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Why did China not produce harmful native religions
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In writing.......
Why did China not produce harmful native religions
Frank Oct. 2, 2014, in waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Updated Dec. 29, 31, 2018. Jan. 3, 5, 7, 15, 2019.
http://www.kwcg.ca/bbs/home.php?mod=space&uid=61910&do=blog&id=3806
Harmful religions refer to those use of certain doctrines to brainwash the believers and make them foolish without ability for proper judgment from rational reasoning, even being fooled to perform antisocial or even kill others by suicide attack.
In China, besides some native religions in the nature of philosophy and doctrine in healthy living , such as, Daoism, those harmful religions are all invaded foreign one.
Why?
In China, the harmful religions were killed by the wise officials in the stage of their budding.
There was a true case in 2400 years ago China, in Ye County, took the chance of frequently floods, the local officials with witch conspiracy levy money by the name of presenting a girl as wife to please river God to avoid river flooding, and thus drowning innocent girl every year, and defrauds wealth of people into own pockets by the name of wedding. .
A wise magistrate Ximen Bao who completely eliminated the evil misdeed by thrown the witch and her accomplices into the river with the name of sending a message to the river God, he will chose a more beautiful girl as wife later.
Above is a page of picture book about this story. Ximen Bao ordered to throw local officials into river after witch in the same name.
In order to eliminate the disaster of flooding, Xi Menbao suggested to excavate canals, but, people refused to do such a hard job, then, by the power of Government, Xi Menbao forced them to dig twelve canals to bring water from the river to irrigate the farming land as a water irrigation system that serves to today.
At that time, Ximen Bao made a famous comment: the ordinary people can only share enjoying the success but cannot willingly share the hardship for achieving the success. Government must enforce them to do something that will benefit to them, but, do not expect to convince them in advance.
The story has been widespread in China with many history books and textbooks, until to today. Thus, as a explicit reference to help people distinguishing deceptive superstitious activities, and effectively inhibited the budding of religion, due to the subsequent governments were able to timely distinguish and kill harmful religions, which is started in 2400 years ago until to today.
I think that is the main reason for that China did not form any harmful Religions. The case shows the wise social governance of China in 2400 years ago, and well demonstrated that what is the true human civilization?
The personal deeds of Ximen Bao have decisively influenced the civilization of China in two major aspect for a safer stable society: first one is avoid the harm of religions, second one is to have set a model for that how a Government rationally perform their governing role.
As my view, this is the reason that China’s economy has always been ahead of the world before the civilization was interrupted by the Opium War of Britain and later by the invasion of Japanese. It is also one of the reasons why that China rapidly rise in the economy after the end of foreign aggression.
People appreciate the 5,000 years continuous civilization of China, however, most of people have overlooked the nature of the civilization, the valuable point, is not in the length of time, but, in the continuously documented historical facts – the facts in success and failure, which made valuable references, so that the future generations can avoid to repeat mistakes with lesser Detour.
The accumulation of experiences is wisdom.
For the sake of national well-being, government must ensure social stability. In some cases, it is rational that government takes coercive force to promote something – such as, to control the religious development.
For centuries, Western religion groups have been sending missionaries to China again and again, with the hope of trying to domesticate the people of China. However, the effect was not obvious. Westerners never knew that people of China has been acquired immunity for thousands years.
Follow is the place where the historical story of Xi Menbao happened.
Above is map that Googled in Jan. 5, 2019, the red point area is Xi Menbao's Memorial Temple that built long time ago and has been badly damaged. The Temple located nearby Zhang-River in Beifeng Village, Anfeng Township, Anyang County, Anyang City, Henan Province, China.
Then, please look at that why religion is harmful?
The MRI scan on the structure of human brain and the fact of AlfaGo computer program beats top professional human Go player shows that computer is a kind of electronic brain, and the work mechanism of human brain is similar as that of computer. As same as that the defects or missing in the computer parts would cause malfunction of electronic brain, the defects or missing in the brain cells will also cause malfunction of human brain.
If we look at people's brains as same innate quality, that is, it is all same in the ability of attention, memory, logic analysis and the judgment for right or wrong, then the acquired knowledge of brain as reference is in acting as that of the instruction-codes in signaling human behaving. Viewing in this natural way, human beings are a kind of robots in action according to the Robot Software of acquired knowledge as set of coded commands or instructions.
Because of the difference in acquired knowledge, so that coded commands are difference between people to people, which is why that some people are rational in humane, and some people are anti-social in inhumane.
Religion uses specific doctrine to brainwash the believers, which is to instill the improper instruction-codes, thereby cause the behavioral flaws of people.
In large extent, religions have been playing as the most effective schools in culturing or even training evil forces against human society. There are no one would doubt that such extremists are the fatal threats to people’s normal life. They have pushed everyone living in fear every day without a sense of security.
To conduct killing in the name of faith seems a symbol of Western civilization. The great Crusades – in the name of faith, to induce and even force people to kill each other, which started in 1095. Nearly a thousand years have passed, the name of faith of the religions is still an effective tool to organize and enforce people to conduct killing. Please look at social unrests in any countries, the vast majority of them are from extremism that cultured by religions.
-- Frank Jan. 8, 9, 12,2019, in waterloo, Ontario, Canada
The most evil are not those who advocate extremes by religions, but those people who are in advocating religious freedom. They are clearly in making livings by deception.
-- Frank Jan. 13,2019, in waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Motivation of the topic
Oct. 2, 2014, the articles Thousands of women, accused of sorcery, tortured and executed in Indian witch hunts and Witch Hunting in India: Poor, Low Caste and Widows Main Targets shocked me to reflect the role of religion and think of book The Essence of Religion. Although the behavior of Witch Hunting in India is not entirely religious, but, with the fictional preaching to brainwash is similar to a kind of religion.
In The Essence of Religion, Ludwig Feuerbach indicates that: “The religious admiration of divine wisdom in Nature is only an incident of enthusiasm; it refers only to the means, but is extinguished in reflecting on the purposes of Nature. How wonderful is the spider’s web, how wonderful the funnel of the ant-lion in the sand! But what is the purpose of these wise arrangements? Nothing but nourishment.”
I appreciate the view of Ludwig Feuerbach on the nature of the religions.
In fact, religions have been also playing the role as tools that have been used by various people for various purposes, such as, pleasing voters, but all of those people who are lack of humanity to deceive those ignorant people and to drive those ignorant to obtain benefits, in regardless to harm to others and to harm to the world.
Cruel reality shows that, nowadays, religions have become one of the root scourges for the world. It has become a powerful tool that cruel people gain more cruel power by gathering more cruel people to kill good people cruelly.
Facing such a cruel reality, some people still call for religious freedom. For these people, we have enough reason to question their property as the members of human beings?
India and China are both noted as ancient civilizations.
In India, the facts from above articles showed that absurd religions make the Indians still trek between Modern civilization and Ancient barbaric civilization.
— Frank Oct. 2, 2014, in waterloo, Ontario, Canada
According to Ludwig Feuerbach – Wikipedia that edited on Jan. 1, 2019, it was in 1841, German philosopher and anthropologist Ludwig Feuerbach who published the book The Essence of Religion and then it is considered as classic of humanism, and the book strongly influenced Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, thereby contributed to the birth of magnum opus and the development of historical materialism.
Now, I would like to say that it is not only Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but, Ludwig Feuerbach who has decisively influenced the civilization of human beings with communist movement and socialist practice. Today, we are able to enjoy the humanized society with comprehensive social welfare in communist style should thank great thinker Ludwig Feuerbach for triggering the communist vision of Karl Marx.
— Frank Oct. 2, 2014, in waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Follow is translated and edited from Mandarin articles. The link of main reference is as follow: http://www.en84.com/article-8563-2.html
Ximen Bao’s Administration of Ye County of Ancient China
Frank Oct. 2, 2014, in waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Wei was a feudal vassal state of Western Zhou Dynasty (BC 1046 – BC 771) in Ancient China. Its territory lays between the states of Qin and Qi at that time and included parts of provinces of Henan,Hebei, Shanxi, and Shandong in modern China.
Photo resource: http://ookaboo.com/o/pictures/picture/21566541/China_Map_Wei_State_260BCE
According to Historical Records – A Classic Masterpiece for Comprehending the Ancient Chinese History of West Han dynasty China 104 B.C.-101 B.C. Ximen Bao who was an atheist, a famous Statesman, Military strategist and Hydraulic expert with many great exploits when the reign of Duke Weiwen（BC 472-BC 396) in the time of Warring States Period (BC475 – BC221) China.
When he came into office after was appointed as magistrate of Ye County that located in today’s Hebei province of China, he found that the county was a deserted place with sparsely populated, barren land and slump economy.
After visits the local people, he learnt that there a river within the Ye County was always flooding and devouring the lives of many people. Local people have tried many ways, but, helpless, the river was still flooding. Then, there was a witch who said that there was a god in the river, the god must marry every year, if we do not marry him with beautiful young woman, the god would harm people by spells causing Flooding. Since then, every year, the witch will choose beautiful girl to marry the river god.
The county chiefs and local officials took the opportunity to collude with the witch to plunder wealth. They levied several million coins by the name for the marriage of the river god, but with only small partial of them to pay for the girl to marry the river god, and the rest were shared with the witch.
At the day the river god wedding, the witch had a beautiful girl sat on a bed to float down the river and finally the girl to be drowned with the bed was sank into the river.
Due to such fear, people who had good-looking daughters often brought them to distant places to evade to be killed in such way. As a result, the county has become ever more deserted and poverty-stricken.
After learnt the evil fact, Ximen Bao was enraged and conceived a countermeasure.
When the day to send a girl to river god, he came and had a look at the girl, then said to the witch: “This girl is not beautiful. I’ll trouble you to report to the river god that we’ll choose a more beautiful one and send to him in another day.” Then he had the soldiers seize the witch to throw into the river.
“Why did the witch not come back in so long time?” later he said. “Let one of her disciple to hurry her up!” Thus a disciple of the witch was thrown into the river, and then others in a total of three.
“The witch and her disciples are all women, no good at making a clear report to river god,” Ximen Bao said. “I’ll trouble county chiefs to do that.” Thus the county chiefs were thrown into the river.
Ximen Bao pretended respectfully with bowed low and waited with patience. The local officials who were shocked and frightened, with fear of being as messenger thrown into the river, they all bowed on the ground and forehead touchdown again and again, as that of chickens pecking rice on the ground, even head bloodshed.
Later Ximen Bao said relentingly: “You may stand up! The river god seems to detain his guests for a long time, you may dismiss now.”
Thenceforward, no one dared mention the sacrificial marriage for river god again.
Afterwards, Ximen Bao mobilized the people to dig twelve canals to bring the water from the river to irrigate the farming land, and to have ended the flood disaster entirely.
The construction of the canals was hard work, people felt to be troubled and unwilling to continue. Ximen Bao forced them with own administrative power to have finished the canals finally.
Ximen Bao made a famous comment that: the ordinary people can only share enjoying the success but canot share the initiation of the success. Though you may hate me for causing you troubles in today, but, a century later, your descendants will surely thank of what I said today.”
Since then, the irrigation by the canals has been up to today, and the people there have been living in abundant lives due to no disasters of water logging or drought.
Ximen Bao as magistrate of Ye County was famed throughout the state of Wei at that time. With his beneficence affecting countless generations, he has been regarded as a sagacious statesman until today China.
This is why that China has not formed any kind of harmful religions and heresies in the thousands of years civilization, because that rational officials killed them when their budding.
But, some religion with lesser harm, the government was allowed to exist, such as the Buddhism was introduced from India in 2,000 years ago, and existing until to today in China.
Other harmful religions were all invaded, and now are producing terrorists’ also.
Talking about India, it is a country with a long ancient civilization as similar as that of China, but, to be harmed miserable by free proliferation of religions, such as, for seeking happiness, their people are not to seek hard work as that of the people of China, but to pray with hands clasped together.
Indians believed that cattle is deity and letting them free around the streets, people and cattle are both still openly defecation.
Religions made the ignorance of Indians and caused India still in the semi-civilized state.
From the wisdom of an ancient sagacious statesman – Ximen Bao, we may learn that why china did not copy the West, but developed successfully.
And that is why that British Martin Jacques said that China is based on the civilization and the West is based on the nations.
Please look at how a wise man talks about religion.
Left photo source: https://www.azquotes.com/author/6310-Sam_Harris
Right photo source: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/125118
Sam Harris - Wikipedia
(born April 9, 1967) is an American author, philosopher, critic of religion, blogger...... The one of his many books is The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason that concerns about organized religion, the clash between religious faith and rational thought (2004).The End of Faith - Wikipedia
By Dr. Sam Harris
The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason is a 2004 book by Sam Harris, concerning organized religion, the clash between religious faith and rational thought, and the problems of tolerance towards religious fundamentalism.
Harris began writing the book in what he described as a period of "collective grief and stupefaction" following the September 11, 2001 attacks.[1] The book comprises a wide-ranging criticism of all styles of religious belief.
The book was first published August 11, 2004,[2] and it was awarded the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction the following year.[3] The paperback edition was published in October 2005. In the same month it entered The New York Times Best Seller list at number four, and remained on the list for a total of 33 weeks.[4]
In response to criticism and feedback regarding The End of Faith, Harris wrote Letter to a Christian Nation two years later.
religious fundamentalism.
Harris began writing the book in what he described as a period of "collective grief and stupefaction" following the September 11, 2001 attacks.[1] The book comprises a wide-ranging criticism of all styles of religious belief.
The book was first published August 11, 2004,[2] and it was awarded the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction the following year.[3] The paperback edition was published in October 2005. In the same month it entered The New York Times Best Seller list at number four, and remained on the list for a total of 33 weeks.[4]
In response to criticism and feedback regarding The End of Faith, Harris wrote Letter to a Christian Nation two years later.
Synopsis
The End of Faith opens with a literary account of a day in the life of a suicide bomber – his last day. In an introductory chapter, Harris calls for an end to respect and tolerance for the competing belief systems of religion, which he describes as being "all equally uncontaminated by evidence". While focusing on the dangers posed by religious extremist groups now armed with weapons of mass destruction, Harris is equally critical of religious moderation, which he describes as "the context in which religious violence can never be adequately opposed."
Harris continues by examining the nature of belief itself, challenging the notion that we can in any sense enjoy freedom of belief, and arguing that "belief is a fount of action in potentia." Instead he posits that in order to be useful, beliefs must be both logically coherent, and truly representative of the real world. Insofar as religious belief fails to ground itself in empirical evidence, Harris likens religion to a form of mental illness which, he says, "allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy." He argues that there may be "sanity in numbers", but that it is "merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your prayers, while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window."
Harris follows this with a brief survey of Christianity down the ages, examining the Inquisition and persecutions of witches and Jews. He contends that, far from being an aberration, the torture of hereticswas a logical expression of Christian doctrine – one which, he says, was clearly justified by men such as Saint Augustine. Going still further, Harris sees the Holocaust as essentially drawing its inspiration from historical Christian anti-Semitism. "Knowingly or not," he says, "the Nazis were agents of religion."
Among the controversial aspects of The End of Faith is an uncompromising assessment and criticism of Islamism, which Harris describes as being a "cult of death." He infers a clear link between Islamic teaching and terrorist atrocities such as 9/11, a notion he supports with quotations from the Koran that call for the use of violence.
He also presents data from the Pew Research Center, purporting to show that significant percentages of Muslims worldwide would justify suicide bombing as a legitimate tactic.[5][6] In an attack on what he terms "leftist unreason," Harris criticises Noam Chomsky among others for, in his view, displaying an illogical willingness to lay the entire blame for such attitudes upon U.S. foreign policy.
However, Harris also critiques the role of the Christian right in the United States, in influencing such areas as drug policies, embryonic stem cell research, and AIDS prevention in the developing world. In what he sees as a steady drift towards theocracy, Harris strongly criticises leading figures from both the legislatureand the judiciary for what he perceives as an unabashed failure to separate church and state in their various domains. "Not only do we still eat the offal of the ancient world," he asserts, "we are positively smug about it."
Next, Harris goes on to outline what he terms a "science of good and evil" – a rational approach to ethics, which he claims must necessarily be predicated upon questions of human happiness and suffering. He talks about the need to sustain "moral communities," a venture in which he feels that the separate religious moral identities of the "saved" and the "damned" can play no part. But Harris is critical of the stance of moral relativism, and also of what he calls "the false choice of pacifism." In another controversial passage, he compares the ethical questions raised by collateral damage and judicial torture during war. He concludes that collateral damage is more ethically troublesome. "If we are unwilling to torture, we should be unwilling to wage modern war," Harris concludes.
Finally, Harris turns to spirituality, where he especially takes his inspiration from the practices of Eastern religion. He writes that there have been mystics in the west and calls some of these "extraordinary men and women", such as Meister Eckhart, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Seraphim of Sarov, but that, as far as Western spirituality is concerned, "we appear to have been standing on the shoulders of dwarfs." He discusses the nature of consciousness, and how our sense of "self" can be made to vanish by employing the techniques of meditation. Harris quotes from Eastern mystics such as Padmasambhava and Nisargadatta Maharaj, but he does not admit any supernatural element into his argument – "mysticism is a rational enterprise," he contends, "religion is not." He later elaborates: "The mystic has reasons for what he believes, and these reasons are empirical." He states that it is possible for one's experience of the world to be "radically transformed", but that we must speak about the possibility in "rational terms".
| “ | The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature: reason, honesty, and love. The only demons we must fear are those that lurk inside every human mind: ignorance, hatred, greed, and faith, which is surely the devil's masterpiece. | ” |
Reception
Positive
Writing for The Independent, Johann Hari was largely positive, describing the book as "a brave, pugilistic attempt to demolish the walls that currently insulate religious people from criticism."[7]
Other broadly positive reviews have come from Natalie Angier,[8] Daniel Blue,[9] and Stephanie Merritt.[10]
Richard Dawkins has also endorsed the book.[11]
Negative
In a review for Free Inquiry, the editor Thomas W. Flynn alleged that Harris had allowed his argument to become clouded by his personal politics and by his use of spiritual language.[12] Harris later described Flynn's review as "mixed, misleading, and ultimately exasperating."[13]
Another review by David Boulton for New Humanist, also stopped short of a ringing endorsement, describing the book as containing "startling oversimplifications, exaggerations and elisions."[14]
Critical reviews from Christians have included those by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. for The Christian Post,[15] and Matthew Simpson for Christianity Today.[16] Madeleine Bunting, writing in The Guardian, quotes Harris as saying "some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them." Bunting comments, "[t]his sounds like exactly the kind of argument put forward by those who ran the Inquisition."[17]
Quoting the same passage, theologian Catherine Keller asks, "[c]ould there be a more dangerous proposition than that?" and argues that the "anti-tolerance" it represents would "dismantle" the Jeffersonian wall between church and state.[18]
Response[edit]
The paperback edition of The End of Faith, published in 2005, contained a new afterword in which Harris responded to some of the more popular criticisms he has received since publication. His essay "Response to Controversy" also clarified the context of the apparently troubling passage, which was that he was referring to very specific cases like that of the religiously motivated terrorist, where the attempt to kill a murderous terrorist would essentially constitute killing someone for a belief they hold, namely the belief that unbelievers of their particular faith should be killed.[19]
See also
Some reports on China
British Martin Jacques West should learn from China humbly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5sTBR1bxvc
Martin Jacques Understanding The Rise of China
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT8ki6ciopI
West should learn from China humbly
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVkHEcz1R7c
