On Thursday, December 25, 2014 9:19:30 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Thu, 25 Dec 2014 06:20:43 +0100, nestork
wrote:


rbowman;3325624 Wrote:

Right. That's why Pussy Riot was charged with hooliganism motivated by
religious hatred. Cuba hasn't been officially atheist since 1992. China

hosted the World Buddhist Forum in 2006 although the Dalai Lama wasn't
invited.


Pussy Riot was arrested for making a loud and noisy spectacle in a
church that offended the sensibilities of most of the church goers in
attendance. Pussy Riot called that a "prayer" if I recall correctly,
but most of the people in the church called it an obscenity.
Unfortunately, Russia never had a law against offending the
sensibilities of an entire church full of people, so they got charged
with hooliganism instead. I think the Russian courts simply wanted to
let Pussy Riot know when enough was enough.

And, I'm not sure I'd call China a "communist" country anymore. They
were communist for a long time, but now they seem to be just as
capitalistic as their arch enemy; Taiwan. There is an unspoken social
contract in China. If the government makes you wealthier and makes your
life easier, you don't criticize the government. Both sides seem to be
holding up their side of that agreement, so what we have is 1.6 or so
billion people all wanting to buy their own condos and cars, living
under a supposedly "Communist" government that now allows private
ownership of property. It's perhaps Communism wearing a completely new
wardrobe.
China is now a totalitarian capaitalistic society who's long-running
communist experiment has dismally failed but the leaders are not ready
yet to admit it.

I wouldn't call them capitalistic just yet. With reforms, they
have instituted many elements of capitalism. But there are plenty
of elements of communism still left with state owned "collectives"
and farmers given "leases", being one example. The only place that
is truly capitalistic is Hong Kong/Macau and that is treated as a
special region, not under the same rules as the rest of China.




Religious freedom is only a dream for most. Freedom
FROM religion is more accurate.

I don't think that's true. China has to approve churches and keeps them on
a leash. But they do have millions of Christians, Muslims, etc that
attend those churches, etc. It's far from a total ban on religion.
It's kind of like their approach to capitalism.


Religion, and Christianity in particular, is thriving in Cuba. Of all
"Communist" countries, Cuba has perhaps made it work better than most.
Freedom of religion is most absent in the Islamic Republics and India,
where Christians in particular are being slaughtered at a very
alarming rate.
In the decade of 2010-2020, if the current trend continues, more
Christians will die for their faith than in the previous 2000 years
combined.

The questions is, what is the world prepared to do about that?