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.

  • lorty@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    Good thing all the sources are from US based institutions and NGOs. Must mean they are completely factual and unbiased.

    • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        So if a known liar makes an unfalsifiable claim you think people should just take it as fact? That’s absurd.

  • Gerudo@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    When I see tankie lemmings, I just point to this type of stuff…

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      1 month ago

      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.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_syncretism

      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.

      • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        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 been a pretty common thing that dictators have done throughout recorded history.

        It’s not about agreeing or disagreeing with the specifics of the church, it’s about eliminating divided loyalties.

  • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Found this:

    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.

    • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

      "During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime’s atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn’t go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.

      If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum."

      -Michael Parenti, Blackshirts and Reds

  • fritobugger2017@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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).

    • Daemon Silverstein@thelemmy.club
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      1 month ago

      I’m a “pagan” demonolater, therefore, I do not worship the christian god neither Christ as a “savior” (I’m actually a Lilith’s worshipper) but, it’s needed to be mentioned that the existence of Christ as a Nazarethian man is well-proven even by the religion-free science and history. While I agree that it doesn’t prove any of his “holiness” nor his affiliation to “God himself”, he truly existed as a man. One doesn’t need to worship Christ to know his historical existence as a human being.

      For example, as from Wikipedia’s article regarding Publius Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman historian:

      The Annals is one of the earliest secular historical records to mention Jesus of Nazareth, which Tacitus does in connection with Nero’s persecution of the Christians.

      Also from the article regarding Yosef ben Mattityahu, a Jewish historian:

      Josephus’s works are the chief source next to the Bible for the history and antiquity of ancient Israel, and provide a significant and independent extra-biblical account of such figures as Pontius Pilate, Herod the Great, John the Baptist, James, brother of Jesus, and Jesus of Nazareth

      It’s worth mentioning that the latter is Jewish and Jewish beliefs do not worship Jesus (because the arrival of a “Mashiach” is a promise yet to be fulfilled by “HaShem”, according to Orthodox Jewish tradition), so I bet his work is even more valuable in proving Christ as a man than the bible’s new testament itself.

    • GiveMemes@jlai.lu
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      1 month ago

      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

    • capital@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.

  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      1 month ago

      The end goal of fascism, per Mussolini:

      “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”

      Fascism innately rejects the concept of the separation of powers and human rights alike.

      If you view the traditional three pillars of heirarchy and power in a capitalist society as the state, the corporations, and the church, the absorbtion of both corporate and church power is simply the end goal. You might also ask “couldn’t the corporate powers or churches effectively do the same thing by absorbing the others instead?”

      Funnily enough, Hirohito and Japan had already effectively absorbed that pillar of power with State Shinto and the literal deification of the imperial line.

  • Stalinwolf@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    I can’t wait to go Christmaos Jinping this year! They just put in a new Target in the workers quarter.

  • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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    1 month ago

    Lmao that’s fucking hilarious.

    NK levels of brain rot here we come!

    Right on track to repeat the horrors of the past with complete blind faith in himself.

    I can’t wait to watch him fall on his face royally.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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        1 month ago

        Yeah say whatever you want about Xi’s rapid descent into red fascism, his rule seems stable enough, and with how humans work it’s going to stay that way as long as the economy keeps growing. And it WILL keep growing because that’s just how industrialization works.