Is it fair to blame the CCP for the destruction of religion in China?

[Geof Nanto]

I’d so no, the causal factors run much deeper. Ian Johnson’s The Souls of China gives plenty of historical insight into why China needed to destroy its traditional structure; a structure that was totally and seamlessly religious.   

 

“Understanding this spiritual tumult [in modern China] requires making a detour back in time to its cause, one of the greatest antireligious movements in world history, one that affected all major faiths in China: Buddhism, Christianity, Daoism, folk religion, and Islam. Because China has been run by a Communist Party for such a long time, it might seem like a typical case of atheistic Communists attacking religion, and to a degree it was. But the campaign against religion did not originate with the Communists’ takeover in 1949. Instead, it began a century earlier, when China’s traditional civilization began to collapse. This breakdown was triggered by a crisis of confidence. For most of its history, China dominated its neighbors. Some were militarily stronger, especially the nomadic peoples to its north, such as the Xiongnu, the Mongols, and the Manchus. But even when these groups got the upper hand and conquered China, Chinese rarely doubted the superiority of their civilization. Chinese were often self-critical but believed that their ways of life would prevail. 

 

“China’s encounter with the West shook that self-assurance. Starting with the First Opium War of 1839, China suffered a string of military defeats. Many in power were at first unfazed, figuring that they only needed better technology, especially arsenals, ships, and cannons. But when China kept losing battles and territory, a sense of crisis developed. Chinese looked around the world and saw how the West had carved up the Americas and Africa and subjugated India. Was China next? By the end of the nineteenth century, a growing number of Chinese began to believe that their country needed more than superficial changes. They realized that China lacked modern science, engineering, education, public health, and advanced agricultural methods. All of these things were products of a radically different way of ordering society, one based primarily on science. As the crisis deepened, increasingly radical ideas took hold. China didn’t just need new policies, or even a new dynasty. It needed to abolish the emperor. It had to overthrow the entire political system of running China. And that meant destroying the religious system that was its most important pillar.”

 

 

I’ve started this topic to give a space to explore at a greater depth the very important issues @freeformraises in his discussion with @ChiDragonhere.  I’m only wanting to disagree with Freeform on his assertion that’s it’s all the fault of the CCP, not with the reality of what he is saying about the internal arts. For me, disconnection from their divine roots is at the core of the problem. And this is hugely important.     
 

[Gerard]

1 hour ago, Geof Nanto said:

I’d so no, the causal factors run much deeper. Ian Johnson’s The Souls of China gives plenty of historical insight into why China needed to destroy its traditional structure; a structure that was totally and seamlessly religious.   

 

 

1. WRONG

2. The roots of ancient China are first shamanic and then it became Taoism, which is a highly sophisticated scientific method.

3. Taoism has evolved in China due to social changes in its history. It eventually became less shamanic, more religious and finally started to rely excessively in academicism to finally merge with the Western scientific method as a result of Communist China.

 

 

[Barnaby]

Very interesting...

 

So basically, you're positing, per Johnson, that China underwent a very similar evolution to the West – a devaluation of traditional spiritual beliefs and practices – at around the same time?

[ChiDragon]

In general, the CCP does not believe in religion. However, they allow them to exist. If the group gets to big, the CCP will suppressed. In regards to destroying the temples in China. It was not the act of the CCP. At the time, it was the cultural revolution. It was the Red Guards tried to over throw the CCP but failed. The reason they destroy thousands of thousands of temples, most of them are Buddhist temples, was due to the religion was considered as superstitions. Superstition was one of the main rejections of the cultural revolution.

The CCP was not even involve with that. The red guards were even went to take weapons from the military bases. The prime minister ordered the soldiers not the interfere with the red guards and let them take the weapons. 

Edited December 28, 2022 by ChiDragon

[awaken]

China's ancient times belonged to the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, no matter which dynasty it was, it was not dominated by shamans.
The ancient era when China disappeared was the Xia Dynasty, and the latest evidence has shown that the Xia Dynasty was ancient Egypt

 

https://baike.baidu.hk/item/發現夏朝：從文字演變和文獻記載實證華夏文明起源/22415437

 

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3492979

Edited December 28, 2022 by awaken

[Geof Nanto]

2 hours ago, Barnaby said:

Very interesting...

 

So basically, you're positing, per Johnson, that China underwent a very similar evolution to the West – a devaluation of traditional spiritual beliefs and practices – at around the same time?

 

Some similarities, but fundamental differences too. Here’s another extract from the book which gives good insight into how traditional Chinese society was unlike anything which exists today and may also help @Gerard to understand what I meant by “a structure that was totally and seamlessly religious”.   

 

 

Spoiler

 

"...the role of religion in traditional Chinese society was very different from today, something we are only beginning to appreciate. Until the past few decades, scholars thought Chinese religions were somewhat analogous to the Abrahamic faiths. Instead of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, China had Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. That was wrong. Instead, as the historian C. K. Yang put it, religion was “diffused” in Chinese society. It wasn’t one pillar next to secular society and could not be defined as one particular thing you did once or twice a week, at a certain place, under the guidance of a certain holy book—the way many world religions are organized. Instead, Chinese religion had little theology, almost no clergy, and few fixed places of worship. But this didn’t mean Chinese religion was weak. Instead, it was spread over every aspect of life like a fine membrane that held society together.

 

Work, for example, was sacred. Almost every profession venerated a god: carpenters worshipped Lu Ban, a historical figure who invented many woodworking and building techniques; martial artists worshipped the general Lord Guan or the monkey king Sun Wukong; medical professionals honored Hua Tuo, a doctor from the third century who pioneered brain surgery; sailors worshipped the goddess Mazu. The list is inexhaustible: dyers, vintners, tailors, makers of musical instruments, musicians and actors, cooks, barbers, and even professional storytellers; in a survey of twenty-eight craft guilds in Beijing in the 1920s, only four did not worship a patron god. In Chinese cities, almost every street corner had a temple or shrine. In her survey of religious life in Beijing, the historian Susan Naquin estimates that the city had roughly one thousand temples in 1911. The rest of China was similar: every village had a temple or two; many had half a dozen.

 

Many people might wonder, what religion are we talking about? Are these Buddhist or Daoist practices? In most cases, the answer would be neither. Thanks to the predominance of the Abrahamic faiths in the West, we think in exclusive terms: this person is Catholic, that person is Jewish, another is Muslim. These faiths have clearly defined stories about their beliefs, as well as set places of worship, a holy book, and, quite often, a clergy. Most important is that belief in these faiths is absolute and exclusive; it’s one or the other. One doesn’t celebrate Passover, fast during Lent, and go on the hajj. New Agers notwithstanding, dabbling is heretical.

 

Traditional Chinese religion is different. This is why pollsters have a hard time figuring out if Chinese people are religious. Asking “what faith do you believe in?” seems like a simple question for people who define religion according to monotheistic norms. They expect a clear-cut answer, like “I am a Buddhist” or “I am a Daoist.” But for most of Chinese history, this sort of question would have been strange. Religion was part of belonging to your community. A village had its temples, its gods, and they were honored on certain holy days. Choice was not really a factor. China did have three separate teachings, or jiao—Confucianism (rujiao), Buddhism (fojiao), and Daoism (daojiao)—but they did not function as separate institutions with their own followers. Primarily, they provided services: a community might invite a priest or monk to perform rituals at temples, for example, and each of the three offered its own special techniques—Buddhist Chan meditation or devotional Pure Land spiritual exercises, Daoist meditative exercises, or Confucian moral self-cultivation. But they were not considered separate. For most of Chinese history, people believed in an amalgam of these faiths that is best described as “Chinese Religion.”

 

In fact, the concept of thinking of oneself as part of a discrete and clearly definable religious system was so foreign to Chinese that when modernizers wanted to reorganize society using Western norms one hundred years ago, they had to import the vocabulary from the West. Turning to Japan, which had started a similar discussion a generation earlier, they imported words like zongjiao (religion) and mixin (superstition). Before that, there was little idea of religion being separate from society or government. It was all one and the same. It was how you lived. It was what you did. This is reflected in theology’s small role. In religions like Christianity, theologians argue passionately over issues like the Trinity or original sin, using tools provided by Greek logic and metaphysics. The same goes for Judaism or Islam, where scholars argue over doctrines or ways of behaving, engaging in epic debates. China has a long history, so it is possible to find exceptions—such as a famous debate in the court of a sixth-century emperor between proponents of Buddhism and Daoism (the Daoists lost, and the Buddhists wrote a book called Xiaodaolun, or “Laughing at the Daoists”). By and large, however, these kinds of discussions were rare. Most people saw them as pointless.

 

What did interest Chinese were rituals—in other words, the pragmatic but profound issue of how to behave. As the historian David Johnson puts it in his book Spectacle and Sacrifice,

 

Chinese culture was a performance culture … Chinese philosophers were concerned more with how people should act, and what counted as good actions, than with using logic to prove propositions. Ritual was the highest form of action or performances; every significant life event, social, political, or religious, was embedded in and expressed through ritual.

 

These rituals helped organize Chinese society. In traditional China, the imperial bureaucracy was tiny by today’s standard, and most officials sent out by Beijing only made it to the county seat, which meant one person oversaw hundreds of villages and tens of thousands of people. More important was the role of prominent local people, often called the gentry or literati because most of them had an education in the Chinese classics. Temples and religious practice united these people and formed a structure for them to rule. A key committee in every village was one that ran the local temples. These often doubled as bodies that united a community for other purposes as well, such as building irrigation systems or raising militias to fight off bandits. Temples also provided a physical space for government rule. Local elders might meet, read proclamations, or carry out punishments there. A local temple could be like the cathedral and city hall of a medieval European town rolled into one. In the words of the historian Prasenjit Duara, religion was society’s “nexus of power.”

 

But religion was more than a method for running China; it was the political system’s lifeblood. The emperor was the “Son of Heaven,” who presided over elaborate rituals that underscored his semidivine nature. These included praying at temples to ensure good harvests, making sure that ancestors were honored, and worshipping the holy mountains that held up the four corners of the universe. Officials duplicated many of these rites at the local level, especially by praying at temples to the local City God. From the fourteenth century onward, the government mandated that every district of the empire have its own City God temple. Officials had to worship there on certain days, and it was often a center of local life and politics. The City God was an official of the spiritual world, which was organized on hierarchies similar to the traditional political world. The realm of spirits was an extension of this world, co-opting each other for legitimacy. With all this in mind, it becomes easier to understand why reformers and revolutionaries took on religion. They wanted to create a new political system, and to do that, they had to grab power from where it lay—in the political-religious system that ran China.

 

This is not as unusual as it might sound. In other countries, religion also played a key role in governing societies. For much of European history, politics and religion were inseparable. The rise of the nation-state in the seventeenth century changed this, diminishing and compartmentalizing religion. The bureaucratic state took over schools and hospitals and destroyed legal privileges enjoyed by the church. The rise of Protestantism played an important role too, with the binary terms of authentic “religion” and taboo “superstitions” used to discredit Catholic practices. This fed into Christianity’s long-standing appeal to logic: true religion could be defended by reason; everything else was superstition and should be destroyed."

 

 

Another book which helped me enormously to get a feeling for old Chinese culture is Daily Life in China on the Eve of the Mongol Invasion 1250 – 1276,  by Jacques Gernet.  In it he states: "The divinity [of those times] was so little personalised, so natural as it were, that religious beliefs and practices seemed to express a lay conception of the world rather than a duality between the sacred and profane and seems to us essential to all religion."   (Of course, you need to read the book to get the full picture of what he means by this.)  

[freeform]

9 hours ago, Geof Nanto said:

I’ve started this topic to give a space to explore at a greater depth the very important issues @freeformraises in his discussion with @ChiDragonhere.  I’m only wanting to disagree with Freeform on his assertion that’s it’s all the fault of the CCP, not with the reality of what he is saying about the internal arts. For me, disconnection from their divine roots is at the core of the problem. And this is hugely important.  

Yup - that’s fair, @Geof Nanto 

 

My criticism was solely based on using propaganda as an information source. There’s of course a bigger picture - and a more nuanced development at play.

[freeform]

5 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

In regards to destroying the temples in China. It was not the act of the CCP.

My info comes from a friend living and practicing in China.

 

With just a cursory search online, you can find lots of examples of CCPs efforts to eradicate religion from the land - and erect a controlled disneyfied version of it as ‘cultural heritage’.

 

 

 

 

Hundreds more examples online (Bitter winter seems to have the most helpful side by side before and after images - but you can find plenty of articles from other sources).
 

This is just statues… a lot more has (and is) being destroyed that’s not so visible.

Edited December 28, 2022 by freeform

[Taoist Texts]

10 hours ago, Geof Nanto said:

For me, disconnection from their divine roots is at the core of the problem. And this is hugely important.     

i dont understand this part. what problem? why and for whom it is important that the chinese are disconnected from their divine roots? are you personally a believer in chinese religions?

[Chang dao ling]

CCP did cruel things to Falun gong or Falun dafa

[ChiDragon]

What is described here is China's old history with corrupted leaders. I will not look back but just let the old stuff becomes rotten.

Now, New China is different under the leadership of President Xi Jinping.

[Gerard]

20 hours ago, Geof Nanto said:

may also help @Gerard to understand what I meant by “a structure that was totally and seamlessly religious”.   

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

"...the role of religion in traditional Chinese society was very different from today, something we are only beginning to appreciate. Until the past few decades, scholars thought Chinese religions were somewhat analogous to the Abrahamic faiths. Instead of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, China had Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. That was wrong. Instead, as the historian C. K. Yang put it, religion was “diffused” in Chinese society. It wasn’t one pillar next to secular society and could not be defined as one particular thing you did once or twice a week, at a certain place, under the guidance of a certain holy book—the way many world religions are organized. Instead, Chinese religion had little theology, almost no clergy, and few fixed places of worship. But this didn’t mean Chinese religion was weak. Instead, it was spread over every aspect of life like a fine membrane that held society together.

 

Work, for example, was sacred. Almost every profession venerated a god: carpenters worshipped Lu Ban, a historical figure who invented many woodworking and building techniques; martial artists worshipped the general Lord Guan or the monkey king Sun Wukong; medical professionals honored Hua Tuo, a doctor from the third century who pioneered brain surgery; sailors worshipped the goddess Mazu. The list is inexhaustible: dyers, vintners, tailors, makers of musical instruments, musicians and actors, cooks, barbers, and even professional storytellers; in a survey of twenty-eight craft guilds in Beijing in the 1920s, only four did not worship a patron god. In Chinese cities, almost every street corner had a temple or shrine. In her survey of religious life in Beijing, the historian Susan Naquin estimates that the city had roughly one thousand temples in 1911. The rest of China was similar: every village had a temple or two; many had half a dozen.

 

Many people might wonder, what religion are we talking about? Are these Buddhist or Daoist practices? In most cases, the answer would be neither. Thanks to the predominance of the Abrahamic faiths in the West, we think in exclusive terms: this person is Catholic, that person is Jewish, another is Muslim. These faiths have clearly defined stories about their beliefs, as well as set places of worship, a holy book, and, quite often, a clergy. Most important is that belief in these faiths is absolute and exclusive; it’s one or the other. One doesn’t celebrate Passover, fast during Lent, and go on the hajj. New Agers notwithstanding, dabbling is heretical.

 

Traditional Chinese religion is different. This is why pollsters have a hard time figuring out if Chinese people are religious. Asking “what faith do you believe in?” seems like a simple question for people who define religion according to monotheistic norms. They expect a clear-cut answer, like “I am a Buddhist” or “I am a Daoist.” But for most of Chinese history, this sort of question would have been strange. Religion was part of belonging to your community. A village had its temples, its gods, and they were honored on certain holy days. Choice was not really a factor. China did have three separate teachings, or jiao—Confucianism (rujiao), Buddhism (fojiao), and Daoism (daojiao)—but they did not function as separate institutions with their own followers. Primarily, they provided services: a community might invite a priest or monk to perform rituals at temples, for example, and each of the three offered its own special techniques—Buddhist Chan meditation or devotional Pure Land spiritual exercises, Daoist meditative exercises, or Confucian moral self-cultivation. But they were not considered separate. For most of Chinese history, people believed in an amalgam of these faiths that is best described as “Chinese Religion.”

 

In fact, the concept of thinking of oneself as part of a discrete and clearly definable religious system was so foreign to Chinese that when modernizers wanted to reorganize society using Western norms one hundred years ago, they had to import the vocabulary from the West. Turning to Japan, which had started a similar discussion a generation earlier, they imported words like zongjiao (religion) and mixin (superstition). Before that, there was little idea of religion being separate from society or government. It was all one and the same. It was how you lived. It was what you did. This is reflected in theology’s small role. In religions like Christianity, theologians argue passionately over issues like the Trinity or original sin, using tools provided by Greek logic and metaphysics. The same goes for Judaism or Islam, where scholars argue over doctrines or ways of behaving, engaging in epic debates. China has a long history, so it is possible to find exceptions—such as a famous debate in the court of a sixth-century emperor between proponents of Buddhism and Daoism (the Daoists lost, and the Buddhists wrote a book called Xiaodaolun, or “Laughing at the Daoists”). By and large, however, these kinds of discussions were rare. Most people saw them as pointless.

 

What did interest Chinese were rituals—in other words, the pragmatic but profound issue of how to behave. As the historian David Johnson puts it in his book Spectacle and Sacrifice,

 

Chinese culture was a performance culture … Chinese philosophers were concerned more with how people should act, and what counted as good actions, than with using logic to prove propositions. Ritual was the highest form of action or performances; every significant life event, social, political, or religious, was embedded in and expressed through ritual.

 

These rituals helped organize Chinese society. In traditional China, the imperial bureaucracy was tiny by today’s standard, and most officials sent out by Beijing only made it to the county seat, which meant one person oversaw hundreds of villages and tens of thousands of people. More important was the role of prominent local people, often called the gentry or literati because most of them had an education in the Chinese classics. Temples and religious practice united these people and formed a structure for them to rule. A key committee in every village was one that ran the local temples. These often doubled as bodies that united a community for other purposes as well, such as building irrigation systems or raising militias to fight off bandits. Temples also provided a physical space for government rule. Local elders might meet, read proclamations, or carry out punishments there. A local temple could be like the cathedral and city hall of a medieval European town rolled into one. In the words of the historian Prasenjit Duara, religion was society’s “nexus of power.”

 

But religion was more than a method for running China; it was the political system’s lifeblood. The emperor was the “Son of Heaven,” who presided over elaborate rituals that underscored his semidivine nature. These included praying at temples to ensure good harvests, making sure that ancestors were honored, and worshipping the holy mountains that held up the four corners of the universe. Officials duplicated many of these rites at the local level, especially by praying at temples to the local City God. From the fourteenth century onward, the government mandated that every district of the empire have its own City God temple. Officials had to worship there on certain days, and it was often a center of local life and politics. The City God was an official of the spiritual world, which was organized on hierarchies similar to the traditional political world. The realm of spirits was an extension of this world, co-opting each other for legitimacy. With all this in mind, it becomes easier to understand why reformers and revolutionaries took on religion. They wanted to create a new political system, and to do that, they had to grab power from where it lay—in the political-religious system that ran China.

 

This is not as unusual as it might sound. In other countries, religion also played a key role in governing societies. For much of European history, politics and religion were inseparable. The rise of the nation-state in the seventeenth century changed this, diminishing and compartmentalizing religion. The bureaucratic state took over schools and hospitals and destroyed legal privileges enjoyed by the church. The rise of Protestantism played an important role too, with the binary terms of authentic “religion” and taboo “superstitions” used to discredit Catholic practices. This fed into Christianity’s long-standing appeal to logic: true religion could be defended by reason; everything else was superstition and should be destroyed."

 

 

 

I'm lazy to write so let me quote one of the many sources available online:

 

"Taoism, like shamanism, is a way of living in harmony with nature, rather than an adherence to a religious doctrine. By practicing these ways of being, we awaken our soul calling and our connection to nature. They provide a myriad of responses to the spiritual quest of self-discovery. They are ways that embed us in the living web of life, yielding greater awareness and perspective. These practices are easily integrated into contemporary life and provide a means of navigating the turbulent times in which we live."

 

https://shamanicdrumming.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-shamanic-roots-of-taoism.html?m=1

 

The average Chinese folk turned Taoism into a religion and the intellectuals into an academic pursuit; true Taoists aren't religious let alone armchair experts.

 

 

[Master Logray]

From 1 March, 2022, 5 China departments (

Religious Affairs Bureau, Internet Information Office, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of National Security)

 

jointly promulgated a new law - Internet Religious Information Management Methods.

 

Article 6 Provide the public with religious teachings and regulations, religious knowledge, and religious information in the form of text, pictures, audio and video, etc., through Internet sites, applications, forums, blogs, microblogs, public accounts, instant messaging tools, and live webcasts. The service of information such as cultural and religious activities shall obtain an Internet religious information service license and meet the following conditions:

 

(1) The applicant is a legal person organization or an unincorporated organization legally established within the territory of the People's Republic of China, and its legal representative or principal person in charge is a mainland resident with Chinese nationality;

(2) Have information review personnel who are familiar with national religious policies and regulations and relevant religious knowledge;

(3) Have a sound Internet religious information service management system;

(4) Having a sound information security management system and safe and controllable technical guarantee measures;

(5) Having venues, facilities and funds that match the services;

(6) The applicant and its legal representative or main person in charge have no criminal records or violations of relevant state regulations on religious affairs management in the past three years.

Overseas organizations or individuals and their organizations established within the territory shall not engage in Internet religious information services within the territory.

 

Article 14

Internet religious information must not contain the following content:

 

(1) Using religion to instigate subversion of state power, oppose the leadership of the Communist Party of China, undermine the socialist system, national unity, national unity, and social stability, and promote extremism, terrorism, ethnic separatism, and religious fanaticism;

(2) Using religion to obstruct the implementation of national judicial, education, marriage, social management and other systems;

(3) Propagating cults and feudal superstitions by using religion, or using religion to damage the health of citizens, defrauding or coercing to obtain property;

(4) Violating the principle of independence and self-management of religions in our country;

(5) Destroying the harmonious coexistence between different religions, within the same religion, and between citizens who believe in religion and citizens who do not believe in religion;

(6) Discriminating against or insulting citizens who believe in religion or citizens who do not believe in religion, and harming the lawful rights and interests of citizens who believe in religion or citizens who do not believe in religion;

(7) engaging in illegal religious activities or providing convenience for illegal religious activities;

(8) Inducing minors to believe in religion, or organizing or forcing minors to participate in religious activities;

(9) Carrying out commercial propaganda in the name of religion, distributing and distributing religious articles, religious internal information publications and illegal publications;

(10) Impersonating religious personnel to carry out activities;

(11) Other content prohibited by relevant laws, administrative regulations and state regulations.

 

Article 17

`Except for the circumstances specified in Articles 15 and 16 of these Measures, no organization or individual may upload religion on the Internet, carry out religious education and training, publish sermons, or repost or link related content. Religious activities must not be organized on the Internet, and religious ceremonies such as worshiping Buddha, burning incense, receiving precepts, chanting, worship, mass, and baptism must not be broadcast live or recorded in text, pictures, audio and video, etc.

 

Article 18: No organization or individual may establish a religious organization, set up a religious school or place for religious activities, or develop believers on the Internet.

 

Article 19: No organization or individual may solicit donations in the name of religion on the Internet.

 

 

Since this forum has many spiritualists, various religious members who may travel to China.  And there is a special provision on overseas organizations or persons, and mentioned forums.   Knowing the above would keep you safe from infringing Chinese law. 

 

 

 

[freeform]

17 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

Now, New China is different under the leadership of President Xi Jinping.

Phew!

 

You would’ve been in a whole load of trouble at the office if you hadn’t capitalised that just right!  

 

[Eduardo]

Die Religion ... Sie ist das Opium des Volkes

 

Karl Marx 1844

[chaosbananaman]

I never bought the argument that the Chinese government is to be solely blamed for the decline of authentic spirituality in China.

In fact, when you look at India you can actually also see similar decline of authentic spirituality despite never having gone through the cultural revolution or whatever other reasoning people attribute to China's decline of spiritual practices. There are Indian people that have become so disillusioned with the spiritual scene in India that they've opted to go to South East Asia to find a teacher. 

 

The truth is that the decline of spirituality in China is a combination of several different factors including long internal conflict (civil war), effect of colonialism, modernization, poor government policies, and more. To simply attribute this to "da ccp" lacks nuance and doesn't fully capture the complex history of the Chinese nation. 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by chaosbananaman

[awaken]

I'm not from mainland China, I'm from Taiwan, but I don't think mainland China is spiritually weak, and I don't think Taiwan is spiritually strong

I used to know a civil servant in charge of religion
I really don't see any anti-spirituality in China
What I can see is that China is against superstition
But there are cases of overkill

Taiwan is condoning superstition
religious fraud often occurs
God sticks are everywhere
Religious Lies Go Mainstream

I don't think Taiwan in this situation is more spiritual than mainland China

 

我不是中國大陸人，我是台灣人，但是我並不覺得中國大陸靈性衰弱，我也不覺得台灣靈性比較強

我以前認識一個管理宗教的公務員
我實在看不出來中國有反對靈性
我看得出來的是中國反對迷信
但是有矯枉過正的情況

 

而台灣是縱容迷信
經常發生宗教詐欺
神棍到處都是
宗教謊言變成主流

 

我不覺得這種情況下的台灣比中國大陸有靈性

 

 

As for political persecution, in the process of growing up, do countries dare to say that political persecution has never occurred in their own country?

 

至於政治迫害，各個國家在成長的過程中，敢說自己的國家從來沒有發生過政治迫害嗎？

 

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by awaken

[Chang dao ling]

On 12/29/2022 at 1:31 AM, ChiDragon said:

What is described here is China's old history with corrupted leaders. I will not look back but just let the old stuff becomes rotten.

Now, New China is different under the leadership of President Xi Jinping.

Even today people who practice Falun dafa tortured in jail. They go to Jail just because they practice Falun dafa

[Gerard]

On 29/12/2022 at 7:15 PM, Master Logray said:

From 1 March, 2022, 5 China departments (

Religious Affairs Bureau, Internet Information Office, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of National Security)

 

 

 

 

 

China’s ruling Communist Party warned party members to stick to Marx and Lenin and not believe in “ghosts and spirits” or practice “liberalism”, in the latest effort to root out superstitious practices and further tighten party control.

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-politics-idUSKCN1QG1FY

 

AMEN Chinamen.

 

Work and obey until you die.

 

It's the new religion in China.

 

It's pure Capitalism disguised as Marxism. 

 

A must watch film for everyone:

 

Ascension (2021)

 

https://variety.com/2022/film/reviews/ascension-review-1235215930/

 

The sex dolls scene was frightening!

 

 

[ChiDragon]

11 minutes ago, Chang dao ling said:

Even today people who practice Falun dafa tortured in jail. They go to Jail just because they practice Falun dafa

You know what？The size of this group is so big and anti-CCP.

[Taoist Texts]

20 minutes ago, ChiDragon said:

You know what？The size of this group is so big and anti-CCP.

I think its very funny when the westerners   rally against the  Chinese  communist party on behalf of the western globalist party. As if it  was not funny enough those westerners sincerely believe that their their righteous indignation is their own. They just happen to  think and say what their governments are telling them to say and to think. It is a pure coincidence, you see.   And that's the most hilarious part.

[-_sometimes]

2 hours ago, ChiDragon said:

You know what？The size of this group is so big and anti-CCP.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong

 

Quote

An initial investigation found that "the source of 41,500 transplants for the six-year period 2000 to 2005 is unexplained" and concluded that "there has been and continues today to be large scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners". Ethan Gutmann estimates 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners were killed for their organs from 2000 to 2008

 

Edited December 30, 2022 by -_sometimes

[Barnaby]

2 hours ago, Taoist Texts said:

I think its very funny when the westerners   rally against the  Chinese  communist party on behalf of the western globalist party.

 

Especially when both groups seem hell-bent on achieving the same result... 

[awaken]

I taught Falun Gong practitioners, she left later
She didn't mention the organ, only said that she was imprisoned for several months

I didn't ask her too much.

 

I also taught communists
Later she also left
because she was frustrated with her family not wanting to practice together

I never ask my students about politics
unless they say it themselves

 

[Apech]

On 12/28/2022 at 1:20 AM, awaken said:

China's ancient times belonged to the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, no matter which dynasty it was, it was not dominated by shamans.
The ancient era when China disappeared was the Xia Dynasty, and the latest evidence has shown that the Xia Dynasty was ancient Egypt

 

https://baike.baidu.hk/item/發現夏朝：從文字演變和文獻記載實證華夏文明起源/22415437

 

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3492979

 

@awaken I downloaded that paper with great excitement because one of my interests is Ancient Egypt but as it is written in Chinese the argument is lost to me - except the section which seems to attempt to show Chinese characters deriving from hieroglyphs.  Can you summarise the theory or link to something in English which explains it?

 

Thanks.