...they don't bring this up out of genuine concern for the wellbeing of Chinese theists. They bring it up because they think it makes atheists look like hypocrites.

It's the same old, erroneous equation that has all atheists being alike. China has an atheistic government, so I'm just like China, since I'm an atheist. Ignoring the philosophical and political differences between an individual's religious disbelief to draw a parallel with a nation's government is faulty logic in an enormously incorrect line of thinking.

Individual people appear to behave independently of of their religious beliefs or disbelief. Regardless of religion, people can behave in the full range of possible behaviors. There doesn't really seem to be any connection between religion and behavior, really.

At least I've never found any reliable association between the two things. The only reliable way to figure out the nature of a person is through observation over time. Religious belief is irrelevant, as far as I've been able to determine in 73 years.

They think we are judging all believers based on the bad behavior of a few.

It's because they personalize the issue and conflate criticism of religion with intolerance towards the religious. If they were in any way interested making an honest comparison with China, they would be criticizing authoritarian government, not the atheists that comprise it.

Never mind most atheists' lack of concern about people's religious beliefs.

We are the "others" for many religious folks

So, when atheists here post about predator priests, what is their motivation?

What else would it be? Do they not know better? Should they be excused? Someone must speak against that abuse, don't you agree?

Diversion. I think I tried that trick on my mom. Once.

It’s kind of like when you call bullshit on obvious hyperbole designed as an appeal to emotion and the response is...”Tell that to the inmates”.

So instead of honestly admitting to the duplicity once you’ve been cold hard busted, just double down on the exact same fallacy as if everyone else is just too stupid to catch the intellectual bankruptcy.

So your pattern is pretty clear and your intent imputed. You even have a pattern of claiming this is "mind reading" unless you yourself do the imputing.

So...……….

The subtitle is The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia. The T.V. Soong family, the "Christians" behind Chiang Kai Shek, bilked the US out of the equivalent of billions of dollars in tax and missionary contributions to support their corrupt regime.

The principal delusion they marketed to a gullible US public was that China was destined to be the world's largest Christian democracy and a matter of the most important concern to the US for that reason.

Henry Luce's Time Life media empire was the primary marketer of this Christian Chinese Democracy delusion. Luce's father was a missionary in China who indoctrinated his son in the Christian Chinese Mirage who in turn sold the image to America.

...facts didn't matter when it came to promoting Reverend Luce's unfulfilled dream. From the 1930s to the 1970s, Ai-ling, Mayling, and T.V. Soong hosted Luce at their mansions in Nanking, Shanghai, Chungking, Hong Kong, Taipei, Washington and New York, and the publisher dutifully took notes as they spun the mirage just as Father Charlie had.

I admit that I have not studied China much during my life. I'm only vaguely aware of its history with regard to the United States. However, I never would have thought that China could become a "Christian" nation. I've met a couple of Christian missionaries who worked in China, but never found them to be very convincing people, overall. I doubt they accomplished much there. They did, however, bring a treasure trove of Chinese antiques back with them.

I appreciate reading what you wrote, since it's news for me.

China's great land mass and population would seem to me to make it a very poor target for missionary work, frankly. With a cultural heritage much older than Christianity, I can't imagine converting that ancient nation to Christianity.

Easy to ignore repression from a place of privilege.

Especially when the repression in question refutes a meme that some here love to promote.

Be specific. Also provide direct links to posts that prove your point.

Very telling how someone would want to minimize a problem of literally biblical proportions to nothing more than a joke. Then again not all that surprising.

to stand up for those without privilege, such as sexually abused children. I have zero privilege in China, though. Nor do you. I have no idea to what meme you refer, though. Perhaps you will state the meme?

Understood.

But somehow you manage to equate that with other problems on the other side of the world, as if you could call the police on China and have them send a squad car over.

Or, at least, it should be. Attempts to divert from genuine concern and anger about such abuses are indicative of something that is rather ugly, really. Some people, including myself, have occasionally mentioned child sexual abuse in other countries, but that's only to point out the acceptance of such abuse by a church hierarchy, which has consistently covered it up wherever it occurs.

However, my interest is in human rights abuses in my own country, primarily. Children have rights. Immigrants to this country have rights. While such human rights are abused everywhere in the world, such abuses in my own country are my main interest, since I can speak out here and encouraging calling actual people to account.

I'm aware of human rights abuses in other nations, too, but am impotent to cause changes in those nations, generally. I do donate to international human rights organizations, when I can, such as Amnesty International, but I am far more active when it comes to internal abuses in my own nation.

Where children are being sexually abused, migrants are being imprisoned in "camps" at our borders, and people of color or of religions that are not the dominant religion are treated unjustly, I will speak out and do what I can to help eliminate such abuses in my own country. I will do less to fight abuse in, say China, since I have no means to affect any abuses that take place in other nations.

That abuses occur everywhere does not make abuses here any less heinous. But, here, I can stand and be heard. I can, perhaps, make a difference. I am just one person. I have limited access to authority figures. But, my voice is louder here than it is in some other country. I'm very suspicious when people attempt to divert from a real problem within our own borders by pointing out that similar problems occur elsewhere. I know that, but can act more effectively where I am. That a problem is widespread does not mean that it is not important, nor that it should not be addressed here.

Diversion, distraction, and whataboutism detract from finding solutions to real problems. Such tactics harm efforts to eliminate abuses. I don't like seeing people use such tactics.

Interesting display on your part.

Please try harder. I'm not going to repeat myself.

And even easier to ignore suffering that does not support a position that one prefers to promote, is it not?

Then reply. Clearly, you either did not read the post to which you replied or did not understand it. So, go and try again. I will not engage in useless banter with you today.

Understood.

I'm pretty sure you didn't even bother to read the original post that started this thread. Your posts about it indicate that you did not.

Then, you went off on a tangent based on the title of a later post of mine in the thread, apparently without reading that thread, either.

You do not seem to be interested in actual discussion in this thread. So, I will discontinue any further discussion with you in it.

I'm disappointed, once again...I'm sure you can do better.

are worried about Muslim terrorists. Terroristic religion.

Possibly they are not even fully atheists in any case. Since Maoists or Communists in ways, worship the State

I don't know any. I work closely with a Chinese-born man, but we have never discussed religion. He is a neuroscientist, not a philosopher.

And, as a bonus, are you using the no true Scotsman fallacy in reference to Chinese atheists?

Please pay attention.

As I please. It is not your thread.

She rightly noted that only a very few, "some" Muslims or people from the Middle East, were engaged in terrorist acts, like 911.

Thank you for clarifying.

Do you excuse them? Think.

It sounds as if you are suggesting that we at DU should ignore the repression in China because we have no influence.

But the same argument can be made for the many posts about priestly predation in other countries.

So, apart from a double standard, what justifies ignoring Chinese repression of theists? Other than the obvious one, of course.

America has almost no influence over Chinese internal affairs. Ordinary Americans have even less influence than the American government. But we do have influence over the Catholic Church, countries with large Catholic populations and individual Catholics. There's a really long list of things you can do to make the RCC change it's ways. It's just disingenuous to compare the two situations.

The US also trades with China. The economic influence is there.

The real reason, in my view, is that the example of the atheistic controlled and led Chinese Government acting in the same repressive way as other theistic governments refutes the idea that theism is the key, or one of the keys, to repression.

And the small group here cannot refute what is actually happening in China, so some suggest that we should ignore it.

Good luck with that. I used to buy American made products over Chinese, but eventually I couldn't even find American versions of most things.

On the other hand, investigations in American have imfluenced other countries to investigate, and that did cause the RCC did change some of its practices.

Is it immune to economic and diplomatic pressure?

No, it is not.

over it's internal affairs. It's simply a fact. But even if you don't accept this fact, the degree of influence is far smaller than we have over the Church. Grand juries and lawsuits have brought some measure of justice. Some Catholics have simply left the church or stopped donating to Catholic causes. What's an individual atheist going to do to China? Stop going to Communist Party meetings?

But many business people and politicians in the US are only concerned about money. And China is a huge market, and holds many billions in US securities and real property.

You'd be standing in St. Peters Square in sackcloth and ashes holding a sign saying "Fornicators Repent!" But you only care about straw dogs. So you engage in your hypocrisies(I have faith that you are hypocrite, no evidence required) here, while don't so much as inquire after the well-being of children in your own neighborhood.

And name calling.

If you truly cared about oppression, would you not care about the oppressed victims of the Chinese Government?

And I have no proof I am not. It is simply a matter of faith, speaking only for myself.

And since this is the RELIGION group, one of them is a bit more topical than the other.

But whataboutists gotta whatabout, I understand.

Or, does it expose the weakness of the much promoted (by some few) meme here?

Of course any religious suppression is topical. However, it is not related to the topic of child sexual abuse by priests and pastors in any way. Your use of it to respond to that topic is off-topic and is whataboutism.

The two things are not related to each other, as many have tried to explain to you. They are separate issues, and need to be discussed separately from each other. You're trying to link to unlinkable issues together.

should be ignored in this Group confirm the correctness of my observations.

And this post continues that established pattern.

The scientific method of observation and analysis.

And, perhaps to your surprise, this Group is not confined to child sexual predation by priests. I understand, as do others, that you focus on this topic very often, but you do not determine what topics are appropriate.

Perhaps, if the China posts bother you that much, you should petition for a specific Group limited to your preferred topic.

The "meme" you refer to doesn't exist, except in your own mind. I have seen no one say that only religion is responsible for bad behavior. Literally NO ONE. You expend all this effort trying to take down a straw man. It's pathetic, really. Why do you act this way?

You're giving up again, as you always do.

Have your precious last word.

Perhaps you should read more carefully and thoroughly.

One you ignore. And I understand your reasons.

One you ignore or reject without evidence.

If muslims have increased their majorities and political power in the US, how do you think it would advance women and lgbt rights?
IMO, we should strive for secularism in government. I always find it offensive when I see religious symbols being displayed by elected officials (cross, yamaka, hijab, burka, etc.). They are all divisive. It’s great that we are seeing diversity, but don’t kid yourself if you think that majority muslim government in the US would not be similarly ostracizing christians and jews running for office.
I have yet to see any muslim country respect women and lgbt rights even in comparison to christian countries. I love Bill Maher common sence sober view on religion (they are not all equal).

in the United States. I agree that government should be completely secular, but it is not. However, there is no danger of the country becoming an Islamic nation. None at all. We have enough trouble with fundamentalist Christians who would dearly love to put women and minorities into second or third class citizenship.

The real danger does not come from Muslims or Islam in the internal politics of the United States. That's a shibboleth of the Right.

"For many years, Great Britain worked within this system to run a three country trade operation: It shipped Indian cotton and British silver to China, and Chinese tea and other Chinese goods to Britain (see Map 2). In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the balance of trade was heavily in China’s favour. One major reason was that British consumers had developed a strong liking for Chinese tea, as well as other goods like porcelain and silk. But Chinese consumers had no similar preference for any goods produced in Britain. Because of this trade imbalance, Britain increasingly had to use silver to pay for its expanding purchases of Chinese goods. In the late 1700s, Britain tried to alter this balance by replacing cotton with opium, also grown in India. In economic terms, this was a success for Britain; by the 1820s, the balance of trade was reversed in Britain’s favour, and it was the Chinese who now had to pay with silver."


https://asiapacificcurriculum.ca/learning-module/opium-wars-china

In other words because of the trade imbalance, the West effectively acted as drug pushers, to get the advantage over China.

Is this "Christian ethics"?

Was it ethical? Was it "Christian." Obviously it was neither. However, since the British saw the Chinese as inferior humans, worthy of no respect as human beings, opium as a product was never given a second thought. It was profitable, so it was sold.

I'm not a Christian. I am an ethical person. I would not have engaged in that poisonous commerce. However, it is certainly one of the reasons for the failure of the European world and its foreign religion to make inroads into China. The opium trade poisoned the relationship permanently and demonstrated the lack of ethics of Europe in general and the British in particular.

It was an ugly chapter in history, to say the least.

The European West thought it could extend its exploitation into China, as it had in so many other places. The British, the Portuguese, and others tried to bring their imperialism to China and the rest of East Asia, but found it thwarted for the most part.

Sadly, they destroyed any chance of establishing an ethical commerce with China and the others, by introducing poison as a trade good. Why would any nation trust such a trading partner? Of course the Europeans brought their foreign religion and its evangelists with them on the ships. Another mistake.

During my life, I have met a couple of old-time China evangelists, of the Protestant sort. One family, I knew pretty well, since I dated a daughter in my age group. What always puzzled me, even as a teenager, was how they spoke of the Chinese people as being like "uneducated children," while at the same time acquiring antiques and works of art from that culture in quantity and bringing it home with them. I was told many stories about individual objects they had acquired, usually with a joke about how little they had paid for what were their "priceless antiques." Of course, they also had many fakes in their collection, since they had no real knowledge of what they were buying. The greed and dishonesty was palpable in them. That they were sold fake merchandise escaped their attention.

Godly people, though, they were, by their own accounts.