According to the Chinese government, they were jailed for “illegal activities”.
From the Washington Post:
On April 25, 10,000 Falun Gong followers surrounded the Communist Party headquarters in Beijing, demanding their group be legalized. The party responded by banning [the] movement and arresting more than 50 of its leaders.
At no point does the Chinese government state that they were jailed for “UFO beliefs” as you claim. The charges against them state nothing about UFOs. That is what you are inferring and is your OPINION.
Hey, if you’re gonna post like you’re in outer space, you shouldn’t be upset when somebody jokingly points it out. That was not, by the standards ever enforced here, an “insult.” For this reason, if anybody else had said it, I wouldn’t have warned them. If you have a problem, feel free to take it up with Tubadiva or Ed.
On occasion my employers expect me to do some “work” on this computer. Many others here have similar handicaps. If you do not get a response within 48 hours, then start berating the person. That is common courtesy.
Look, every other time I’ve pointed out a flaw/inconsistencies in his arguments (like the Ramsey thread) he ignores it. I’m trying to ensure it doesn’t happen this time.
I’ve been a lurker on GD long enough to understand why everyone finds C3 so annoying. Nevertheless, I was sufficiently curious about Falun Gong, a.k.a. Falun Dafa, that I’ve done some of his homework for him. (I know, I know, I shouldn’t have.)
The most complete-looking Falun Dafa web site I found is http://www.falundafa.org. There I found a quote from Li Hongzhi, the founder:
… No matter how many books of scriptures are published, all are materials of assistance to “Zhuan Falun”. It is only “Zhuan Falun” that is genuinely guiding to cultivation.
So I ran a few searches in “Zhuan Falun.”
I found two references to “flying saucers” in a version of “Zhuan Falun” (http://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/pdf/zflus.pdf). Both clearly indicate a belief in flying saucers of extraterrestrial origin. Since I can’t C & P from Acrobat, I won’t quote.
So it looks as though these people believe in flying saucers. I also looked for evidence that they believe that aliens contributed to the Buddha’s enlightenment. My impression is that it’s not in there, but “Zhuan Falun” does say that Sakyamuni {Buddha} said that “in our milky way there are three thousand planets where there were living beings like our human race." (p.33)
I certainly haven’t seen anything in the news that makes me think that belief in flying saucers is a major source of Falun Dafa’s problems, but they do believe it. They also appear to believe that micro-universes with populations of conscious beings exist, such that one can have galaxies “within a pore of one’s skin.” Interesting folks.
Excuse me in that I left town yesterday afternoon and got back only this afternoon and have until this moment had only a few minutes to spend on this board and…as luck would have it, this thread is farther down the list than the Riley G one…however, I’m here now…
You seem to be all worked up and excited over this invitation that I issued:
C#3 wrote:
“I invite you to disprove any statments that I have made in this thread.”
I guess that your post was supposed to have done that? Hardly! First of all, the weakness in your response is that you did not choose a specific statement that I made in this thread…my only clue as to a specific statement might be the part of the subject line in the OP, which you do refer to…Mojo writes:
"At no point does the Chinese government state that they were jailed for “UFO beliefs” as you claim. "
you also offer that:
“The charges against them state nothing about UFOs.”
and:
“they were jailed for “illegal activities”.”
Well Mojo, my junior debater friend, where is YOUR proof? (as well as the specific statement of mine that you are disproving) You offer no links…you offer no copies of the charges to back up your assertion that the charges make no mention of UFO belief…and furthermore, I contend that in China, belief in UFOs IS an illegal activity!
So it seems that you come up short in “disproving” ANY statement that I have written in this thread. You don’t get an offer of $3,000, you don’t even get my respect as a worthy adversary…
(Not that it would surpise me, frankly, since free thought in general can be illegal in China, but since you are upset with Mojo for not backing his claim, I thought we should see the evidence backing yours.)
No David. I can’t prove to you that belief in UFOs in China is considered to be an illegal activity. I can only contend that it is. Many people in China that believe in UFOs are being arrested…the Chineese authorities say that hese people are being arrested for illegal activities…1 + 1 =2.
This thread is beginning to piss me off. C#3, as far as I can tell, your basic argument is that you believe that belief in UFOs is illegal in China. As evidence you cite the recent crackdown by the Chinese government on the Falun Gong religion, whose belief system does indeed include extraterrestrial life.
Now, where to begin? Firstly, do you really think that the Falun Gong would be okay with the Chinese police state if it didn’t believe in flying saucers?! Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Sorry, I just couldn’t help it. Your line of reasoning:
[ul][li]The Falun Gong believe in UFOs.[/li][li]The Chinese government has banned Falun Gong and is arreating its adherents.[/li][li]Therefore, in China it is illegal to believe in extraterretrial life.[/ul][/li]
This is like saying:
[ul][li]Tom wears striped dress shirts to work.[/li][li]Tom’s boss just fired him.[/li][li]Therefore, it must be against company policy to wear striped dress shirts.[/ul][/li]All the while ignoring the fact that Tom posted pictures on the office bb of the boss with a prostitute. Why did the boss fire Tom? Probably not because of his fasion sense. Similarly, the Chinese gov’t is cracking down on the Falun Gong because it is becoming popular and threatens the Communist Party’s hold on power. It wouldn’t matter to the Party if the Falun Gong believed that the world was the solipsistic fantasy of cats and Martha Stewart was the true messiah. The results would be the same.
Besides, anyone who reads the papers and has been following the situation knows immediately that the true reason has been stated by mojo, pldennison, and others. Your insistance of the veracity of your WAG displays either ignorance, stupidity, or both.
Not to mention that you imply that there is a fourth step in your line of reasoning.
This would make the fourth step:
[ul][li]Since the Chinese government is afraid of the Falun Gong, they must be trying to cover up the existance of extraterrestrials![/ul][/li]It’s just too much.
“Oh we were brought up on the Space-Race, now they expect us to clean toilets. When you have seen how big the world is how can you make do with this?”
-I did not choose a specific statement in this thread.
I considered the subject to be part of the thread. I put the subject directly above the quote about “disproving statements”. Forgive me for not spelling it out.
-I have not “disproven” that Falun Gong members were jailed for UFO beliefs.
Your “evidence” of this is that I can’t find a cite by anyone stating that they were not jailed for their UFO beliefs. Well, I can’t find a cite by anyone other than you stating that they were arrested for UFO beliefs-even that “Sightings” page link doesn’t claim that. I’ve been searching and, as far as I can tell, you are the only person to claim that they were jailed for UFO beliefs. If anything, the Chinese gov’t has gotten less restrictive on UFO beliefs recently (http://qtm.net/~geibdan/newse/nov/china2.html).
I stated that the subject “Jailed for UFO Beliefs” was your opinion and not a fact. Until you provide some proof, that’s still my position. And if you want to claim that I can’t disprove it, you’re probably right. I can’t disprove anyone’s opinion.
