Post 272:
Dhu had stated in post 258 christian missionary thread:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The only question is whether the missionary enterprise factors in the Communists as part of their long range (in terms of decades if not centuries') objectives. In both the cases of China and Vietnam, the Commuinsists seem to have retarded rapid christianization, while still laying the mental groundwork for eventual christianization.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is very true. It has always been the case. The Vatican was terribly happy when Orthodox Russia and other nearby Orthodox countries went communist. (The vatican was not pleased when the Catholic countries in E Europe were swallowed up by the same as well. Tsk.) And now it's sent whole legions of missionaries out to the Ukraine and Russia and other former centres of Orthodox christianity. And believe it or not catholicism is proving quite popular in these places!
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Guardian Unlimited - Pope's visit [to Orthodox Ukraine] fails to heal old wounds, June 28, 2001:
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->This week, in his first ever visit to Ukraine as pope, John Paul has moved to try to settle the conflict before he dies. But the Moscow patriarchate has told the Vatican to get stuffed.
John Paul's central ambition has been to undo the Great Schism and ultimately unite the two faiths while at the same time celebrating and paying tribute to the Greek Catholics of western Ukraine who suffered so grievously under Stalin and became the world's biggest banned church. But the two aims are incompatible. The Orthodox still view the Greek Catholics as heretical apostates wooed or forced away by the Vatican, the Catholic Poles, and the Austro-Hungarians to assert Roman Catholicism and undermine Orthodoxy.
There is plenty historical accuracy in that view. But the legions of young, American-educated theologians who are an integral element of the <i>current Vatican roadshow</i> exude contempt for the arcane, old-fashioned conspiracy theories of the Orthodox. In Lviv on Wednesday, a million Catholics remembered the outstanding Uniate leader of the 20th century, Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky. But in Moscow they quote him as having declared: "Ukrainians are merely the instrument of the divine scheme to wrest the Christian east from the clutches of heresy [Orthodoxy] and house it in the bosom of the [Catholic] Apostolic See and the European Community."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> [I.e. the Uniate Sheptytsky admits Catholics in the East are a wedge to open Eastern Orthodoxy up for Catholicism. And it seems Ukraine's separation from Russia, to join with Europe instead, is expected to be a step towards that.]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> ( http://freetruth.50webs.org/C3.htm#CatholicVsOrthodox )
Why would anyone trade Greek orthodoxy - by all accounts infinitely to be preferred to other varieties - for the terrible and false nightmare of catholicism?
There's a vacuum that's left after communism has destroyed the old ways of life in a most calculated manner. Several generations of brainwashing and enforced communistic-atheism creates a people who have forgotten all about themselves. When free of communism, they look for some kind of culture. So even an alien culture and unnatural religion that is selling itself with a massive PR campaign (like christianity) finds immediate followers.
The old ways of life were developed over millennia, and when one is forcibly ripped from it, as happens when communism gets its way, going back is very hard. The old ways are not well-documented, they are passed down by the knowledgeable older generations who carry all the subtle aspects: the ancient traditions, knowledge and understanding. This root is exactly what communism strikes at.
In China, this is what has happened: they killed significant people of the older generation, brainwashed the younger. Now the young have grown up confused and have raised ignorant kids who make easy targets for the missionising terrorists. It is easy to see why the Vatican has struck a deal with China and traded in their present interests in Taiwan to work with the big fish instead. ( http://www.newamericancentury.org/taiwan-20050407.htm )
Communists tried to do wipe out religious-culture in Cambodia too. I know a Cambodian girl who has become christian, because she doesn't know Buddhism; her parents were passive Buddhists who don't know anything about their religion. And there was a news report (2005 or 2006) about how the members of the Khmer Rouge are 'finding jeebus' after their communist fever passed. Predictable and appropriate.
Cambodia's case is what Nepal could well be looking at.
Communists are working at the same in India too. While using textbooks and the media to create a false Hinduism distasteful to the next generation, the kids don't have any culture they respect. Christoislamism and communism, after creating the vacuum, plan to fill it with themselves. But even that is not working too well.
In North Korea, the brainwashing has gone so far, the people can't be de-programmed unless they are rescued at childhood. The documentaries I've seen on this country are mentally devastating. The people are barely alive and can't think for themselves, and those that can don't last or remain sane for long.
Bad analogy, but here goes: communism is like the forest-fire (often purposefully started by a christian smoker) that burns down all of an ancient, healthy, happy forest. Christianity is the weed that springs up (is planted) in the fertile land once the fires have burnt out.
Barring countries or regions converted by force in the colonial era, isn't it funny that christianity doesn't catch on at all in Asia unless it is preceeded by the forest-fire of communism to clear the land of all the old ways first? Asia seems to only be susceptible to communism, but immune to christianity otherwise.
(So too would Europe and N and S America have been, but their people were forcibly converted/genocided by christianity at a time before communism existed.)
Dhu had stated in post 258 christian missionary thread:<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The only question is whether the missionary enterprise factors in the Communists as part of their long range (in terms of decades if not centuries') objectives. In both the cases of China and Vietnam, the Commuinsists seem to have retarded rapid christianization, while still laying the mental groundwork for eventual christianization.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->This is very true. It has always been the case. The Vatican was terribly happy when Orthodox Russia and other nearby Orthodox countries went communist. (The vatican was not pleased when the Catholic countries in E Europe were swallowed up by the same as well. Tsk.) And now it's sent whole legions of missionaries out to the Ukraine and Russia and other former centres of Orthodox christianity. And believe it or not catholicism is proving quite popular in these places!
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Guardian Unlimited - Pope's visit [to Orthodox Ukraine] fails to heal old wounds, June 28, 2001:
<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->This week, in his first ever visit to Ukraine as pope, John Paul has moved to try to settle the conflict before he dies. But the Moscow patriarchate has told the Vatican to get stuffed.
John Paul's central ambition has been to undo the Great Schism and ultimately unite the two faiths while at the same time celebrating and paying tribute to the Greek Catholics of western Ukraine who suffered so grievously under Stalin and became the world's biggest banned church. But the two aims are incompatible. The Orthodox still view the Greek Catholics as heretical apostates wooed or forced away by the Vatican, the Catholic Poles, and the Austro-Hungarians to assert Roman Catholicism and undermine Orthodoxy.
There is plenty historical accuracy in that view. But the legions of young, American-educated theologians who are an integral element of the <i>current Vatican roadshow</i> exude contempt for the arcane, old-fashioned conspiracy theories of the Orthodox. In Lviv on Wednesday, a million Catholics remembered the outstanding Uniate leader of the 20th century, Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky. But in Moscow they quote him as having declared: "Ukrainians are merely the instrument of the divine scheme to wrest the Christian east from the clutches of heresy [Orthodoxy] and house it in the bosom of the [Catholic] Apostolic See and the European Community."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--> [I.e. the Uniate Sheptytsky admits Catholics in the East are a wedge to open Eastern Orthodoxy up for Catholicism. And it seems Ukraine's separation from Russia, to join with Europe instead, is expected to be a step towards that.]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd--> ( http://freetruth.50webs.org/C3.htm#CatholicVsOrthodox )
Why would anyone trade Greek orthodoxy - by all accounts infinitely to be preferred to other varieties - for the terrible and false nightmare of catholicism?
There's a vacuum that's left after communism has destroyed the old ways of life in a most calculated manner. Several generations of brainwashing and enforced communistic-atheism creates a people who have forgotten all about themselves. When free of communism, they look for some kind of culture. So even an alien culture and unnatural religion that is selling itself with a massive PR campaign (like christianity) finds immediate followers.
The old ways of life were developed over millennia, and when one is forcibly ripped from it, as happens when communism gets its way, going back is very hard. The old ways are not well-documented, they are passed down by the knowledgeable older generations who carry all the subtle aspects: the ancient traditions, knowledge and understanding. This root is exactly what communism strikes at.
In China, this is what has happened: they killed significant people of the older generation, brainwashed the younger. Now the young have grown up confused and have raised ignorant kids who make easy targets for the missionising terrorists. It is easy to see why the Vatican has struck a deal with China and traded in their present interests in Taiwan to work with the big fish instead. ( http://www.newamericancentury.org/taiwan-20050407.htm )
Communists tried to do wipe out religious-culture in Cambodia too. I know a Cambodian girl who has become christian, because she doesn't know Buddhism; her parents were passive Buddhists who don't know anything about their religion. And there was a news report (2005 or 2006) about how the members of the Khmer Rouge are 'finding jeebus' after their communist fever passed. Predictable and appropriate.
Cambodia's case is what Nepal could well be looking at.
Communists are working at the same in India too. While using textbooks and the media to create a false Hinduism distasteful to the next generation, the kids don't have any culture they respect. Christoislamism and communism, after creating the vacuum, plan to fill it with themselves. But even that is not working too well.
In North Korea, the brainwashing has gone so far, the people can't be de-programmed unless they are rescued at childhood. The documentaries I've seen on this country are mentally devastating. The people are barely alive and can't think for themselves, and those that can don't last or remain sane for long.
Bad analogy, but here goes: communism is like the forest-fire (often purposefully started by a christian smoker) that burns down all of an ancient, healthy, happy forest. Christianity is the weed that springs up (is planted) in the fertile land once the fires have burnt out.
Barring countries or regions converted by force in the colonial era, isn't it funny that christianity doesn't catch on at all in Asia unless it is preceeded by the forest-fire of communism to clear the land of all the old ways first? Asia seems to only be susceptible to communism, but immune to christianity otherwise.
(So too would Europe and N and S America have been, but their people were forcibly converted/genocided by christianity at a time before communism existed.)