| Do Chinese People Really Believe in God? | |
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| Jul 5, 2006 11:13 |   |
 | I have read with interest the thread started by Pinetree and the responses to it. Religion is a fascinating subject. In china I visited and prayed in Mosques, Buddhist Temples, Churches. Communism may be anti-religion but it cannot root out the faith of the people. I saw deep faith among the people of china. We need to distinguish between institutional religion [practices etc] and religion of the heart [faith in God]. The latter controls my behaviour and leads me to be a` loving person. Love is the only true religion. Chinese people are in fact deeply religious. Agree? |
| Jul 5, 2006 16:34 | #1 |
| I think chinese people are too smart to bother with religion. |
| Jul 5, 2006 19:09 | #2 |
| Quote: Communism may be anti-religion but ... Communism IS a religion, hoho~ |
| Jul 5, 2006 19:13 | #3 |
| Author: GAZ07 | -General- | 2006-07-05 16:34:56 GMT-5 I think chinese people are too smart to bother with religion. Personally, i think desperate people need/ bother with religion, smart or not smart. Joking~~~ |
| Jul 5, 2006 19:38 | #4 |
| Verb is smart. Think she has no religion ? It is also my personal view that generally religion is for the desperate & emotionally weak. Religion has been created & is successful to help these groups of people. There is also the group that believes the good teachings of religion and believe the deed of doing good itself. Personally, I think this group is in the minority & actually uses the religion as the focus and driving force. |
| Jul 6, 2006 10:56 | #5 |
| My Friend, Thanks for your comment. You say you were joking - and I pray it is so. I feel your picture was in poor taste, especially for those viewers who may be Christian. True, a lot of harm in our world was done because of them misuse of religion; but most of the good in the world is also due to a belief in God. I feel that any belief which helps us to respect and do good for others, is worthy to be called a religion. |
| Jul 6, 2006 19:01 | #6 |
| In my opinion, people are, or should be perfectly capable of understanding and respecting each other without the need of a story book. Pinetree makes very good sense with his previous comments about the weak. Hopefully my image didn't offend you as much as the constant bombardment of religious cr*p has offended and patronised me throughout my life. I would never enforce my Beano comic book to be preached in school. Anyway, as you can see, my views on religion are extremely negative and realistic so, instead of boring/offending anybody with these, i'll concentrate on the question. The people of China (and the world) should have the right to follow a religion should they choose to, and many do. Just as they have the right to do any other hobby... play football, read books, do charity work... It is a credit to China that they don't have an "official" religion, but instead letting each individual believe in what THEY want to believe. Having said that, the majority of Chinese i met during my 2/3 months did not seem to care about or need any religion. In my opinion, a smart choice (in reference to my previous post). Though a small number of people i met did prefer to prey at temples in the hope that something in their life will change, for good luck or simply to pay their respects to Buddha. Which is great if it helps them in any way. |
| Jul 6, 2006 20:39 | #7 |
| Religion is a sensitive subject. But I believe that we are matured enough to discuss such issues but let's not let it get out of hand. I think most of us would agree that religion in itself is good - no religion teaches us to be bad or be a bad citizen. However, humans are fallible and it is often that we see abuse of religion by so-called "believers or followers". And these are the ones that give a bad name to the religion and contributes towards rejection. Some religions & their leaders are themselves cloaked with controversy. I think we also do not rule out that a lot of good also comes out of religion. No doubt at this. |
| Jul 6, 2006 22:40 | #8 |
| I think more Chinese should input here. This thread is meant fo ryou !! |
| Jul 7, 2006 01:15 | #9 |
| One of the most impressive temples I have ever been was this Triple Religion Temple. One of the most impressive village i have ever been was a Triple Religion Village - near Xiahe. That was a very quiet village with a small population, some are Tibetan Buddhists, some are Muslims and some are Han and Mongolians. There are Buddhist Temples, small though, and also small Muslim Mosques and Han style temple too. I was amazed at how people of different religions live peacefully together with their own beliefs. Seeing their kids playing together with different looks，clothes and even languages. Now the Temple: The Triple-religion Temple(三教合一寺) in the Five Spring Mountain in Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu Province. There are three gods in the same Temple peacefully side by side, they are Sakyamuni, Laotze and Confucius. There are plenty of devoted prayers there every day. Never asked which god they were worshipping, for fear of people taking me as a narrow minded person, haha ! :P Isn't that a kind of amazing and ideal situation that all gods working shoulder to shoulder with each other for the bliss of all the people in the world(sounds like dream talking, huh:P)？ Having said that, I am quite aware that there are some religions that are very exclusive - maybe extremely exclusive. But i am sort of happy to see this particular Temple in China, and see from it that it reflects some natures in most Chinese - moderate, tolerance and comprehensive, and most importantly - understanding. I love that Triple-Religion Temple. If you go to visit Lanzhou, don't miss it, it is so small that the locals may not even remember to recommend it to you. So, religion or no religion, it's good to see moderation, tolerance, comprehensiveness and understanding, fortunately, all in people's nature, not brought into this world by god of any religion, I personally believe. |
| Jul 7, 2006 02:01 | #10 |
| I am wondering if there are such kind of temples (with double or triple or multiple religions all together) in other parts of China or the world?? |
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