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Actually, I haven't mentioned it since your withdrawal, until you started whining about the tone of the post. Then I was forced to remind you who had started the mudslinging.
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Another untruth. You've mentioned it more than once since I retracted it. And I don't think that an erroneous factual statement about a general group is properly characterized as mudslinging. You pointed out my error. I retracted it. You've mentioned at least two or three times since.
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I am aware that you link them. I am also aware that you have provided no context by which we can determine whether these assertions of yours are true. We both agree that the number of people professing theism fell after the Wall fell, and that the number of people professing theism rose in China when religious repression was relaxed after 1980. However, so far, you have not demonstrated that after 1980, many people who were committed atheists in their hearts in China suddenly saw the light.
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There is still oppression of religion in China and promotion of atheist, as I detailed previously.
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To give another example, the number of capitalists rose after 1980 as well. I suppose you are going to argue with me that these petty capitalists were all "new" capitalists and that the common people had never been capitalist? Of course not. We know that the people practiced petty capitalism openly and covertly as State repression compelled. Petty capitalism has a long history in China, and AFAIK, nobody has argued that the Chinese people discovered capitalism since Deng came to power.
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You have no numbers about "capitalistic" beliefs in China at all, much less showed a trend of people believing in Adam Smith's theories. But I'm very confidant that there were more communists in the former Soviet Union and communist China than there were in the rest of the world. Those systems, which promoted communism and persecuted opposing political theories and parties succeeded in producing higher levels of communists than the rest of the world.
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Similarly, I am not aware of any academic who has argued that the rise open theism since 1980 is anything other than a resumption of the normal pattern of belief rather than "new" theism in response to former "atheism." The only "new" thing is the rise in Christians. It would be interesting to find out who the Christians are converting. The unchurched? Daoists? Buddhists?
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This is irrelevant. But I do know that many of the converts were self-identified atheists. I just spoke with one last night in fact at a class I was teaching at church. He used to be an atheist and was converted to Christianity. But again, why is this important? I haven't claimed that all the new Christians used to be atheists.
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Another problem with your absurd claim is that if all those people had really been atheists, then repression would have been unnecessary. But Layman, ongoing repression of an activity indicates that an activity is ongoing. That's simple historical method. If people in the 13 colonies pass laws against women running off to join the Indians, it is because women were doing so.
Thus, ongoing repression of theism in China indicates that it was not significantly eliminated, but simply went underground. This is a habitual behavior throughout Chinese history, and in all Chinese societies. I could give thousands of examples, from anti-Qing nationalist groups to the use of postdated checks in the informal loan system, of things that were outlawed and kept right on going, just going underground, or even ignoring the government openly. As the Chinese say, Beijing pretends to rule, and we pretend to be ruled.
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Okay, I don't disagree with this. I haven't argued that there was
no religious activity in China even at the height of the Cultural Revolution. I have argued that the majority of atheists have been produced by atheistic communist regimes, including China, that oppressed religious belief and promoted atheism. I've proved this. The majority of the world's atheists can be found in formerly communist or currently communist countries. You've already conceded this point.
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Now, the burden of proof is on you, Layman, to support the causal chain you have laid out. So far I see no contextualized numbers, no cites from the anthropological literature on Chinese religion, no comments from personal experience, whereas I have cited all three. You have not sufficient expertise to argue on these matters, as witnessed by your latest gaffe involving the Cultural Revolution and repression of religion.
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Which gaffe is that?
The causal chain is clear. The majority of atheists in the world were produced in and by atheistic communist regimes that oppressed religion and promoted atheism. This includes China. You do concede don't you that you? I've spelled out the numbers time and again and you have offered no counter numbers.
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You have stated that, true. What you have not done, as I HAVE, is offered either sociological knowledge, personal experience and relevant quotes from the literature to talk about that. I know, from personal experience of Asians who do not practice religion, that they are nearly all atheists (actually, we would both probably describe them more correctly as "unchurched," but those are atheists too). That is why you cannot participate meaningfully here, because you lack a perspective that would enable you to understand the utterly different cultural context of religious behavior.
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I have no reason to trust your self-serving anecdotal statements. Especially considering your definitional games with the term "atheism." And have you spent a dozen years in Hungary learning about them so that you could categorically state that "nonreligous" persons in Hungary are definitely NOT atheists? No, of course not. Which demonstrates that you are simply playing definintional games and manipulating numbers and definintions to whatever ends serve your purpose. Since you consider agnostics to be atheists, then your belief that all asians who call themselves "nonreligious" are definitely atheists is irrelevant.
I'm measuring atheists, not agnostics.
An appeal to authority is usually ridiculed here. But when that appeal to authority is your own biased self, I find it laughable. Especially when it is accompanied by blatant and creative methodological inconsistencies and definitional manipulations.
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In any case, if we read about Japan, and find that only 7% practice any religion, you would have to be totally ignorant of human nature and east asian history to assume that those people are all theists who don't practice. That position is absurd.
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That position is not mine. Just because a person does not "practice" a religion does not mean they are an atheist. This is just another, taxing and tiring defininitional manipulation on your part. Because they don't practice religion they must be atheists? That IS an absurd position to take.
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That is why "irreligion" and "atheism" in an Asian context are pretty much the same thing. We cannot be certain about the numbers, but they are extremely high. Much higher than China.
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You have failed to show that "not practicing" or "irreleigion" in Asia = atheism. I just am not willing to take your word for it because we don't even agree what "atheism" means. You define it much broader than Websters, the World Almanac, and the Encyclopedia Brittanica. You define it so differently that you are "measuring" something entirely different than I and my sources. Besides, as of 1997, there were 156 million atheists in China. That is more than the entire population of Japan. While it does appear that the number of atheists in China has dropped significantly since then, that just reinforces my point. The farther away we get from oppressive communistic atheist regimes that persecute religious belief and promote atheism, the fewer atheists there will be.
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There are questions here that you have never answered. Are people who are superstitious atheists? If so, then there are basically no atheists in Taiwan or any Chinese society. What if I don't believe in any gods, but practice feng shui and revere my ancestors? Many Taiwanese women who practice austere forms of buddhism nevertheless follow all sorts of practices that are pre-civilized in nature, and further, subscribe to the potency of other religions that do have gods; for example, if Daoist rituals are being performed in their neighborhood when they are pregnant, they close their doors because it is wellknown that daoist rituals are potent and can hurt the unborn child. I mean, if I don't believe in gods, but believe in the potency of other gods (I reject), what am I?
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This is why I don't trust your self-serving anecdotal statements. You say that there are large numbers of Taiwanese atheists, but then reverse yourself when you think it serves your purposes. It sounds that many of these practices would not be counted as atheists by the World Alamanac or the Encyclopedia Brittanica or Adherents.com. Chinese folk religionists (including the worship of local deities, ancestor veneration, etc.) are categorized in their own category (380 million in Asia), as are Ethnic religionists (127 million in Asia). And as I've mentioned before, Buddhists also have their separate category.
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Layman, you are not measuring anything at all! So far I have not seen a contextualized number -- in fact, you have never expressed those numbers of yours as percentages, because you know perfectly well that if you did, your case would fall to the ground. Until we know how many atheists there were in China prior to 1949, we cannot claim that anything has happened. Your argument is akin to arguing that the US enjoys the highest rate of economic growth, because it has the largest economy. That's absurd. What we need to know is the historical trends, and you have resolutely failed to give them to us
The trends, Layman. Do you have any?
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You are right that I am not measuring anything at all. But my sources have measured, and they have provided unrefuted numbers which prove my point: the majority of atheists have been produced in atheistic communist countries that persecute religion and promote atheism. This is undeniable. You previously said this was like saying the earth was round. My point is proven. Game over. End of the show. It doesn't really matter what the percentages are.
Regadless, I did refer you to (after you offered it as a source) Adherents.com which reported that the number of atheists grew in China after the Cultural Revolution while religious practice declined. It also noted that atheism has declined and religious practice has increased since the relaxation of its oppressive measures. I've also shown that the numbers of atheists have declined dramatically since the Soviet Union fail and China relaxed its persecution.
In fact, here some more:
In 1993, there were 161 million atheists in Asia.
In 2000, there were only 121 million atheists in Asia.
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The burden of proof is on you, Layman, to provide the link between government policy and the "growth" of atheism -- which, as we have seen, is actually a fall -- in China. YOU did the asserting, it falls on you to research the relevant literature and prove that those zillions of atheists, however many there are (and we don't know), were all due to government policy, and not due to the widespread E. Asian practice of not practicing religion.
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I've carried the burden. You've been attempting to get around the undeniable by methodological inconsistencies, definintional games, and insults.
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And yes, Layman, the numbers are in doubt. I don't have this fetishistic belief in a number I find from an almanac. I want to know where it comes from.
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I have more faith in the World Almanac, Encyclopedia Brittanica, and Adherents.com than I do in you. Moreover, there numbers match common sense: a government that indoctrinates their young in school with atheism, persecutes religious belief, and restricts economic, social, and political advancement only to atheists is going to produce a lot of atheists. It also fits with what I have learned from members of the Underground Church in China and Chinese friends who used to be atheists.
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Squirming again. Your claims are as of yet unproven. Can you at least get us some figures on religious belief in pre-1949 China, so we can start thinking about how China ended up with so many theists, when Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, and Taiwan are all less religious?
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Adhenets.com didn't have the exact figures but did report a growth of atheism and attribute it to communism. You have already conceded that such was the case in the Soviet Union. And we have a clear reduction in the number of atheists in China since they started relaxing their anti-religious persecutions. The number of atheists in China completely overwhelms the number of atheists in Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, and Taiwan. Of course, you have yet to provide ANY statistics on the number of atheists in all of those provinces except for Taiwan. And, of course, being "less religious" was not what I have been talking about. I have been discussing the number of atheists. One reason I have focused on "atheism" is because it is particularly dogmatic: postively asserting the nonexistence of a god, gods, or the supernatural.
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Hmm....neat-o. So in fact, the Almanac sent people out in the field, and asked the Chinese: "Are you a philosophically committed atheist and skeptic? And if you are an agnostic, please check here...."
If you believe than, I have this bridge in Brooklyn....
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I believe them more than you. And the fact that places like the former Soviet Union and W. Germany still have large numbers of atheists demonstrates the existence of many enduring converts. Moreover, neither Adherents.com or the Encyclopedia Brittanica report that there are 1.2 billion atheists in China. No. In fact, there are many hundreds of millions of Chinese who are reported as Chinese folk religionists, Confucianists, Buddhists, and yes, even Christians. So as much as you may wish that they were all lying about being atheists, you have no evidence for it. Just wishful thinking contradicted by the evidence. Of course, there may be some overreporting, but even so the numbers show a huge disparity in the number of atheists in presently and formerly communist countries and the rest of the world.
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The fact is that the numbers at Britannica are bullshit until proven otherwise. China's own government says less than 10% of its people are atheists. And as we have seen, there are no really good numbers coming out of China. So where does Britannica get these numbers? Do you know? Does anybody?
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But of course the Chinese government doesn't appear to have reported the number of atheists. Perhaps I missed your reference to where they measure the number of atheists in their country, so please feel free to direct me to its attention. I have more faith in the Encyclopedia Brittanica and Adherents.com than I do in your self-serving and uninformed assesment of the situation. Do you have any thing else?
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My dear Layman, as Nomad would say, it is incumbent on you to prove a substantial effect from persecution. I am sure there are some people who conceive themselves to be atheists based on government indoctrination -- but frankly I doubt there are many, because I suspect most of them still practice some religion that you would regard as making them theists.
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I don't care what you suspect. The facts prove you wrong. Atheism increased in the former and present communist countries when they took over, and declined when they were overthrown or relaxed their policies, but retained large numbers of atheists nevertheless. The more exposure to freedom they get, the fewer atheists.
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And my belief that there would be substantial numbers of atheists in China is not based on "wishful thinking, but intead based on:
1) actual study under academic specialists
2) actual living in a Chinese society
3) actual research conducted in a Chinese society
4) actual 00s of books on my shelf and in boxes about Chinese society
5) actually speaking two Chinese languages
6) actual ongoing participation in research, converstation and exchange with
scholars on China
etc. etc. There is one person in this conversation that has no expertise on China. It isn't me.
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Like I said, I'll prefer the actual evidence and academics than your self-serving anecdotal statements.
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So when I say that I would expect large numbers of atheists regardless of the type of government, I say that noting that colonial Hong Kong and Macau, right-wing Leninist Taiwan, and authoritarian Singapore, all much freer than China, have produced ore atheists & irreligious than China;
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But you haven't given any numbers on atheists in Hong Kong, Macu, or Singapore. I'm not concerned with "nonreligious" here. Even so, the fact remains: formerly communist countries in FACT produced the majority of atheist and used oppressive promotion of atheism to do it while persecuting religion. The fact that you desire with all of your heart that to believe that China would have had an unspecified, but "substantial" number of atheists without communism is pure speculation. And you aren't a prophet.
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my knowledge of Chinese history, which has a whole section of the population being more or less skeptical atheists throughout history;
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Nothing but self-serving statements from a biased participant in the debates which is contradicted by actual evidence. I don't think I consider 380 million practitioners of Chinese Folk Religions to be more or less "skeptical atheists." Or the 70-80 million Underground Christians. Or the millions of Buddhists.
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my personal experience of life in a Chinese society, where I have noticed that many people do not practice religion, and consider themselves non-believers.
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Nothing but self-serving statements from a biased participant in the debates which is contradicted by actual evidence. Many people in many countries do not practice religion and consider themselves to be non-believers. Doesn't mean they are atheists. And considering your hostility towards religion, I consider your sample size to be suspect and your hostility possibly intimidating.
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And against this, you want to put up simpleminded repetition of big numbers. Oh boy. That's devastating. Numbers mean nothing, Layman, unless you can talk about ratios and rates, about trends and history.
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Against personal self-serving statements of a biased and hostile atheist and participant in the debate I will rely on the World Almanac, Adherents.com, and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Yes. And on my increasing number of conversations with members and supporters of the Underground Church in China, as well as Chinese and Taiwanese converts to Christianity now living in the United States.
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I hope you've noticed the ideological corner into which you've painted yourself. You've defined atheism so that it doesn't include agnostics. I hope you have some way of showing that none of those Chinese atheists is really what we would call an agnostic. Otherwise, you have no numbers at all.
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The Encyclopedia Britannica, the reporting service, distinguishes between agnostics and atheists. I've said this before. I guess missed it.
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But I'll be kind to you, and let you lump agnostics and atheists together, as nearly all polling organizations, humanist and atheist organizations do.
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Most do so because the number of atheists are generally statistically insignificant. But you don't have to be kind. Why stretch yourself? I've been the one complaining about lumping the agnostics and atheists in together from the beginning. And, as I said above, the World Almanac and Encyclopedia Britannica do distinguish between agnostics and atheists.
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I am still waiting for contextualized, historically-cognizant evidence on the development of atheism in China. Otherwise, Layman, yes, everyone will notice that your head has been handed to you.
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Why not just admit that you will never admit you are wrong? As all the numbers, rather than your definitional games and methodological inconsistencies, show you to be?
07-19-2001, 06:16 PM
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