I thought Hindus (I think I recall you saying you’re a Hindu) don’t do the hell thing, so wouldn’t you be a straight-up going to be reincarnated as a lower order of being until you clear your karmic debt?
And beside, if you guys were the Superior Religion, your gods would have given you guns and an empire complex.
I gree with all of this. I hope I haven’t given an impression that I think the repression of religious thought in China is anything but a gross desecration of basic human rights. I’ve been trying to draw a distinction between fighting for religious freedom in China and simply trying to turn them into Christians. The first cause is worthy, noble, admirable, heroic and humane. The second cause is none of those things. That doesn’t mean I don’t think people shouldn’t have the right to proselytize in free countries but i still think it’s stupid to do it in not so free countries and it never rises above the level of nuisance behavior even in the free ones.
You’re making a false dichotomy, freedom is absolute. If you support the fight for relgious freedom in mainland China, then you must support the right of Chinese citizens to listen to foreign missionaries. Freedom entails letting people make stupid choices. If they are only free to do the things we want, then they’re not really free, are they?
I haven’t said that anyone doesn’t have the right to listen to missionaries. I haven’t even said the missionaries don’t have some basic human right to sell their soap if they must. I just think there are more worthy causes they could risk their lives for. I don’t believe that trying to convert people to Christianity is the same thing as fighting for their freedom of choice.
But who are we to say what’s a worthy cause? Sure, we know that missionaries are deluded people wasting their finite lifespan to sell a fictitious worldview to the gullible. but so what? To them, spreading the Gospel is important.
Sure it is. Freedom of choice isn’t an abstract concept; it means that people get to choose their beliefs for themselves, and they can’t do that if they aren’t allowed full access to the range of religious choices.
There exists a cardinal whose identity is kept secret, possibly for protection from an unfriendly government. Might be in China. Seemed kind of germane to the topic of religious persecution in China.
Once again, I’m not saying they don’t have the right, I’m just saying I think they’re idiots.
I agree they should have a full range of choices. But that is not the goal of Christian proselytization.
I believe the word ‘Christians’ is in the title of this thread, though you can correct me if I’m wrong. I’m all for freedom of expression as well what I am not in favor of is going into another country and breaking their laws just because you think it is the right thing to do. Your complaining about China ejecting foreign nationals for breaking Chinese law, they broke the law they can suck it up.
Is this the pit, yep, get over yourself. As I said, if someone came into my house and told me what to do in my house I’d knock their fucking head off their shoulders and if you have a problem with me breaking the rules of your thread I’d suggest you use the report this post button instead of being a whiny prat. So these people went into China and snubed their noses at the Chinese government and got ejected for it boo fucking hoo. They got exactly what they knew they were going to get for doing what they did and your asking us to sympathize, sorry they knew what they were getting into.
Hmm let me think about this, yep you’re a dumb fuck, did you read what I had posted, did you comprehend any of it? It appears not. What I was stating was, that it is wrong to go into another country and break their laws because you believe they are wrong, maybe you just couldn’t comprehend. Yes we do know what “X” is. It is going into other countries and breaking the law. Now please explain how this makes me a hypocrite.
I do believe the Chinese are wrong in as much as the human right violations. But there are ways of facilitating changes within China and they are going to take a long time, these acts of total disregard for Chinese laws are going to make it harder to convince the Chinese government to change. And it is going to make thing much harder for the next lot of people who really do want to do the right thing by the Chinese people without trying to break the laws of their country.
I think they Kenyans could probably teach you a thing or two about English comprehension.
:eek: Oh My God you’re right! …it’s just sitting there like, like maybe it’s part of the title :eek: …so obviously you have me in a corner, I mean the word is there just like you say, so that must be a dead give-away for my position on the issue. It couldn’t be something stupid like being one facet to a much more serious issue- haha, I gotta hand it to ya, you’re good.
Gees, you’re earning your name well- cuz when it comes to even being accurate where you’re pointing fingers you’ve “gawwwnfishn’” bo. Where the hell did I complain about what you accuse me of? I didn’t say a damn thing about missionaries or even so much about illegal activity, I’m sure missionaries know what they’re doing is illegal and they’re still gonna do it and if they get put on the racks for it that’s their wager, so what? What’s your point?
My issue is with repression of Chinese Citizens and labor camps… didn’t you read any of what I said?? Chinese citizens are put in labor camps for merely what they believe, or jailed or planted somewhere out in the woods like God-damn tulip occasionally. Missionaries and what they do, was never my concern- it wasn’t until later when *everyone *started pointing out the obviousness of laws being broken that I paused to comment anything on them.
Claps hands profusely
As tempting as it is, I think I’ve got everything I need outside of such a inviting atmosphere, keep your damn house
I just started the party “bubba”; you’re just one of the jackasses that gets drunk and starts speaking out of your rear-end.
I don’t agree with this one, if we’re referring to plain ol’ missionaries, not teachers or Red Cross folks or the hooker down the street multi-tasking as an underground missionary. Missionaries have one purpose, to be missionaries. I think considering that most of these people are pretty genuine in regards to what they do, how is a new staff of missionaries going to have different goals than others just like them?In other words, if they’re doing what they’ve come to do, how can any of them undermine the same cause?
The fact that China sucks is not exactly breaking news. All of the Chinese people are oppressed and all religions are stifled. Why single out Christians? Are we supposed to have extra sympathy for Christians. Is the victimization of Christians somehow worse than that of Buddhists?
No, it isn’t. But you don’t seem to give a shit about their oppression either.
Cite?
These “perfectly good saviors” seem to have taken a leave of absence, judging from the videos of Mumbai I saw at church last week.
Mumbai being the area of India in which you can be imprisoned for 7 years or have your right hand chopped off for even saying that this Jesus guy might be the real deal. Mmm, freedom.
AC, the information in your post seemed a bit surprising to me so I did a bit of googling around. Mumbai has its own Archbishop (Cardinal Ivan Dias), which indicates a fairly sizeable Catholic population. And considering that he’s in Rome right now taking part in the conclave (and is a possible successor to JP II), I’d imagine he’s pretty public about believing that “this Jesus guy might be the real deal.”
I haven’t found anything that indicates Christianity is even illegal in Mumbai, let alone subject to the extreme punishments you mention. Do you have a cite for it that I could look up?
Christianity isn’t illegal per se, and India is making some limited progress in some areas against religious persecution. But anti-conversion laws have been on the books for a long time. And the extremist Hindu fundamentalists there are as bad as the extemist Christian fundamentalists here. I could give you cites like this one from Google’s cache, listing some of the abuses, but I risk your saying that the cite is biased. Unfortunately, cataloging such abuses is not a high priority with CNN or Fox News. I guess it’s not as interesting to them as the abuses of Michael Jackson. But if you like Googling, you can compile a pretty impressive list of your own.
There’s a lot of back-story to this, and it helps to understand some of it in that context. So here’s a report from Human Rights Watch and one from the US State Department. I can see where it might be hard to believe that Christians are persecuted anywhere, given that they are often the persecuters in the US. I can even see how some people might assign blame for their persecution to the Christians themselves, especially if they see no value in proselytizing. Or as Dio calls it, “soap selling”. But why it would be okay to persecute, torture, or kill someone for selling soap is unclear.
As far as India having a Cardinal goes, that’s not at all surprising since Soviet states also had Cardinals, including one that became Pope. But the mere existence of religious people in societies with institutionalize persecution doesn’t prove anything except that the persecuted people are quite dedicated.
Who was that?
John Paul II, from the Peoples Republic of Poland. The Polish third republic did not exist until 1990. He had been studying for his second doctorate in philosophy at Jagiellonian University, when the communist government abolished the theology department in 1954. He became a cardinal in 1967, and became Pope in 1978.
Ah, you used “Soviet State” to mean the communist satellites outside of the USSR. I got it now. I just equate “Soviet States” with their internal divisions, which later spun off as independent countries.
Okay, my fault. I should have been more precise.
Shodan, I think you misspelled “bigot”.