Christians face harassment and disruption in Beijing crackdown on religion, US government agency reports
In their effort to “exert total control” over religion and to “sinicise” Catholic and Protestant Christianity, the authorities have “ordered the removal of crosses from churches [and] replaced images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary with pictures of President Xi Jinping,” the report said.
The report concluded that “every facet of religious life for Buddhists, Catholics and Protestant Christians, Muslims, and Taoists” was facing pressure to incorporate CCP ideology, and religious elements considered contradictory to the state’s political agenda were being eradicated.
While we found evidence of both the removal of crosses from churches and the replacement of holy images with that of Xi in China, we find that the reports on the replacement of holy images with Xi to be potentially misleading in some ways in the social media posts.
While fucked up, at least Xi and Mao are nominally real (though their particular origin stories and revised histories are also just as made up as those of the religious bunch).
because China has always been oh so welcoming of other religions right? Sources are great but calling this an outrageous claim is a bit much given the historical context.
And slaughtered a lot of clerical people in the wake. There is a monastry where more than 1000 monks have been murdered under Stalins influence in Mongolia.
Overall tens of thousands of clerical people must have been murdered under Stalin
I watched "The Man in the High Castle", and the Christian imagery and symbolism in a former Christian Church were replaced with Nazi symbolism. I thought it was a bit farfetched, but now hearing something similar being done by China as part of totalitarianism, it is rather spooky. I've heard religious buildings being destroyed, but converting places of worship and blatantly removing its past to align with state ideology is far more surreal and haunting, and I am an agnostic atheist.
I’m first in line to make fun of basically all religions (ones that would have you take things on faith, anyway) but those that want to should be left alone to practice how they want.
I mean if you really don't think there was a Jesus that existed, was popular, and was executed by the Roman empire, then I think you may be the mistaken one.
Saying that he wasn't the son of God and his mother wasn't a virgin is a different story however
Except there's no contemporaneous record of jesus either existing or being executed by the Romans, despite them keeping detailed records of people they did execute.
As a Muslim this is one of the times I'm glad paintings of humans and animals are haram in Islam. We don't got none of that shit in mosques (or anywhere else, really).
Also Islam rejects intercessors. We pray to Allah s.w.t. and only to him. We asked for forgiveness for our sins from him and him alone. The prophets and messangers a.s. were all humans of best character and faith, which is why they were honored but also challenged with their tasks.
This is why countries like China are particularly oppressive towards Islam. The faith is structured in a way that makes it more difficult to coopt it into exerting control over people for a government. Unfortunately we see (partly) successfull attempts at it like in Saudi Arabia. But they also control two of the holyest sites with Meqqa and Medina.
If i understand correctly China is oppressing Buddhism more strongly too because it is also not well controllable. But i have to admit that i know little about the details of buddhist spirituality/religion.
Same shit, different century. Ever look up the actual history of Christmas or Easter? They were pagan holidays and Christian rulers forced everyone to jam as much Christian stuff into them as they could.
It's literally one of the oldest tricks in the book.
Honestly, concerns over the possibility that religion might be a political opponent and trying to neutralize it by replacing figures with one's own are not new.
It's just a little unusual to have it happening in 2024 between gods and secular leaders.
Religious syncretism is the blending of religious belief systems into a new system, or the incorporation of other beliefs into an existing religious tradition.
This can occur for many reasons, where religious traditions exist in proximity to each other, or when a culture is conquered and the conquerors bring their religious beliefs with them, but do not succeed in eradicating older beliefs and practices.
Hail, Mary Mao, full of grace,
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus Xi.
Holy Mary Mao, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
First that's attacking the messenger not the message. Cope. Second seeing how ML rely on information disproven nearly 100 years ago. And how ML state media is worse than western media on every metric. A true accomplishment! It's an especially sad and hilarious tactic.