# Christians persecuted in China **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 3, 2005, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581 "2005-04-03T23:04:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/61 "2005-04-04T16:19:13Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I have no idea what point you’re trying to make with this post. Could you specify exactly which of your rights I’ve disrespected? You said trying to convince someone else to agree with your own point of view on religion was disrespectful, ethnocentric, blah blah. In a thread in which you tried to convince us all to agree with you about religion. IOW, “witnessing is stupid and disrespectful unless it is anti-religious witnessing”. > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > Of course you should object when it’s denied. When have I said otherwise? > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > The US has free speech. China doesn’t. Anyone who is going to knowingly break the laws of another country is going to have to accept the consequences if they get caught. Whether the laws are just or unjust is completely beside the point. > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > There is no defensible reason whatsover to proselytize in a country that forbids it and anyone stupid enough to do it while knowing the risks is just a Darwin Award waiting to happen as far as I’m concerned. I’m still waiting for your explanation on why the UN Charter only applies to the US. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/62 "2005-04-04T16:27:24Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I didn’t say religion was worthless, I said religious _proselytization_ was worthless. There is not a shred of virtue into trying to force someone else believe the same thing you believe. There is nothing commendable or humanitarian or selfless about it. All you’re doing is insulting those you’re pretending to care about. This, like pretty much all of your points thus far, is predicated on your personal belief that Christianity is not true. As **lel** has already tried to point out to you, Christians believe that they are in fact doing the most important thing they can possibly do in trying to tell people about Christianity. I think they’re wrong, you think they’re wrong, but I at least am capable of seeing their sincerity. You simply brand their beliefs moronic, as if this made it okay to suppress them. > [@](#): > > Of course you should object when it’s denied. When have I said otherwise? You’ve spent this entire thread arguing with people who expressed just such an objection. You even explicitly said that you’re all for freedom of religion, but not any specific examples of exercising it: > [@](#): > > Once again, I’m saying be disobedient for the right reasons. Fight for religious freedom but don’t try to dictate what that religion has to be. People who care about religious freedom should be just as willing to import Korans and Talmuds and Tao Te Chings, noy just Bibles. How about fight for religious freedom and let everyone do what they want, rather than bizarrely insist that Christians equally evangelise Zoroastrianism, Scientology and the Doctrine of the Leaping Nuns of St. Beryl? Your concept of religious freedom is rather odd, to say the least. Do you think free trade involves advertising competing goods, or that free elections involve campaigning for the opposition? If not, why do you object to specific expressions of religion? It couldn’t have anything to do with your antipathy towards religion in particular, could it? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/63 "2005-04-04T17:07:35Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > So atheists and agnostics apparently don’t care about religious freedom, since they object to the importation of Bibles. I assume Korans and Talmuds as well. > > All atheists and agnostics object to the importation of Bibles? Cite? You know, it’s the funniest thing. When I posted what I did, the word “all” didn’t seem to appear. And yet, when you posted, somehow or other it magically _did_ appear! If that don’t beat all! _:shakes head wonderingly:_ It’s almost as if someone, who was either quite stupid or thoroughly dishonest, tried to distort a quote because he couldn’t come up with any response. Nah, that doesn’t seem at all likely. No one could be that stupid. What I posted is right there in black and white, and only a complete idiot would stick a word in that wasn’t there to begin with. Must be that New Look the SDMB has been sporting of late. Sure hope it doesn’t happen a lot. 😉 Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/64 "2005-04-04T17:42:28Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You said trying to convince someone else to agree with your own point of view on religion was disrespectful, ethnocentric, blah blah. In a thread in which you tried to convince us all to agree with you about religion. I haven’t tried to convince anybody to change their religious views. What are you talking about? > [@](#): > > IOW, “witnessing is stupid and disrespectful unless it is anti-religious witnessing”. I haven’t engaged in any anti-religious witnessing, nor have Isaid that all witnessing is stupid and disrespectful. What’s stupid and disrespectful is risking life and limb for a cause no more noble than trying to browbeat people into believing in the same God as you do. I can’t see why some people just can’t stand it that all those Chinese people don’t hold to the same religious mythology as they do? Why does anyone _care_ if someone else isn’t a Christian. I can think of no genuinely humanitarian reason to try to convert them. Help them yes. Work for their civil rights, yes. Even risking your life for those things, yes. Converting them? Why? How does that help them? > [@](#): > > I’m still waiting for your explanation on why the UN Charter only applies to the US. I’m still waiting for you to show where I’ve said any such thing. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/65 "2005-04-04T17:48:47Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > You know, it’s the funniest thing. > > When I posted what I did, the word “all” didn’t seem to appear. And yet, when you posted, somehow or other it magically _did_ appear! If that don’t beat all! > > _:shakes head wonderingly:_ > > It’s almost as if someone, who was either quite stupid or thoroughly dishonest, tried to distort a quote because he couldn’t come up with any response. > > Nah, that doesn’t seem at all likely. No one could be that stupid. What I posted is right there in black and white, and only a complete idiot would stick a word in that wasn’t there to begin with. > > Must be that New Look the SDMB has been sporting of late. Sure hope it doesn’t happen a lot. > > 😉 > > Regards, > Shodan Very disingenuous. You said “atheists and agnostics,” plural. Who were you talking about? In what way did you delimit your use of that phrase to only certain atheists and agnostics? If I were to say that “Christians blow up abortion clinics” would you take that as a blanket statement about Christians or would you assume I was only talking about certain Christians? Somehow I doubt you would pass up the opportunity to express outrage at my slandering of all Christians. So if you didn’t mean all atheists and agnostics which ones _did_ you mean? And if you only meant me, why did you pluralize it? Since I have consistently identified myself as agnostic on this board rather than atheist (at least as hard atheist) who were the atheists that you were referring to? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/66 "2005-04-04T17:56:45Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > In India, Christianity is almost considered a cult. You see, it does what cults do: turn people away from their religion, culture, family, and home, to believe in a Savior from another land rather than our own perfectly good Saviors. > > It causes families to break up and fall apart since now the beliefs are clashing with each other. But that’s what Jesus, wanted, right? I can see one missionary talking to the other. “These Hindus are so ignorant. They believe the world is very old, not 6,000 years old like it says right here. Poor heathens.” > [@](#): > > And someone else mentioned, you’re sneaking those Bibles in - you’re willing to take the risk. (You probably aren’t, since you don’t know the risks or choose to be ignorant, but we’ll take that as assumed). However, you are also responsible for the people who accept the Bible and get into trouble with their own repressive government. If they smugglers were being put into jail, I’d have more sympathy, since that is too harsh a punishment. But getting expelled? The US expels people left and right. I bet the same people moaning about the missionaries get expelled turn around and protest the use of government money to educate the children of illegal aliens in California. I think the US would benefit from some missionary activity from moderate Hindus myself. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/67 "2005-04-04T17:57:30Z")
> [@Homebrew](#): > > Are there any other kinds? I dimly recall seeing tracts that dealt only with personal salvation; Jack Chick delights in openly condeming non-christians to the flames of hell—I think he might also sort of consign gay folk there, too. And, to be fair, he sometimes condems folk who thought they were christian but were in error on some point. ---
**Author:** ![Thinktank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Thinktank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thinktank)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/68 "2005-04-04T17:59:02Z")
Gees, I go away for a day and look at what you folks start:rolleyes: First matter, _When_ did I ever mention anything about _missionaries??_ I don’t want to make boundaries, but if it doesn’t happen you folks are going widen this issue even more out from the center. I mentioned a _charity_ which would imply there must be a few missionaries scattered here and there in the specified region, but definately not this bit with the propaganda and the favorite word of the thread “proselytization” where did all this crap come from? You know the difference between a Evangelist and a minister? C’mon folks Evangelists are the traveling salesmen of ministry, “nobody” trusts them. It’s like doing stand up comedy with just how stupid commecials are currently on TV- way too easy. Raise your calibre some. Why has few to none brought up the fact that _maybe_ missionaries are fulfilling the desires of the Chinese citizens and not shoving bibles in their faces in exchange for food or something(I’m sure it’s been done before). There are two parties here the givers and the receivers, so what? The people are completely stupid and they take home bibles and increminating evidence now completely unaware of the Chinese law? Ever hear of freewill? I never said Christians, Christians, Christians in my question/statements I am for freedom of expression. Be whatever the hell you want to, here, we can do that, in China (and many other places) they don’t have that ability. Let the Chinese believe what they _want_ to believe, that’s all I’m saying. One thing I can say with for Christians is there is not one Christian denomination that says doing good or being nice to a people will bring you glory/treasures/naked virgins in heaven. I have to agree with the Red Cross example from earlier, through history a rebellion/stand against unfair treatment hasn’t always been to betray the chances for your designated purpose. Something like that is too important to debilitate, timing is everything. That is why there are other people for other causes. Everyone has their place, be it fiery or not. > [@](#): > > Once again I really don’t get this it’s ok for us to do unto others attitude but if the tables were turned the outrage would be unanimous No one’s doing anything that the people are asking for already, it’s was simply a blanket statement of mine. Were there a Presidental address on all the TVs and radios and posts put up in every dinky town and rural area in this country that the president with magical agreement of Congress was waiving the first amendment right as in “no more”. The country would simply kill the man in charge, plenty of us would say “no fair”, but there is always someone that would express this statement in more violent ways therefore- anarchy. Something we were used to, is suddenly taken away- anarchy, something the chinese do not presently have, were they to know the power of such protection and have it taken away the same would easily occur in China, but as of now they fight in whatever ways they can. Which is why I can not judge those people that make public protests and get killed vs the ones that run over the border to someplace else. In both equations the government was the problem, but the individuals chose to solve them differently- not everyone has a hero complex in them; they just want to express themselves as they please. And _Gawnfishin_ this is my thread, so there’s no heads getting knocked here, let the people speak… Love or hate, people are entitled to their own opinions/ideas that’s the whole point of this thread have you lost this aspect so quickly? How many people think about how something started, before they say anything?,gees… later TT ---
**Author:** ![Tenar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@Tenar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenar)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/69 "2005-04-04T18:00:45Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Am I mistaken that this site is dedicated to proselytizing that rather quaint idea of The Truth by “fighting ignorance”? > > Christians, Fighting Ignorance Since 34 Or Thereabouts. Fighting ignorance? Really? If promoting one’s agenda is fighting ignorance, then yes. By those standards, then politicians fight the hell out of ignorance every election year. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/70 "2005-04-04T18:09:25Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > So if you didn’t mean all atheists and agnostics which ones _did_ you mean? The ones who don’t support religious freedom in China. > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > I’m still waiting for your explanation on why the UN Charter only applies to the US. > > I’m still waiting for you to show where I’ve said any such thing. The UN Charter guarantees freedom of religion. China is denying its citizens this right. You feel this is perfectly justified, and no cause for concern. He Whose Name Causes You to Go Into Screaming Fits of Hysteria invades Iraq. You claim, _ad nauseum_, that this violates the UN Charter. You therefore believe the UN Charter applies only to the US, and not to China. Feel free to deny that you have claimed this. I need the laugh. > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > I haven’t engaged in any anti-religious witnessing… _:shrugs:_ I’d provide a cite or twenty, but it’s too much like arguing that water is wet. Sorry, I forgot what an idiot you are. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/71 "2005-04-04T18:09:51Z")
> [@smiling bandit](#): > > \ > > I agree it is dangerous, but _Render unto Ceasar what is Caesar’s_\*\* only suggests that one must give to the state what properly belongs to it. \*\*This does not and never has, I believe, included control of the spiritual sphere. And in any case, while a missionary might be accountable to the secular authorities, he should not bow to them regardless of the fact of their power and corruption. **Bolding Mine** The law of the state is explicit. Compliance with or obeying of the law **IS** due the state. How does breaking the law come to be okay just because it is bibles being smuggled and not drugs, guns, or what have you? It is my considered opinion that missonaries would do better to live and labor among their target audience. Further, they should live and labor in such a way that people would begin to think the missionary has some inner peace or knowlege that is worth having. The target audience might then ask the missionary to share the source of his peace / tranquility / spirituality. That is the time to try for converts, and not before. Unless, of course, the missionary has a martyr complex and chooses to openly flout the law of the land in which he is a visitor. ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/72 "2005-04-04T18:34:42Z")
It depends on which part of India you’re talking about-though. Catholocism has been practiced in Goa since the Portugese colonised it and the Syrian Christian Church has also been in Kerala for I believe hundreds of years-I wouldn’t call those groups of individuals as members of a cult. Still, I have to agree with both Aanamika and Diogenese here-for every missionary just randomly out to do good there are cultish pentacostals that hang around hospitals working the hell out of people who are under vast amounts of stress from illness and death. I know a Keralite family where it became a huge rift when half the family converted upon the death of a grandfather and were then told to avoid all the remaining Hindus in their family unless they also converted. And the missionaries in Nagaland are becoming a pretty huge problem just in terms of spreading insurrection and separatist ideas among the tribals. I will never understand why people need to evangelize other human beings. Any moral calculus that sends the Dalai Lama to hell and your average dim-bulb evangelist to heaven is incomprehensible to me. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/73 "2005-04-04T18:49:11Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > The ones who don’t support religious freedom in China. Who would those be? I’m not aware of any agnostics or atheists who don’t support religious freedom in China. There certainly aren’t any in this thread. maybe you mean the Chinese government? > [@](#): > > The UN Charter guarantees freedom of religion. China is denying its citizens this right. You feel this is perfectly justified, and no cause for concern. Now you’re just lying about me. I’ve never said any such thing. Show me where I said the oppression of religion in China was “justified” or that it was “no cause for concern.” I explicitly said that agitating for religious freedom in China was admirable but proseytizing has nothing to do with winning religious freedom. I also said it was stupid to break the laws of another country without a good reason and baptizing the heathens, IMO, is not a good reason. That doesn’t mean I think the laws are justified. It is illegal to bring alcohol into some countries. I don’t think alcohol should be illegal. I think it’s oppressive to ban it. But if I tried to smuggle two fifths of Bombay Sapphire into Iran I would still be an idiot and have ony myself to blame for any consequences. The fact that China is guilty of innumerable human rights abuses is not in dispute by me. I’ve never said otherwise. That doesn’t make it smart or noble for anyone to risk life or freedom for the cheap thrill of converting someone else to one’s own religion. > [@](#): > > He Whose Name Causes You to Go Into Screaming Fits of Hysteria invades Iraq. You claim, _ad nauseum_, that this violates the UN Charter. So does China. There you go. What does it have to do with the price of tea? > [@](#): > > You therefore believe the UN Charter applies only to the US, and not to China. > > Feel free to deny that you have claimed this. I need the laugh. I deny it. Pony up the cite. > [@](#): > > I’d provide a cite or twenty, but it’s too much like arguing that water is wet. I’ll take that as an admission that you can’t support your accusation. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/74 "2005-04-04T19:09:33Z")
**Dio** and **Shodan** are both right in certain respects. OOH, I agree with \*\* dio\*\* that governments should have the right to control their own borders and that merely calling oneself a missionary doesn’t give one the right to illegally cross that country’s borders. OTOH, I agree with **Shodan** that the Chinese government’s persecution of religion is unconscionable. Freedom of conscience for Chinese nationals is a fundamental human right that ought to be respected by the PRC government. The proper cure for religion is to laugh at it, not to repress it. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/75 "2005-04-04T19:11:03Z")
It seems to me that Diogenes has this strange impression that Brutal Catholic Merc Commando Jesuits are HALO-jumping into China, savagely beating people with Bibles until they repent and convert. _Tsj Tsk_… we haven’t done that since the Teuronic Invasion of Lithuania! > [@](#): > > by Diogenes > > There is not a shred of virtue into trying to force someone else believe the same thing you believe. There is nothing commendable or humanitarian or selfless about it. Force? Hmmm… I believe your assuming what you intend to prove again. > [@](#): > > The fact that you think you have “a deeper understanding of the divine” or that there is a single fucking thing you can teach them makes you unbelievably arrogant, disrespectful, uninformed, ethnocentric, narrow-minded and even unspiritual. Really? I think I could teach Kenyans something about English grammar, or most peole about writing, or Saudi’s about democracy. The Kenyans might all speak perfect English. Everyone around me might actually be brilliant authors and I compariatively suck (spelling aside). The Saudis may actually know intimately what democracy is like, how it works or could work, and what they could be, and reject it. They might or might not care. But is it arrogant for me to talk to them and convince them I might have something good to say? Thjere’s no doubt that China is old, but did that age help it against the European and Japanese empires? Did this awesome spiritual knowledge you attribute to them, such that I, poor person that I am, can add nothing to it, help them resist the Communist rape of civilization? Perhaps. But if I am really that foolish, why would you bother to argue against me? I were such a vile, lowly, arrogant, miserable human, surely my grotesquerie would be grossly obvious to the Chinese themselves, and so they could not possibly need you to defend them, or their government to evict me. > [@](#): > > by GawnFishin > > So this makes it alright for you to be doing the same thing, I guess two wrongs obviously make it right. Since I don’t believe it’s wrong to show others what you believe and to convince them that it is the correct way. In other words consider this: you’re currently trying to convince me that it is wrong to do “X”. We all know what "X’ is. This is proselytizing: You are attempting to convince me of the rightness of your belief. By your own words, this is morally incorrect, which makes you at best a hypocrite. Indeed, you’ve morally forbidden all cultural contact, > [@](#): > > by Voyager > > I can see one missionary talking to the other. “These Hindus are so ignorant. They believe the world is very old, not 6,000 years old like it says right here. Poor heathens.” Actually, the primary group in China are the Catholics, and we don’t really care how old the earth/universe is. > [@](#): > > If they smugglers were being put into jail, I’d have more sympathy, since that is too harsh a punishment. I’m not worried about the Missionaries at all. Alive or dead, they’ve done a good thing, and the only ones who will be punished are the Chinese leaders. > [@](#): > > by LouisB > > How does breaking the law come to be okay just because it is bibles being smuggled and not drugs, guns, or what have you? It is my considered opinion that missonaries would do better to live and labor among their target audience. I would agree; many Catholic missionries did that until the Chinese threw them all out. But now it’s difficult to get in, and the gvoernment there keeps a tight eye on foreigners. Mao’s systems were viciously difficult to penetrate. The government controls all the lines of communication. Most Chinese don’t have telephones - the state doesn’t want them to. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/76 "2005-04-04T19:15:08Z")
> [@](#): > > The government controls all the lines of communication. Most Chinese don’t have telephones - the state doesn’t want them to. I can assure that telephones are not forbidden by the Chinese government, and that Chinese folks even carry cell phones and use the Internet. Really. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/77 "2005-04-04T19:17:46Z")
> [@](#): > > by gobear > > dio that governments should have the right to control their own borders and that merely calling oneself a missionary doesn’t give one the right to illegally cross that country’s borders. Legally? I don’t think anyone suggested they don’t have the _ability_ to declare what is legal. But that doesn’t give them the right to do so except by force. They are violating the most fundamental principle in American law, so yes, Americans are understandably disgusted. Morally I’m right. Similarly, I’m amazed (well, not really) that Diogenes is declaring that any religious person who fights for what they believe without at all times specifically mentioning free practice of religion is evil. Especially since he, not having met any of the individuals in question, cannot speak for what they believe or desire. There are protestants who dislike all other religions and want them to go away. Since they’ve never managed to run the US into a Theocracy, I’d say you probably shouldn’t worry too much about them. If anything, they are weaker than they ever were, just more visible. Media-savy is no indication of strength. Diogenes is and remains, despite his best efforts, nothing more than a evangelical Mechanistic Atheist. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/78 "2005-04-04T19:19:34Z")
I saw nearly as many cell phones in Beijing as I do in St. Petersburg; Cell phones are a growth industry in China. I do think there is probably a lot of monitoring by the government going on, just as with the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/79 "2005-04-04T19:24:04Z")
> [@](#): > > Legally? I don’t think anyone suggested they don’t have the ability to declare what is legal. But that doesn’t give them the right to do so except by force. They are violating the most fundamental principle in American law, so yes, Americans are understandably disgusted. Morally I’m right. I’m confused–we’re talking aobut the government of the PRC, right? So what does American law have to do with anything? Governments have the right to secure their borders from illegal entrants. > [@](#): > > Diogenes is and remains, despite his best efforts, nothing more than a evangelical Mechanistic Atheist And a good thing, too. Standing up for reason and common sense is always the right thing to do. My problem is that he ought also to support freedom of conscience, yes, even for the religious. If we want our freedom to mock, we have to support their freedom to pray. ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581/80 "2005-04-04T19:25:51Z")
**smiling bandit** Diogenes may be a “mechanistic atheist” but it’s posts like yours that make many educated heathens seriously hate missionaries. Why? Because every word you typed reveals your cultural superiority complex. The fact that some of us originate in poor countries which have been beaten down doesn’t mean that our belief systems are instrinsically flawed or connected to our misery and have to be eliminated to make way for the Superior Religion. straight-up going to hell heathen, Anu [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-persecuted-in-china/297581.md?page=5)