Rather than going around in circles about religion, do you actually have something to add to the political portion of OP's question, or are you just going to keep on with hurr durr Christianity?Originally Posted by Ripster42
With COVID-19 making its impact on our lives, I have decided that I shall hang in there for my remaining days, skip some meals, try to get children to experiment with making henna patterns on their skin, and plant some trees. You know -- live, fast, dye young, and leave a pretty copse. I feel like I may not have that quite right.
From what I've gathered yet another cult with some weird in it.
Fact is it is being gruesomely persecuted, like other cults and religions, by a cult that is not open for sharing the people's minds.
"It is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks, and become one with all the people."
~ Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang, "Ethics for Tomorrow"
No, you're cherry picking points to distort and derail. Refer to post #43. Bookmark it, because that's the reply to your "refer to" recycling.Originally Posted by Ripster42
With COVID-19 making its impact on our lives, I have decided that I shall hang in there for my remaining days, skip some meals, try to get children to experiment with making henna patterns on their skin, and plant some trees. You know -- live, fast, dye young, and leave a pretty copse. I feel like I may not have that quite right.
I'm not a fan of religion, but I also don't support imprisoning them in death camps and harvesting their organs, which appears to be what China is doing to both them as well as the Muslim Uighurs and other political dissidents.
Met four adherents in Glastonbury, one of which Chinese, the others were Brits. The Chinese guy was obviously the indoctrinator, and those Brits were evidently brainwashed - they had the typical starry-eyed of those who fell for those kind of spiritual traps.
The Chinese guy was amiable and charismatic enough though, so I humoured him a little, only to find out that his knowledge of Eastern esotericism was very lacking and reeked of New Age. Their moral belief system is also too rigid and conservative for my liking. Overall, a disappointing experience.
Of course that doesn't justify the way the Chinese government treats them, nor the fact that I can't recall the last time I've heard headlines about their persecution. I guess they're not politically interesting enough.
The only thing I'm doing is drawing direct comparisons, for the purpose of getting all religions treated equally on this board. If you think direct comparisons between faith healing and the prosperity gospel and similar practices alleged in the OP about the faith in question, and the indirect comparison of only vague accusations of murder and actual guilty verdicts for child molestation is ridiculing christians, get some perspective.
You're lumping all Christians in with American Evangelicals in a flaccid attempt to bash. Prosperity gospel is localized to (mostly American) evangelical Protestants, you're leaving out non-evangelical Protestants, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox Christians. You're painting with such a broad brush as to make your point meaningless, so stop with the derailing please.
I'm sorry, I didn't know they were they only true scottish. Please tell me more how it makes any difference what specific christian denomination they belong to, when the comparison I'm making is just to demonstrate that the framing and purpose of the OP was to be insulting towards a religion. Please stop derailing the thread because you don't like my argument.
No, it was to ask a political question, and you haven't even established that FG is a religion. It is a cult, focused on meditation, with a "charismatic" leader.Originally Posted by Ripster42
With COVID-19 making its impact on our lives, I have decided that I shall hang in there for my remaining days, skip some meals, try to get children to experiment with making henna patterns on their skin, and plant some trees. You know -- live, fast, dye young, and leave a pretty copse. I feel like I may not have that quite right.
@Ripster42 You need to work on your reading. It doesn't work the way you think it works. Things are measured by key points, not some vague estimate of word count.
Title, clearly identifies FG as a movement, not a religion: "The Falun gong movement, good or bad?"
Similarly, Scientology isn't really a religion: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/.../religion.html
Finally, there is a clear question that is the point of the thread:Although some social scientists insist that Scientology is a religion, the more appropriate position to take is that the organization is a multi-faceted transnational that has religion as only one of its many components. Other components include political aspirations, business ventures, cultural productions, pseudo-medical practices, pseudo-psychiatric claims, and (among its most devoted members who have joined the Sea Organization), an alternative family structure.
<Shadowmouse now uses https://lipsum.com/ to generate several pages of text> Tada! My post is now about classical Latin literature and the history of printing. Have a nice day.Originally Posted by Deathknightish
Why do I think we found the Scientologist in the thread?
With COVID-19 making its impact on our lives, I have decided that I shall hang in there for my remaining days, skip some meals, try to get children to experiment with making henna patterns on their skin, and plant some trees. You know -- live, fast, dye young, and leave a pretty copse. I feel like I may not have that quite right.
I'm glad you're the decider of what is and isn't a religion. I guess religious freedom is just bullshit to you. I reject your claim that a single question asked somehow makes the OP about a completely different thing than the entirety of the proceeding post.
Because you're making unfounded assumptions.Why do I think we found the Scientologist in the thread?