
China cracks down on religion, crosses burned at Christian churches - gscott
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-25/crosses-burned-in-china-religion-crackdown/10301956
======
mc32
It's simple. They cannot allow any ideology to subvert the party (CCP)
ideology. They don't hate religion for the sake of hating religion. They don't
hate FG/FD, Christians or Muslims (or Buddhists for that matter) for being who
they are. They do hate and will remove anything which may subvert the
supremacy of the state. Simple as that.

~~~
thecopy
They want the communist party to be the primarly religion. Just like in the
Soviet states where religion were systematically eliminated in favor of state
religion[1]:

> USSR became the first state to have as one objective of its official
> ideology the elimination of existing religion, and the prevention of future
> implanting of religious belief, with the goal of establishing state atheism
> (gosateizm).

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union)

~~~
reitanqild
Seems very similar to the reign of terror during the French Revolution though?

~~~
thecopy
Whats your point?

------
dschuetz
It appears that China's government doesn't like _organized_ Christianity, or
any organized religion. It doesn't really matter what you personally believe.
What matters though is anything that can influence people emotionally and
philosophically, which basically means having control (thus power) over
peoples' emotional and rational states of mind. Any place of congregation is
potentially doing just that.

It's worrisome to see though that China has decided to go that extremely
rigorous way, like burning crosses publicly and the like. Wow.

~~~
flukus
China in particular has a good reason to be weary of organized Christianity
ever since a guy claiming to be the younger brother of Jesus started a civil
war that killed at least 20-30 million people:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion)

~~~
mieses
Yet China had good reason to be impressed by Marxism, also a Western import,
because it killed 45 million. In that sense, I understand why Marxism would be
more impressive than Christianity to a people who never had freedom. It won
and killed more people.

~~~
zokula
That's funny since China has never been Marxist in it history.

~~~
mieses
no true scotsman?

perhaps another 45 million would have done it.

~~~
dang
Please stop using HN primarily for ideological battle. This is in the site
guidelines, and we ban accounts that do it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
mymythisisthis
In 1538, the chief minister Thomas Cromwell pursued an extensive campaign
against what was termed "idolatry" by the followers of the old religion,
culminating in September with the dismantling of the shrine of St. Thomas
Becket at Canterbury. As a consequence, the king was excommunicated by Pope
Paul III on 17 December of the same year.[84] In 1540, Henry sanctioned the
complete destruction of shrines to saints. In 1542, England's remaining
monasteries were all dissolved, and their property transferred to the Crown.
Abbots and priors lost their seats in the House of Lords; only archbishops and
bishops remained. Consequently, the Lords Spiritual—as members of the clergy
with seats in the House of Lords were known—were for the first time
outnumbered by the Lords Temporal.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England#Shrines_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England#Shrines_destroyed_and_monasteries_dissolved)

------
yason
I sometimes wonder why do they want to protect the state by cracking down
churches instead of using religion, a powerful tool of control, to their
advantage. It would take more time to build a Chinese branch of Christianity
(and others) but be a lot more efficient.

~~~
geowwy
There are 3 state sponsored churches in China. The trouble is they don't
experience much growth compared to the underground churches.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-
Self_Patriotic_Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-
Self_Patriotic_Movement)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Christian_Council](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Christian_Council)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Patriotic_Catholic_Ass...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Patriotic_Catholic_Association)

~~~
ttflee
Like those purchased-startup-turned-department in big corporations.

------
pftburger
Do we have any other sources for this? The article seems quite inflammatory.

------
contingencies
For a counter point, I saw a huge group of people happily doing yoga out in a
square the other day. Also this was shared in the open across domestic
electronic media. This would have been unthinkable around the Fulun Gong
period. It looks to me like things are opening up slowly but surely. What was
the quote? "Religion is poison". Well, yeah. I'll take yoga over millenial
cultists any day. But it'd be nice to see something like Taipei's desperately
underappreciated _Museum of World Religions_ [0] here in the mainland, to
celebrate the human journey and common perspective rather than denominational
religion per se.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_World_Religions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_World_Religions)

------
alain_gilbert
I think it's one thing to remove the religious symbol, and a complete other
thing to burn it publicly before removing it.

The later seems to indicate that this symbol is "hated" by the people who are
removing it (government in this case).

I can "kinda" understand that they don't want religious symbols in public.

But the fact that they shame and uses fear against the people is what shock me
the most about this.

------
lgregg
Christianity in China has always been under threat. The Eastern Church in
China thrived upon arrival for awhile until the 9th/10th centuries when it
died out publicly. It became underground, now trying to resurface it seems
like history is repeating itself.

------
jhkjhu23123123
Group of politicians fighting other politicians reported by website aligned
with a third batch of politicians.

Being critiqued without much rigour by the otherwise logical community here.

It's like reading a netmums forum debating p2p file sharing architecture based
on a story about pornography they heard.

~~~
dang
That's possible, because it's not a topic the majority of this community has
detailed knowledge or personal experience of. Still, it would be better to
provide substantive correction than to post a shallow dismissal, which the
site guidelines ask you not to do.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
yourbandsucks
Shallow article, shallow dismissal.

The forum you moderate has been teetering towards nationalist "othering" of
China ever since the Google thing was floated. 90% of the people hurling
invective clearly know nothing about the country.

It's not "boo China" vs "yay China", it's "boo China" vs "try to understand
China".

~~~
dang
You're talking about a macro social/political trend. Obviously HN can't be
immune from those. Perhaps you've noticed us trying to moderate it—in the
literal sense of that word—as best we can. That's hard to do and we have few
resources to do it with. So if you care about HN, could you please avoid
harming it further by kicking at a situation that's fragile and getting worse?
Instead, assuming you know more, you could contribute some of what you know.
If you'd do that in a non-inflammatory way, it could be helpful. Calling names
just strengthens the ignorance you're complaining about, which makes you
partly responsible for it. (Not to pick on you personally; we all do this.)

Even if you don't care, we need you to follow the site guidelines if you want
to keep commenting here. They say: "Comments should get more civil and
substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html))
This comment and others haven't been meeting that bar, so please do better.

I would not call this article shallow. It's full of details. Better questions
to raise would be whether it has been corroborated (as pftburger did:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18227679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18227679)),
and what relevant information it may omit. It also seems legit to wonder why
so many such articles have been appearing lately, though because there isn't
much evidence one can point to, there probably isn't a non-flamey discussion
to be had there.

Even when an article is shallow, a shallow dismissal still breaks the
guidelines. Commenters owe better not to the article, but to the community
they're participating in.

p.s. You've mischaracterized my line about booyay by misquoting it
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18214633](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18214633)).
Those phrases are not objective descriptions—they're how each side feels to
the opposite side (hence the 'fuck you' bit), which explains why they react so
badly to each other.

~~~
yourbandsucks
Thanks for the response.

If I misremembered your exact quote, please consider it a charitable misquote.

~~~
dang
Appreciated!

------
Jedd
I'd be happy if in the west we just stopped the state from financially
subsidising religions - though I could imagine the uproar against any formal
proposal to do so.

~~~
moviuro
Even though sponsoring still happens (think: renovating buildings; assisting
communities to build their own churches/temples/whatever), State and Church
are seperated in France:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_French_law_on_the_Separat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_French_law_on_the_Separation_of_the_Churches_and_the_State)

~~~
Jedd
That's really interesting, thank you.

Property taxes - along with local council rates - are an area that religions
obtain significant financial benefit from the state (definitely in AU, and I
believe UK and US also).

It seems to be one of those things that fits the category 'this is how it's
always been done', so it's tremendously difficult to initiate any policy
change.

------
vackosar
I cannot believe this is happening in todays China. Even if the gov doesnt
like the christianity how is it significant that they cant just ignore it?

~~~
std_throwawayay
The Romans ignored, ridiculed and fought Christianity and then they converted
to it.

~~~
partycoder
After killing martyr after martyr after martyr, the Romans saw in this belief
something useful that they could control.

Before converting to it, they standardized it and shaped it to their
convenience in the First Council of Nicaea. They also decided which books made
it into the bible, and which ones were "apocryphal".

The Bishop of Rome became the Pope, and after the fall of the Roman empire,
the Vatican still exerted a tremendous control: the pope could excommunicate
anyone, including kings.

~~~
piokoch
"They also decided which books made it into the bible, and which ones were
"apocryphal"

That's a bit far fetched claim. Apocryphal books are apocryphal for a reason,
they didn't make into the canon as they couldn't have been written by
witnesses of what happened at the beginning of our era - mentioned
geographical places are wrong, mentioned historical events and people are
messed up, language is wrong, etc.

~~~
krapp
You're not actually discrediting the claim that they 'decided which books made
it into the bible, and which ones were "apocryphal"', only offering a
rationale for doing so.

It remains true that they decided which parts of existing and accepted
Christian doctrine were true and which parts were no longer true.

------
22c
This seems off-topic, but I don't have the ability to flag.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
mc32
It's not unusual for news about these kinds of issues make it to HN. (be it
Maynmar, Khashoggy, etc.)

~~~
22c
It seems quite obviously political to me.

------
paulcarroty
Communism countries always fear relegion 'cause want only 'clean hands' of his
citizens for their shitty ideology.

~~~
dang
Please keep generic ideological flamewar off HN. It never goes anywhere new,
and it always goes somewhere nasty. And this comment gets it off to a really
bad start.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
lerie
a little extreme but they are moving in the right direction. religion
restricts the growth of knowledge.

~~~
mieses
wow. the chinese internet propaganda warriors are all over this thread.

~~~
dang
This breaks the site guidelines, and we ban accounts that do it repeatedly, so
please don't do it again. Specifically: "Please don't impute astroturfing or
shillage. That degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried
about it, email us and we'll look at the data."
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

The comment was also lazy, since a glance at the history of the account
refutes it. Not that they've been great comments, but someone who has been
posting about Python, web apps, organic batteries, web assembly, and
carbonated soda for over a year is obviously a regular Hacker News user.

Edit: it looks like you've been using primarily for ideological battle. That's
also a bannable abuse of the site, stated in the guidelines as explained by
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20primarily%20line&sor...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20primarily%20line&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0).
So please stop doing that.

------
ganzuul
At a recent funeral I was shocked and disgusted at how the preist manipulated
the emotions of my relatives. That a nation state shares my suspicion is
something positive in my view.

I am not opposed to spirituality. I think organized religion subverts people
from their own quest.

~~~
lolc
Preventing people from doing some of what they want is actually an important
function of society. I made my peace with religions after reading Darwin's
Cathedral by David Sloan Wilson. To me it explained very well how religions
were a tool for organizing ever larger societies. We wouldn't be where we are
as humanity if we hadn't had the power of religion.

There is no society without religion. That is, every society needs tenets that
all members share.

Now we should ask ourselves what religion is adequate for today's world.

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
There is one defining characteristic of religion: The acceptance of
unsubstantiated claims as actual fact, i.e., faith. Please explain how that is
something that society needs.

Redefining religion to encompass any kind of shared values is a cheap trick to
legitimize the destructive nature of dogma and of teaching people that
accepting nonsense as fact is a virtue by pretending that a secular state is a
religion--which is just absurd.

~~~
lolc
Every society needs common beliefs to function. These beliefs are arbitrary in
the sense that there are other beliefs that would work just as well.

All secular states have a flag used for ceremonial purposes for example. It's
supposed to create a feeling of unity. Just like religious symbols do. Sure we
can talk about matters of degree. Not all societies have an all-seeing god,
for example.

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
> Every society needs common beliefs to function. These beliefs are arbitrary
> in the sense that there are other beliefs that would work just as well.

First of all, you are confusing two very distinct concepts here under the
label "belief", just as religions usually do. One is "stuff you think you know
about how the world works", the other is "how you think certain things should
be done".

Your "beliefs" as to how certain things should be done are arbitrary to a
degree.

If your "beliefs" about how the world works are arbitrary, then your
epistemology is heavily broken, in particular it is probably lacking
falsifiability. Things you let go close to the surface of the earth either
fall down or they don't. If you believe the latter, you are just wrong. This
is the concept of "belief" that I was talking about above: Religions make
unsubstantiated claims about how the world works and indoctrinate people into
accepting that nonsense as factual knowledge about the world, claiming that
doing so (what they then call "faith", another such misleading equivocation)
is a virtue.

Now, you need common beliefs about how the world works for the simple reason
that if two people have contradicting beliefs about how the world works, at
least one of them is wrong, and being wrong about how the world works is not
conducive to controlling your environment. In that sense, it is much less
confusing to simply say that a society needs accurate beliefs about how the
world works--which necessarily will be common.

As for common beliefs about how certain things should be done: Well, yes, you
need that, too, and while those can be arbitrary to a degree, it isn't all
that much of a degree, because most of how things should be done is a
consequence of how the world works, and if it isn't, you are, again, wrong.

> All secular states have a flag used for ceremonial purposes for example.
> It's supposed to create a feeling of unity. Just like religious symbols do.

So? Are there any unsubstantiated claims in the existence of a national flag?
Why do you mention this?!

Religions do lots of stuff that non-religions do, which is exactly why those
things are not defining characteristics of religions.

> Not all societies have an all-seeing god, for example.

Which is indeed an example of an unsubstantiated claim that religions sell as
factual. And a claim that secular states do very well without. Which is
precisely why it is absurd to pretend that secular states are religions.

~~~
lolc
While I can agree that my definition of religion is very broad, I have trouble
to see where to draw the line. I'd say this is an unsubstantiated claim:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Does that sentence define how the world works? Or does it define how we want
to live? Or does it kinda both? The point I'm trying to make here is that
religion should be understood as a system of government. And that we would do
well to understand even secular governments under the same terms. Not as a
guide, but for clarity.

I don't pretend secular governments to be religions. I simply define them as
such and then see what fits and what doesn't. It's very illuminating to me.
The superstitions are not very interesting in that regard. I think they get
too much credit.

Insisting that religions are defined by their superstitions misses a large
part of what they are and why they exist.

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
> "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
> that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
> among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

> Does that sentence define how the world works? Or does it define how we want
> to live? Or does it kinda both?

Well, the part about being created by a creator is an unsubstantiated claim
about how the world works--and also completely unnecessary. That is, unless
you want to appeal to people who have already been indoctrinated into thinking
bad of you if you don't accept such unsubstantiated claims.

The function of that sentence otherwise is simply to declare how the
signatories think their state(s) should be governed.

> The point I'm trying to make here is that religion should be understood as a
> system of government.

Well, but if you understand religion as a system of government, that doesn't
make all systems of government religions, does it? Otherwise, you are just
using "religion" as a synonym for "system of government", which is at best
pointless (because we already have the term "system of government") and at
worst extremely confusing (because most people will understand "religion" to
mean something very different than "system of government").

> And that we would do well to understand even secular governments under the
> same terms. Not as a guide, but for clarity.

Aren't you just saying that it is insightful to compare religions to other
systems of government? Well, yeah, sure. But in order to make an insightful
comparison between trains and planes you don't have to define trains to be a
"kind of plane, just without flight".

> I don't pretend secular governments to be religions. I simply define them as
> such and then see what fits and what doesn't.

But that is how you do pretend they are religions. While you are free to
define terms however you want, if you just implicitly use definitions that
deviate from common understanding, you are misleading your audience.

> The superstitions are not very interesting in that regard. I think they get
> too much credit.

Are you saying that superstitions (and the epistemology that supports them)
have no significant influence on how religious people behave as compared to
non-religous people?

> Insisting that religions are defined by their superstitions misses a large
> part of what they are and why they exist.

So, what would be an example of what religions are and why they exist that is
not superstition and also doesn't apply to non-religions (because, if it
applies to non-religions, it's not a defining characteristic specific to
religions)?

