Falun Gong-

welsh

welsh

Junkmaster
Many of you probably know about the controversy of China repressing members of Falun Gong as an "evil" cult that uses a variety of superstitions to get members.

Or is it repressing freedoms of thought and belief?

One of my students did a paper on this and I thought it remarkable how the Chinese were being recruited by an organization which looks to me like many Evengelical Faiths (especialy those big into faith healing).

What do you think?

If a society has a religious group that has more members than the ruling party, and this group subscribes to faith healing which could lead to the death of thousands- should the government repress it?

Also is this really about "what's good for the Chinese people" or "What's good for the Party?"

My student got most of his information (and failing grade for plagerism) from wikipedia. So for your info-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong
 
welsh said:
If a society has a religious group that has more members than the ruling party, and this group subscribes to faith healing which could lead to the death of thousands- should the government repress it?
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That's a tough question. I would like the government to supress it, because part of the government's job, ideally, should be to protect it's citizens, even if that means protecting them from their own stupidity (like our government refuses to give Scientology religious status, though I wish they would shut them down completely). On the other hand, if people are joining this religion of their own free will, then I can't really say it's anyone's business to interfere; you can't save the stupid from being stupid, if you prevent them from doing one thing they'll just find something else equally idiotic to do.

Then again, in reality the chinese government really is torturing these people, and is supressing the religion because it is a threat to the power of the current order, not out of any altruism. And the Falun Gong does practice brainwashing and other techniques to get people to join, robs them of their money and possessions and condemns most of them to early death by keeping them from medication. So, my final, joking answer would be that China is an immensely screwed up and backwards country and that any form of government/religion that comes out of there should be suppressed by the rest of the world until they get their act together.
 
It depends.

From the perspective of a Xioping-era China I see why they do it, and I utterly despise the 'faith', but here I think we should let them be wacky. Enemies of the PRC shall soon be our friends.
 
Overall I say that people have to be let to sink or swim on their own. (Whether this leads to the fall of your country, well... Tough shit, I guess. I believe freedom equals strength, but even in weakness it's more important than strength.) You can't force reason or intelligence on people.
 
But you can still keep them informed, hell this is the computer-age
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Not exactly. The net does let some info get through. I find it disturbing that the Chinese government has managed to shut down, block access or interfere with internet sites that are critical of the regime. While the control is not that great, knowing that you can be tracked down and sent to a labor camp for running a forum like this has got to be bad for your health and democracy.

I don't like organisations like Falun Gong, but they should have the right to be left alone and go about their nutty ways unmolested. Well informed people can decided for themselves if they want to be associated with them.

I have some practitioners at my Uni who seemed to want to convert foreigners to their faith, appearing more like some hippy health group than an evil cult. They have been harassed even here.

http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14388
 
quietfanatic said:
While the control is not that great, knowing that you can be tracked down and sent to a labor camp for running a forum like this has got to be bad for your health and democracy.
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Hmm? China isn't a democracy.
 
How is this any less valid a religion than others?

Because it has endured mud slinging and suppression? Many others have had the same (Christianity under the Romans, Judaism for much of it's history, Islam now) but are still viewed as "real" religions, even if people still exercise prejudices about them.

Not that I find it a useful application of devotion or time, just that I don't see much distinction between their activities and the current/historical activities of "mainstream" religious cults.

It is worth noting that I am not, nor do I wish to be a cultist of any religion.

Drunken Post - Ignore all contents
 
OK, let me tell you.
Falun gong, is both some kind of Qigong( as you may know or may not, some kind of gongfu, which could be helpful or harmful to the health) and some kind of religion.
As a kongfu, it is not a bad thing really, but as a religion, it is really dangerous as I know, anybody who has taken part in it will forget his duty or job, talk to anybody about Falun gong and try to preach to them, most of all, they all believe in every word by Li Hongzhi, so it could become some kind of weapon to threaten the rule of the government. That's why the government in China want to perish it.
It's cruel in some occasion, but it is necessary.
 
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