control of its people, this is not the way to do it. And unlike two decades ago, there are now hundreds of ways to uprise and much harder to crack down.
What baffles me about Chinese people is how acquiescent they are. Ironically the fact that Chinese people trust their government so much is, at least partly, the cause that their government (especially on local level) is so ridiculously untrustworthy.
How untrustworthy ? It is generally accepted that about 80% of Chinese published economic indicators from public institutions are outright fabrication. If you look further into this and what it means, it is baffling. They are lies, and not just lies, but they are lies by people who do not themselves know the true numbers.
About the whole financial community is convinced that the Chinese government itself has no idea about the economic performance of the country because of this pervasive and onmipresent falsification.
In one famous case, a local governor from Mongolia is known to have promised to reduce steel producing capacity by about 20%. Not only did he not do it. He lied about it, and it took the central government about 4 years to realize it had happened (or at least, took 4 years before it was even mentioned anywhere).
The attitude in China must change. I mean, even if the communists just want to remain in power, they must find a way to at least get decent data themselves, as well as trustworthy governors.
As a result the population has no real loyalty to the political system, it just keeps its head down and tries to do as well as it can. And so it will free free to revolt if it gets unhappy enough.