with all due respect, this bible smuggling is a scam. i’m psting from my pda and can’t really surf, but i posted on a thread about this a few years ago after taking my missionary mother to china’s largest bible publisher in Nanjing China. IIRC, the director showed me the plaque commemmorating publishing 5 million bibles(it might have been 2 million or maybe 20 million).
please give a donation because those poor chinese christian’s need a bible…and i need two bucks for the subway 'cause my wallet got stolen (btw, the publisher accepts donations if you really want to help and my mother’s church did just that.)
there are issues with christians in china, especially those that don’t come under ‘authorized’ organizations. but availability of bibles isn’t one of the issues.
Yes, but were they Official, Jack Chick-Certified King James Bibles with the special myrrh pouch inside the cover? If not, that’s over 5 million deluded hellbound you got there.
Probably extremely unlikely. Chinese culture (as opposed to the current Chinese government) has traditionally not been spiritually exclusivist. Confucianism (not really a religion so much as a philosophy), Taoism and Buddhism coexisted side-by-side for centuries. Fifty years or so of official Communist atheism isn’t enough to create a religious vacuum large enough for 1/3 of the country to go Christian, especially when there are plenty of very rural areas where they barely know who the Communists are.
Yes and no. There is a department to oversee the affairs of Catholics, but China does not permit Catholics to recognize the authority of Rome. There are both government-approved institutions and illegal underground churches.
Right. Christians are the topic. I’m sorry for bringing up the fact that Tibetans and Uighurs are persecuted, too. I promise that I will never again make the mistake of bringing up the topic of the treatment of people that you might not be able to relate to.
There’s a state-ruin Catholic Church that is perfectly legal, but it does not recognize the authority of the Pope. So, in that sense, yes, the real Catholic Church is forbidden in China.
Render unto God that which is God’s and render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s or words to that effect. Breaking the law of the land is not the way to go. Besides which, if the tracts are illegal in China, putting them into the hands of Chinese citizens makes those citizens subject to whatever penalties are in place. I sure hope those tracts weren’t of the Jack Chick variety.
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.
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.
It was more ethnic pride and budding nationalism than anything religious. It did get mixed up in a strange cultish-phenomena, and quite a few people apparently did believe their skill in martial arts would help them stop bullets.
No owrthy cause in your eyes. Some of us believe the cause itself is worthy. To say it’s is disrespectful merely assumes what you intend to prove: that religion is worthless. You can only think in terms of bland social reform, and ignore any process by which this might take place.
Since you are assuming what you intend to prove, why are you bothering to post? Yes, we know you believe we’re completely stupid and shoudl all die because apparently we offend the great and powerful and wise Diogenes. But some people believe in something more important than their own life.
The mere fact that we believe we have something to teach them, and have a deeper understanding of the divine, does not mean we believe they know nothing. Age is no guarrantor of accuracy.
Moreover, half of China’s religion comes from India anyway. Were the early BUddhists horrendously assinine and arrigant to believe they had something to teach the Chinese, or the japanese for that matter? [Spock]This is a highly illogical argument.[/Spock]
The majority by far, actually. Your view are skewed because of certian loud and visible groups, whose doctrinal acccuracy is often quite loose within their own denominition.
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.
Actually not so much “repugnant” as “hypocritical”.
So we should fight for religious freedom, but not object when it is denied.
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.
Or try this:
Or:
While you’re at it, maybe you could explain why the UN Charter applies to Bush but not to the Red Chinese.
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.
What you believe for yourself is not the point. The point is that if you actually think that hundreds of millions of Chinse people are in mortal danger because they don’t happen to share your religious beliefs and that you need to “save” them by preaching at them, then you don’t have a very worthwhile God and your intentions lack thoughfulness, reason and above all respect for those you would target.
Read that first sentence 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.
You say age is “no guarantor of accuracy” as if you have some guarantor of accuracy. You don’t. You just have one more opinion in a sea of opininions, none of them backed up with any evidence.
[quote]
Moreover, half of China’s religion comes from India anyway. Were the early BUddhists horrendously assinine and arrigant to believe they had something to teach the Chinese, or the japanese for that matter? [Spock]This is a highly illogical argument.[/Spock]
Buddhism isn’t a religion of belief. It doesn’t tell people that what they believe now is wrong. It doesn’t say that anybody needs to be “saved.” It’s not even a religion at all in the western sense. Buddhists don’t think you have to be a Buddhist to get enlightened. It does not employ the same kind of exclusivist evangelization and proselytezation as Christianity does. The first Buddhist missionaries into China also weren’t breaking any local laws.
Having said all that, I woud still say yes, there was some philosophical arrogance in the Buddhist movement into China but the philosophy also absorbed quite a bit of local Chinese and Japanese insights and produced refinements like Zen. It was an interaction of mutual respect and learning not just one patronizing culture trying to educate heathens.
I just love this, if I was to walk into the united states and told you guys how fucking wrong your laws and constitution were and did so by breaking the law then I’d probably spend time in prison then be deported. So this is what happens to people who go into someone else’s house and tell them they are wrong, that is unless your an American and then it’s ok because it’s a first amendment right. Fuck you! Deliver what aid needs to be delivered but don’t subject others to your propaganda, this could very easily back fire on those you are trying to free. I guess it would suprise many here to find out that your constitution doesn’t apply to other countries. 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. :rolleyes:
China is opening up with albeit slow diplomatic pressure from many nations, but it is happening. I just see this as something which will slow that process even further. Come into my house and tell me how wrong I am for doing what I do and I’ll knock your fucking head off your shoulders. How many people here openly accept JW’s into their house and sit there while being told how utterly corrupt your morals are without getting upset or outraged.
There definately aren’t enough :rolleyes:
So this makes it alright for you to be doing the same thing, I guess two wrongs obviously make it right.
Of course you should object when it’s denied. When have I said otherwise?
All atheists and agnostics object to the importation of Bibles? Cite?
If you’re just talking about me, I only object to the exclusive importation of Bibles. I wouldn’t object to an effort to provide a diversity of religious material without any effort to push one religion over another. But Christian evangelists importing only KJVs is not about promoting religious freedom, it’s about promoting Christianity.
Or try this:
Or:
[/quote]
You’re switching the argument away from outsiders going into the country abd breaking the law to the locals doing it. You’re also ignoring the fact that i’ve already said that some things are worth breaking the law for and other things aren’t. Agitating for democratic reforms is a worthwhile cause. Browbeating people about Jesus is not. Not all causes are equal.
When did I
Not much on consistency, are you?
[/quote]
Huh?
When did I say that China was not violating human rights?
