This morning on TV there was a report from China which told of the difficulty of being a Christian there. Church services have to be held in secret because the government only permits certain Christian communities to pray. The legal ones have to vow their allegiance to Communism. I had not heard of this about China before. Of course, I knew that the Falun Gong and Falun Dafa had problems with freedom of worship, but did not realise that the Chinese Government fears organised Christianity so much.
It’s hard to imagine a less communistic country than China with its respect for capitalism. The Chinese have always been great merchants and entrepreneurs and no matter how many “cultural revolutions” take place, one can’t change the basic nature of a people. Chinese people are hard-working and ambitious. In fact, China leads the world in manufacturing now. Communism cannot possibly cater for people who have initiative and who want to improve themselves.
So I am very sad to hear that communism which is just another religion, prohibits Chinese Christians from praying in peace.
Just as I support freedom of religion I also support freedom from religion . Nobody should be forced to follow a religion in which he doesn’t believe.
Apparently, it is forbidden to leave Islam and convert to Christianity. Once a Muslim always a Muslim on pain of death. I can’t understand how a person can be forced to believe in something. Surely belief is a voluntary act which cannot be enforced. We all know that the Spanish Inquisition was a horrible event for the Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity or die.
It isn’t easy being a Christian or anything other than Muslim in the Middle East, except in Israel, of course. I have already written about the Iranian man who had to leave his country because the Islamic fundamentalists were making it difficult for him to follow the Bahai faith.
Was religion intended to bring such misery to the world as well as comfort? Wouldn’t you think that by now all of us would have learned our lesson?
We should respect one another’s right to worship in a temple, a church, a synagogue or a mosque. I’m not even expecting us to love one another because that’s not necessary. I’m only asking for acceptance. We should have the right to pray and not to pray and it should come from the heart and not the whip.
LiliGans.com 
I enjoyed your post! Its got me fired up! ButI’ve tried answering your spam protection quiz three times, with sixtyfour, sixty-four, and 64. What’s the deal?
You see a conflict between what the leaders of religion preach and what their followers do. Could it be because the leaders have, for their own gain, buried the Message of the Manifestations of God that we Love One Another.
Love is the force that brings all the other virtues into play. I cannot accept a man for whom I can find no love. The rules for the temple don’t nourish the needs of the worshippers.
Was religion intended to bring peace to the world? Or just to the individual? Through history the “organization men” have labored to dress people up, against their will if necessary, in the outer trappings of religion, so we can at least all LOOK LIKE we are the same in side. Of course we aren’t. But from the beginning (remember the fig leaves?)to today, the organization men and the Baha’i organization men, too, are laboring to enslave men in the outward semblance of reliigion. It’s insanity, since true religion starts in the heart of man.That is the only way it can enter.
For example, the Kitab-i-Aqdas: Daily Obligatory Prayers, washing of hands and face, marriage laws, burial procedures, and more culturaly alien playacting thrust upon people who just thought they were joining a religion of love and peace. He warns people constantly of the dangers of insincerity, which pulls the roots of faith up out of the heart.
‘Abdu’l-Baha in The Secret of Divine Civilization says that “war is the cornerstone of peace.” Explain that to the peacemongers; they do not want to hear it. Ask them to describe peace. They cannot, because it is the result of a big fist breaking a little one, and that is not what Maria Montessori and Mr.Rodgers and John Lennon taught (I love all three, actually.) That is what makes peace.
But religions have lulled the people into believing some miracle will suddenly provide world peace. Fifty Quakers and two Baha’is and seven Islamic Extremists marching in the town square will not bring peace! No, it will be hell that brings us peace.
But again, the people follow their leaders and refuse to see the truth, when the Manifestations of God always worked to jump-start humanity from within, from the spirit outward.
Baha’u’llah states a hundred times to the world’s leaders that THEIR disobedience to His principle of spiritual oneness will result in the ruin of their nations. Nobody believes it. While the religious and political leaders maneuver for final supremacy the people are still marching for peace or waging sidewalk wars, playing nation, while their personal lives and families suffer for lack of just an ordinary man and woman at peace with themselves. That’s all an individual is made to do.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment.
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