Author Topic: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science  (Read 5105 times)

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Offline Askold

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #15 on: April 22, 2013, 12:11:04 am »
The problem I see with this is it's FORCED skepticism of religion than actual skepticism of it.  That's not a positive movement in any direction if you're forced against your will to do so.

This.  You can't tell people what to think.
I am not sure if this even qualifies as "forced skeptism." If their stated goal is to weed out religions, then it sounds like the new education will be against all religions and promoting just atheism. So basically they aer promoting one set of belief and trying to discredit the others, how is this different from promoting a religion? And what happens to those people who still want to be religious? People should be allowed to make their own worldview.

If it was just "everyone will be taught about all religions without claiming that one of these is the one true version and the others are the heathen stuff, then it would be much better.

Then again the articles didn't really explain the exact method they are planning so maybe I just misunderstood.
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Offline Cataclysm

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #16 on: April 22, 2013, 12:23:23 am »
Link

Welp, cue the religious folks in the US ranting the godlessness of Communism or something.
Banning religion?  I thought they'd moved past hardline Communism.  This is a human rights violation, plain and simple.

Well, economically.
I'd be more sympathetic if people here didn't act like they knew what they were saying when they were saying something very much wrong.

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Offline ironbite

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #17 on: April 22, 2013, 01:01:06 am »
Link

Welp, cue the religious folks in the US ranting the godlessness of Communism or something.
Banning religion?  I thought they'd moved past hardline Communism.  This is a human rights violation, plain and simple.

While I'll agree it's a stupid thing...human rights violation?  Dude.

Ironbite-come on.

Offline Osama bin Bambi

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #18 on: April 22, 2013, 01:52:21 am »
Link

Welp, cue the religious folks in the US ranting the godlessness of Communism or something.
Banning religion?  I thought they'd moved past hardline Communism.  This is a human rights violation, plain and simple.

While I'll agree it's a stupid thing...human rights violation?  Dude.

Ironbite-come on.

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #19 on: April 22, 2013, 02:31:25 am »
I'd love to see religion marginalised, but this isn't the way to go about it. Instead, put more emphasis on science in schools of all levels, put more funding into research and museums and the like and when religion is taught in schools, teach it the same way you'd teach any other mythology. As fiction. How to fund this? Simple. Instead of giving religious institutions a tax exempt status, classify it as a demerit service and tax the everloving shit out of it. The same goes for religious schools. Tax rather than subsidise, and regulate to ensure they teach proper science, even if it conflicts with their faith.

That's how it should be done. No need to outright ban religion, just stop giving it undue reverence in society.

Offline RavynousHunter

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #20 on: April 22, 2013, 02:44:12 am »
If we weren't afraid to teach kids hard facts outside of math class, we'd probably be a lot further along than we are now.  Kids can smell bullshit, and the perceptive ones know when they're being lied to by supposed authorities.  The smart ones, like I was (not to toot my own horn...I was above-average, in this case), go and look up the facts ourselves.  We look up shit like how evolution works, how condoms work and how well, et cetera.

However, this number would be a fuckton higher if we dispensed with the myths, dispensed with the lies, and just told our kids the fucking truth.  My parents, for all their faults, were always honest with me.  When I came asking how I was born, they told me the truth, in a way I, at the time, could understand.  When they talked to me about sex...which was mostly my mother's doing, they realized that there was every chance that I'd be one of the majority of folks who wouldn't save themselves for marriage, and emphasized safe sex, particularly using a fucking rubber.  Yes, they're religious folks, and when I asked where we came from, they gave me the Christian answer for it, but they in their own minds, were still being perfectly honest, they weren't knowingly deceiving me or trying to bullshit me.  Hell, even now, my mother's taking me aside, at times, and explaining shit to me that I need to know so I can survive when I'm on my own, like how to handle potential bankruptcy, taxes, how to spot good deals from bad ones, how to avoid getting swindled.

Unlike a lotta folks, they actually care about seeing me grow as my own person, and not just as a copy of themselves.  So long as I'm successful and happy, they're happy, and that's how it should be.  They gave, and continue to give, me the tools I need to survive; no lies, no manipulation, no deception, no bullshit.  That should be America's new slogan, not "In God We Trust" or "E pluribus unum," but simply "No bullshit."
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Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #21 on: April 22, 2013, 04:51:48 am »
Worth mentioning the little fact that most science departments in Chinese universities are administered by state bureaucrats who often have no academic background in the departments they administer and that there is widespread pseudoscience and scientific fraud in said departments.

Given that it'd be interesting to see what does get passed as "good science" by the Chinese state.

Offline Sigmaleph

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #22 on: April 22, 2013, 08:17:41 am »
There is an annoying lack of detail regarding how this would be implemented. Though, in any case, it seems terribly likely that whatever they do won't work. If the government is seen to be pushing against an idea some will immediately push back, on that principle alone. Even they recognise that:

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"Religion has been around for a very long time, and if we rush to try to push for results and want to immediately 'liberate' people from the influence of religion, then it will have the opposite effect and push people in the opposite direction."

Based on that, finding an active* strategy a government could use that would successfully dissuade their populace from superstition is a nontrivial problem. (Robin Hanson once suggested that the best you could do to get rid of religion was to socialize it and bureaucratize it. I don't know if that would work, but I strongly suspect that's not the approach China will take)


*As opposed to a passive strategy of staying silent on the subject and letting science assert itself, which seems to be working well enough in most of the world.
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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #23 on: April 22, 2013, 08:30:37 am »
So, how would this be any different from what they've been doing for decades now?

Offline rageaholic

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #24 on: April 22, 2013, 08:52:28 am »
The problem I see with this is it's FORCED skepticism of religion than actual skepticism of it.  That's not a positive movement in any direction if you're forced against your will to do so.

Yeah forced skepticism isn't skepticism. 

I hate China.  It does not seem like a nice place to live. 

Offline The Illusive Man

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #25 on: April 22, 2013, 03:47:44 pm »
While I'll agree it's a stupid thing...human rights violation?  Dude.
Ironbite-come on.
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Offline Old Viking

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #26 on: April 22, 2013, 04:26:36 pm »
Banning religion simply plays into the "We're being persecuted" complaint.  Watching religion destroy itself is the fun way to go.
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Offline Askold

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Re: China Wants to Ban Religion, Mandate Science
« Reply #27 on: April 22, 2013, 11:30:39 pm »
Banning religion simply plays into the "We're being persecuted" complaint.  Watching religion destroy itself is the fun way to go.
Well if the religion is banned then they really are persecuted. Just because some religions like to play the victim doesn't mean that religious persecution doesn't happen in some places.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."
Aww, you guys rock. :)  I feel the love... and the pitchforks and torches.  Tingly!