Religion in China

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FangYuan

Junior Member
Registered Member
China has no problem with Islam or Christianity.

In the past, Hong XiuQuan used Christianity to start the Taiping rebellion and caused the death of about 10 to 30 million people. Today, Christianity still operates normally in China. The Chinese government does not prohibit Christianity, so they have no reason to stop Islam

China does not encourage its people to be Muslims and Christians, but they do not ban these religions.
 
G

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
FWIW the Taiping rebellion religion was a sect ran by a guy who thought he had a revelation he was the brother of Jesus after he had a meltdown when he failed the imperial exam. Even the Protestant priest which he had brief contact with thought he was delusional.
Their leaders tried to get Western support for their rebellion but instead Western powers supported the Qing Emperor. But it was, I guess, one indicator to the West of internal Chinese state weakness.
 
B

BrightFuture

New Member
Registered Member
If you want to know about the state of Chinese Muslims, I recommend you this channel:


He is a Chinese Muslim born and raised in China.

Besides, as someone that studies in a Chinese university, I can tell you that religion is completely allowed. Around university campuses (and inside of them) there are often restaurants owned by Uighurs or Hui that offer halal food. Every Chinese province has at least 5 mosques, some of them even more.

About other religions, there are Buddhist temples almost everywhere – hell, even the small poor village where my in-laws live has one. You can also find places with Taoist temples.

Christianity is not popular at all, but I'm sure you can find some church somewhere. Harbin has an orthodox church if I recall correctly.

On a side note, don't believe anti-China propaganda like the one Mr T is delivering. Anything you read about China that comes from Western media should be taken with a grain of salt (or not be believed directly). I can give you thousands of examples where Western media has lied about China (the biggest one being the Uighur issue).

Feel free to ask me any questions.
 
Mr T

Mr T

Senior Member
sndef888 said:
I wonder if China could adopt these pagan faith (jade emperor, lord guan, guanyin) temples into the state, as a precaution against western organised religion, and to promote chinese identity. I feel that state power alone is not strong enough an ideology to bind people together.
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The CCP as an atheist organisation is not going to look to religion to foster a greater sense of community. It may decide to promote some faiths in a limited way as a means of increasing Chinese soft power, but it won't give any some sort of equal power or influence to a religion/faith. It remains illegal for CCP members to be religious.

Across the border in Singapore, there exist many western-aligned chinese-in name only who are obsessed with christian teachings and evangelicals. They think anything to do with chinese is low class. Chinese festivals like duanwu, qingming, even CNY, are almost ignored while they celebrate christmas and thanksgiving wholeheartedly
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Why do people with Han (or other minority group) ethnicities have to celebrate traditional Chinese festivals? If they're born outside China and don't identify with Chinese tradition that would be their choice.
 
T

taxiya

Brigadier
Registered Member
sndef888 said:
I wonder if China could adopt these pagan faith (jade emperor, lord guan, guanyin) temples into the state, as a precaution against western organised religion, and to promote chinese identity. I feel that state power alone is not strong enough an ideology to bind people together.

Its partly the reason why Malaysian Chinese still closely identify as chinese. Even if they don't really believe in it anymore, they grow up with experience going to temples, practicing ancestor rituals, reading chinese words, looking at the beautiful chinese architecture (dragons, chinese style roof), mingle with the community during duanwu, qingming. Gradually they grow up to love their chinese identity.

Across the border in Singapore, there exist many western-aligned chinese-in name only who are obsessed with christian teachings and evangelicals. They think anything to do with chinese is low class. Chinese festivals like duanwu, qingming, even CNY, are almost ignored while they celebrate christmas and thanksgiving wholeheartedly

Unlike abrahamic religions, these temples are mostly community-led and non-doctrinal. They don't have strong ties to a "higher doctrine" like the bible or "higher power" like the pope, dalai lama, or "religious leaders" so likely won't pose a threat to the atheist government.
The CCP has become less strictly "communist" for years, even starting to adopt some nationalism. I wonder if one day the government would adopt these temples. The fusion of socialism and communal identity would make China much more secure against organised religion (christianity, falun gong) and ideological subversion.
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No need for that. The Chinese state since the Qin dynasty has never done so and have withstood the intrusion of organised religion including recent one during the Qing dynasty. 2500 years is long enough to prove that nothing can compete with Chinese core political value and practice. That 2500 years has ingrained into every individual's instinct. That instinct is even more powerful than pure state institution. That instinct in return is the foundation of the state. In this regard, any entity religion or not acting against the state is in fact against the population.

Besides, people should move forward, not backward. If we still have to rely on some superstitious ritual to defend ourselves, then we will be dead soon without foreign powers to push us.

Everything move forward. Some good thing in the past may be part of Chinese identity, but not necessary to carry on forever. Chinese being today's Chinese is because we dropped something old and picked up something new on our way. Religion (pagan or organized) together with many other things have no place in 21st century and future.
 
Gatekeeper

Gatekeeper

Brigadier
Registered Member
BrightFuture said:
On a side note, don't believe anti-China propaganda like the one Mr T is delivering. Anything you read about China that comes from Western media should be taken with a grain of salt (or not be believed directly). I can give you thousands of examples where Western media has lied about China (the biggest one being the Uighur issue).
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100% spot on
 
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