I cannot say that what Gao Fangpi said about the CIA supporting the Falun Gong was true.
However, take into account that in the 70s, the Dalai Lama admitted that the CIA funded his movement against China. So, why not fund the Falun Gong? After all, the CIA has supported Islamic militants in China’s northwest province and has supported the other Tibetan separatist groups (there are four). The CIA has a long and shady history of doing things like this in countries all over the world.
Orpheum Theater – San Francisco
My wife and I saw the Falun Gong Chinese New Year show at the Orpheum and were disgusted (that’s being polite). What Gao Fangpi didn’t tell us was that the show heavily promoted Falun Gong. Nothing I read or heard over the years prepared me for the truth.
Instead, the Western mainstream media has often criticized China for not allowing the Falun Gong the religious freedoms enjoyed in the United States where freedom of religion is a fundamental right.
See ” What is the Truth about Tiananmen Square?
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga . When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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I’m wondering if I should assume that this topic is closed. Anyway, I go forward.
My experience is very limited, but I consider it significant enough to allow me to comment. I became a FGL (Falun Gong/Falun Dafa) practitioner in October of 2015, after attending a performance of Shen Yun.
Initially, I was interested in the exercise/meditation form that, FLG claims, comes out of the Buddhist “cultivation” tradition. I have been “practicing,” as performing the exercise/meditation forms is called, for six months now.
Three weeks ago, I woke up at 5:00, wide awake, and somehow had the feeling to surf the web and look up FLG stuff. I was not looking for anything in particular.
Well, eventually, to my HUGE surprise, I discovered what I had been TOLD does not occur: involvement in politics. But, NOT ONLY “involvement,” but a crystal clear campaign to overturn The People’s Republic of China’s leadership, the Communist Party of China.
YIKES!! I’m African-American. In our community, there is a saying: “My arms too short to box with God!!” Well, see, it’s like this: My arms to short to box with MAO!!
Over the past three weeks, I’ve done a WHOLE LOT of research, and discovered the mind-bogglingly [if that’s a word] HEAVY, organized, and fairly sophisticated and INSTITUTIONALIZED efforts, by FLG-staffed entites, to overthrow the Chinese government. Epoch Times, New Tang Dynasty, and other entities are hardly “independent” voices of non-political SPIRITUAL, religions, or “cultivation” practitioners.
Even the name, “New Tang Dynasty,” gives a VERY STRONG HINT about the INTENTIONS of Mr. Li Hongzhi and his FLG army of practitioners. Ya’ll probably know that the Tang Dynasty is considered the high point of Chinese civilization–its Golden Age.
And what is absolutely fascinating is that the Tang Dynasty was started by…GUESS WHO? It was started by the LI [You mean, as in LI HONGGZHI???]. Well, I don’t mean Li Hongzhi himself, of course. But it’s quite interesting that he might be a member of the Li family [first names are last names, right, in China?]
That being said, though, it is only fair to say that, as is rightly stated by Li Hongzhi and FLG practitioners, Falun Gong is NOT an organization. It doesn’t have to be, for the following reasons.
The aims and goals of Li Hongzhi, and his army of FLG practitioners, are carried out by independent entities that are created, and staffed, by those FLG practitioners that want to do so, especially those that [unlike myself (arms too short!!) ] are trying to topple the CPC (Communist Party of China)
When I began my practice, no one asked me to join anything. In fact, I was directly told that there was nothing to join; nothing to pay. The facility that was rented, where we performed our practice, was rented by wealthy FLG practitioners, or so I was told. And I have not paid a dime, nor have I signed any membership forms, nor pledge any allegiance to Teacher Lie Hongzhi, as he is called.
So, understand that there are FLG practitioners that know nothing of Li Hongzhi and his army’s clear goals of attempting to destroy the CPC. I would venture to guess that the vast majority of Dafa practitioners have no idea of the fight [WAR!!] between the CPC and Li Hongzhi and his army of FLG practitioners–of which I am not a member (again: arms too short).
I can also state, with fairly good certainty, that most FLG practitioners are not aware of Li Hongzhi’s RACIAL VIEWS. And THAT’S what caused me to STOP attending the group practice which is held on Sundays. My wife and I no practice at home, for two reasons:
1. The racial views of Li Hongzhi
2. Arms too short to box with Mao
The LAST thing I need is for CPC agents [Oh, they’re HERE!!!], in the U.S., to be watching ME, when all that I want to do is exercises and meditate–that’s IT. Briefly on race:
At a number of talks that Li Hongzhi gave in various cities around the world, including this one
He stated that there are different gods that made different races; that mixed-race people HAVE no god, and are “degenerate”; that mixed-race people have no heaven to go to–they’re just shit out of luck. I was quite surprised.
Now, I must say one more thing. I almost don’t feel sorry for people that go into something BLINDLY, without doing research–even accidental research. This is planet earth. Ya gotta keep yo eyes opened. You have to have some GUTS. Ya can’t allow someone’s charisma to enchant you into fighting the CPC, or virtually worshiping Li Hongzhi (or whoever), or not discerning whether the doctrines you read are true or false.
I’m a ’60s person, so I guess I have a lot of experience (Cults were our SPECIALTY, in the 1960s).
So, I do not see FLG as a cult, no. What I SEE is people that WANT TO BE CULTISTS, for some reason–something inside of them, I guess.
So, though I have discontinued my association with FLG practitioners, I still perform the exercise and meditation, and I still recommend them to people, while at the SAME time explaining my beef with Li Hongzhi and his army of FLG practitioners.
I tell you, the exercise and meditation are BOSS!! (That means GOOD). Seriously. I had performed Yoga since 1971. But after 2 months of FLG practice, I stopped doing Yoga and I only do FLG practice, because it is simply superior in the strengthen and simply good feeling that it gives me.
So, pick the roses, and leave the thorns [is that possible? Well, you know what I mean].
People who want to be cultists that belong to and/or organizated FLG are cultists and therefore FLG is a cult. If it looks like a rose and smells like a rose, it must be a rose.
No. The cult is IN THE PERSON. As I said, I’m 67 now. I been around, and I PARTICIPATED in 1960s and 1970s activities. And I have witnessed–time and time again–that people that join cults, are ALREADY cultists, and it comes from INSIDE, sometimes due to lack of love in their families; sometimes due to other reasons.
But, you are, of course, entitled to your belief. As far as I’m concerned, the Republican Party of the United States is a cult (and so is the Democratic Party), filled to the BRIM with cultists.
I see two categories of cults in both political parties. One worships power, money, and greed. The other one follows the Biblical definition of a false prophet who thinks he/she is a god. Maybe there’s a third cult, the crossover cult, that worships both.
I don’t think Benjamin has been brainwashed, if you look at the CCP and its history, they were unsuccessful in completely destroying all the religions during China’s Cultural Revolution despite all the ancient 1000 year-old temples and monastaries they’ve burnt down, so what they did was make all the religion’s doctrines submissive to the CCP, placing the Party above the Lord of Christianity, above the Supreme Buddha of Buddhism and so on….
If you look at China today you won’t find a single Church, Buddhist Temple that hasn’t been sanctioned by the CCP nor pays it, and if there is one, its burnt down just as quickly and with all the worshippers in it arrested and jailed.
Thats China for you today.
Can you prove “all” of your alleged accusations? Do you understand why the CCP is making sure religions in China are monitored closely and have no political power?
First, the war on religions in China was Mao’s war and most of the damage was caused by mobs of young Chinese people called the Red Guard. The military pretty much stayed out of the Cultural Revolution until after Mao died and then they put a stop to it. In addition, there were some high CCP members who protested what Mao was allowing to happen and they were all killed or tossed in prison for daring to speak out.
But what happened during Mao’s time was nothing new. Look at China’s history and this has happened before when the Chinese people rose up to throw out meddling foreigners and their religions. There have also been several religious rebellions in China that caused tens of millions of deaths. For instance, the Taiping Rebellion (total deaths may have been as high as 100 million) led by one Chinese Christian convert—this helps explain why the CCP watches all religions closely and makes sure they have no political power in China. There was also the Muslim Dungan uprising (1862-77: total deaths between 8 to 12 million). These are only two examples. There were more.
http://taipingrebellion.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Buddhist_Persecutions_in_China
Another example was the 1899 Boxer Rebellion, an uprising in China against foreign influence in religion, politics, and trade. In the fighting, the Boxers killed thousands of Chinese Christians and attempted to storm the foreign embassies in Beijing.
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/battleswars1900s/p/boxerreb.htm
As for the CCP limiting religious freedom and power in China, history teaches anyone who pays attention that letting religions have too much influence or power may not be such a good idea. I think the first video is evidence enough for this argument.
Next to consider is the Bible itself warning us about false profits.
In China its not about religion having political power, but having people believe in the Party only, since the CCP is mostly and inherently atheistic in nature. “Struggling against Heaven”, does that sound familiar??
As for the 3 links you posted.
1)The Taipeng rebellion occurred because the Manchurian Dynasty at the time was morally corrupt and deprived, importing opium which was ruining the spirit and will power of the people. Isn’t that usually and naturally the reaction if a ruling governance is not noble or righteous?? one of contempt and displeasure? with that said Isn’t that type of rebellion occurring in all parts of the world today??
2)The 4 Buddhist persecutions are basically the ruling dynasties taking the accumulated land and riches of monastaries because the dynasty’s at the time were either close to being financially bankrupt or just wished to horde their riches because they ‘can’ and are able to, which is the behavior of a bully or tyrant. Another reason for that persecution(and perhaps justifiably so) because the emperor feared they had too much power, but power in what sense? were the growing number of monks and nuns of those monastaries acting unruly? uncivilized? or violent?…no….they basically prayed and meditated all day which was economically a burden for the countries workers, but in no means were they interested in political power, they mainly just wanted to simplify their life so they could be at peace while they spiritually cultivated themselves, thats all…..
and 3) The boxer rebellion occurred because people in China were against foreign influence in religion, politics, and trade. Especially that of Christianity which was a foreign religion. But guess what….Taoism is considered to be ‘native’ to China, yet any Taoist temple(in China today) STILL has to go through state registration just so they can pay fees ‘to’ the state, and of course put the Party first in that temples practicing ideology. I suggest you look at any of the first Communist-revised religious books from Mainland China, which are all ideologically and philosophically submissive to the ruling Communist Party. So its not about religion influencing the politics, but politics influencing religion, at least in China.
Another interesting quote from you—->>>>”Next to consider is the Bible itself warning us about false profits.”
Are you a Christian? if so does that mean you are not only biased towards Falun Gong but to other religions that are NOT of Christian association or roots? Are you against Islam? Sikhism? or Shintoism too?
As for your article here, I find it is very short, trivial and insinuative at best. Which is just basically feeding the fires of speculation of the CIA funding Falun Gong. From last time I checked Li Hongzhi is the leader of that spiritual movement. So tell me Lloyd Lofthouse, are there any witness accounts(let alone pictures) of Li Hongzhi sitting at the table with the CIA Director himself or even a representative???
What exactly is the basis of this ‘rant’ which we are supposed to call an ‘article’ here??
Sorry, you can’t demonize the CCP without putting history in perspective and demonizing the United States and most of Europe too. What’s happening in China is nothing new to the human history of the world.
To learn how greedy and evil the West could be, you may want to read this book:
http://ilookchina.net/2012/10/23/for-all-the-tea-in-china-a-book-review/
First: The Manchu (Qing) Dynasty was not importing opium. In fact, the emperor attempted to end the opium trade and that caused England and France to invade China in the first Opium War to force the Emperor to allow the Western Imperial powers to sell opium in China—there were American mercenaries involved in that war too. After China lost the first Opium War that was started by The British and French Empires, China was forced to open what was called treaty ports where foreigners could build colonies. One of those treaty ports was Shanghai. Those mini colonies were called concessions and each invading nation had one. In Shanghai there was the American concession, the British concession, the French, etc. But that wasn’t enough for the British. But that wasn’t enough for the greedy European merchants so there was a second Opium War that led to another treaty that forced the Qing Emperor to allow more opium to be sold to the Chinese people.
During the second Opium War, American troops took part in that one but eventually, after much debate, the U.S. Congress voted to pull U.S. troops out because the majority in Congress felt the war was morally wrong becasue it was base don the opium trade. When China lost both Opium Wars, China was also forced to pay all the invading countries for the cost of their invasions. Only the U.S returned its share of the reparations and that money was used by China to build a university in Peking (Beijing).
Second: There’s truth to the fact that the emperors felt the Buddhists were gaining too much power and influence with the people so they bashed them back. But you accuse them wrongly of being tyrants or bullies as if that is exclusive to China. Even in the West, republics going back all the way to the Greeks and Romans had slaves and a long list of slave rebellions brutally suppressed. The British Empire had slaves even when they had a parliament ruling the nation. Eventually the British parliament would vote slavery out of the British Empire but in the United State of America, slavery wouldn’t end until the bloody American Civil Awar in the 1860s.
In addition, religious wars and politics have been bedfellows for thousands of years. What happened in China at any time in history against any religion or brain washing cult like the Falun Gong has happened before even in the United States. In fact, brutal racial discrimination has a long history in the United States against all people of color and in 1882, the US Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act that made it illegal for any Chinese to enter the United States. That act against Chinese immigrants would hold for almost sixty years before it was voted away by Congress. And both the Jews and the Mormons have been persecuted and killed in the United States by other groups like the KKK. In Europe, there were persecutions against the Jews for centuries and the Catholic Church waged wars against the Protestants and even eradicated other Christian religions—for instance the Cathars. An attempted invasion of England when the first Queen Elizabeth ruled failed when the King and Queen of Spain sent their Catholic armada across the English Channel to attach the British Protestant country to get rid of Protestantism. Then there are the Catholic/Christan wars against the middle eastern Muslim countries that went on for centuries.
And let’s not leave out the Inquisitions that were supported by the leaders of many of Europe’s countries against anyone suspected of not believing in the Catholic Christian God, Christ. People were tortured, executed while in Ireland the British Protestant Kinds sent their armies to fight for several centuries in an occupied Ireland against the Irish Catholics.
Third: I’m laughing at your demand that I cough up pictures of the CIA sitting at the table with the elusive, secretive and dictatorial, worshiped leader of the Falun Gong, who isn’t much different than Mao in how he lives and behaves. Instead of having the people worship Mao, he’d rather have the Chinese worship him. Are you so naive as to believe that the CIA televises that black operations and then makes them public—operations that are often illegal even by U.S. Law.
The CIA was supporting the Tibetan Dalai Lama in exile in India with money and was supplying weapons to the Tibetan resistance outsi8de China/Tibet. This is easy to prove because there was a U.S. Congressional hearing on this and even the Dalai Lama admitted it. There was also a CIA operative who came forward and said he was involved in funding and supporting Muslim Uyghur resistance in China’s northwest. Of course, the CIA denied it when this former, retired agent came out and told his story to the media. The CIA denies everything it does even when investigated by the U.S. Congress.
You may want to read this: The Uber Political Falun Gong
http://falungongpolitics.blogspot.com/2007/03/falun-gongs-cia-connection.html
Anyone who wants to demonize the CCP has plenty of fuel while ignoring what the CCP has accomplished.
The CCP also deserves credit for the good that it has done in China. The CCP is responsible for the largest reduction in poverty in the world over the last few decades. Even during Mao’s era, the quality of life improved for most Chinese regardless of the great famine and the insanity of the Cultural Revolution where almost everyone suffered including religion in China. For instance, even under Mao, lifespan improved dramatically during his twenty-eight years as China’s leader. In 1949, when he became China’s leader, the average lifespan in China was age 35. By the time Mao died, that average lifespan was in 60s. Today, it’s in the 70s.
For a better idea of what Mao and the CCP accomplished, all one has to do is look at India, the world’s largest democracy, for a comparison.
http://ilookchina.net/2014/05/13/comparing-economic-growth-china-versus-india/
I know how crooked the western or US government is as well, so reading that link is not neccessary.
But I also don’t need to demonize the CCP nor does history have to be put into perspective in order to do so as well. The CCP’s own deeds and actions during cultural revolution speaks for itself. Eliminating “class” and private ownership of land from honest and decent families, then murdering those very families….
Also yes, the CCP starved the farmers to death whom they made labor for them, and ended up being responsible for the majority of the 30 million people that died during that period. Once the cultural revolution was over that is when things started to get better with people living a longer life span(as you stated), which was pretty much ‘after’ the CCP or Mao had already fully asserted themselves. So that basically means that in order to gain power they first had to cause the deaths of more than 30 million of their own fellow Chinese. A means more costlier and morally bankrupt compared to that of the ends itself.
If you look at the CCP today, besides being infamous for both vilifying and punishing expression of personal freedom of belief, they operate like a mafia of sorts amongst themselves, where fellow but rival party members put out back alley execution orders and under-the-table assassinations hits on each other carrying on like thugs. Regardless of how you spin history, any events of the past that doesn’t justify the way they conduct themselves today. Does the US House of Congress act like that?…..no….but it would make more entertaining coverage on CNN LOL!!…and maybe they don’t act carry on as such because the US democracy today is just a mere facade and the real power is held by the Elite Corporate lobbyists which is another subject for another time I guess.
Also you wish to talk about economic growth though in China today? Sure, minimum wage over there is $1.20 to $2.90 per hour. So they basically attained that economic growth by offering abusively underpaid sweatshop labor to foreign companies, taking the minimum wage equivalent to that of a single American and dividing it between 3 to 5 Chinese people(micro-slicing crumbs are we?) making the cheapest quality products in massive bulk, and some of those very products ended up making people sick, especially kids….poisonous baby milk anyone? Lets also not forget about radioactive dry wall, toxic dog food, toxic toothpaste, toxic bean sprouts, aluminum and cardboard dumplings, glow in the dark pork, cadmium rice, and what the hell is gutter oil anyways??
The sad thing is a good portion of the money made from all that underpaid and overworked labor goes back to the State while very little of it remains for the company itself and less so for the workers themselves being that China’s manufacturing sector is virtually a state-run industry. You want to call that brining people out of poverty? I’d rather just call it lowering the poverty line below the extreme poor, aka manipulation of statistics.
In regards to the Uber Political Falun Gong link, all that really had was just more links leading to more discussion blogs and forums with even more speculative discussions on the CIA funding Falun Gong and with links leading back to the very link you provided to begin with. Nothing significant really.
Also comparing Li Hongzhi to Mao is a bit far-fetched I think, Li Hongzhi doesn’t advocate violence or tell his students to pump their fists in the air yelling ‘viva-revolution’ or to publicly shame or admonish anyone in an angry-mob style setting, Mao did.
So again……what was the basis of this article/rant/mini-journal entry…..exactly?
You claim: “The CCP’s own deeds and actions during cultural revolution speaks for itself. Eliminating “class” and private ownership of land from honest and decent families, then murdering those very families…”
FACT: The CCP is a political party (not a living, immortal creature) and has different political factions in it, that do not all agree with each other, and the party has more than 80 million members today. The CCP makes decisions mostly from the upper 130 (+ or – a few) members near the top. The majority or consensus rules.
In addition, many of the CCP members today were either children or had not born when the trials and then executions of land owners took place more than sixty-four years ago. Xi Jinping, China’s current president, is 59 years old (born in 1953) so the odds are he hadn’t been born yet when the feudal land owners lost their land and many lost their lives during the peasant held trials for crimes against humanity.
For instance, Deng Xiaoping spoke out in the 1960s, along with other high ranking party officials, against the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guard made up mostly of millions of teenagers who did not belong to the CCP punished those party members. A gang of Red Guards came to Deng Xiaoping’s house and didn’t’ find him home so they threw his son off the top of the three story building leaving him paralyzed the rest of his life. Deng Xiaping fled south with his family to live under the protection of powerful People’s Liberation Army General. When Mao died, the PLA supported Deng in arresting the gang of four, one was Mao’s wife who was in charge of the Cultural Revolution, they were tried, found guilty and sent to prison or execution. Mao’s wife killed herself. Under Deng’s leadership the CCP ended the insanity of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. To claim that all members of the CCP then or now are guilty of what happened under Mao would be the same as accusing President Obama (born in 1961) of crimes against humanity because President Truman ordered the dropping of atomic bombs on two Japanese cities in 1945.
While it is true that almost a million private land owners were executed after 1949, the CCP didn’t have much to do with the actual trials and executions. China had been a feudal society up until 1949, and the peasants who made up more than 90% of the population had been treated worse than animals by many in the upper class—studies before 1949 by Westerners support this claim. During the long revolution (1925-1949 with a break during World War II), Mao promised the peasants that there would be land reforms, and after 1949 he allowed the peasants to decide the fate of the land owners. The rural peasants held the trials and the land owners who were found guilty were executed by the peasants. Mao did nothing to intervene or stop what the rural peasants did to the people who once treated them no better than slaves. The peasants supported Mao because they trusted he would deliver the justice he promised them. I’m sure there were innocent land owners who were found guilty and executed but there’s plenty of historical evidence that many were guilty of crimes against humanity or the peasants would have never wanted to get even in the first place.
You Claim: “the CCP starved the farmers to death whom they made labor for them, and ended up being responsible for the majority of the 30 million people that died during that period.”
FACT: The alleged accusations that the CCP deliberately starved 30 million rural Chinese to death has never been proven. It’s a myth, another hoax. There is no evidence that 30 million Chinese even died. The CCP admits that about 3.5 million died of starvation during a drought in several provinces (but not all of the provinces) due to crop losses and reputable historians and scholars agree that maybe as many as 20 million died of starvation but the rest of the claims are rumors from books written by Americans who used the same evidence the CCP provided to all researchers when the CCP under Deng Xiaping’s leadership opened the books in the 1980s to even Western historians/scholars.
And the evidence found by reputable historians and scholars paints a different story than the one you claim. Provincial party officials in a few provinces where the drought took place reported bigger crops than there actually were to Beijing, and these same party members claimed everything was okay in those few provinces hit by the drought and crop losses. But Mao was hearing a different message from other party members in Beijing who told him there was starvation and suffering in those few provinces.
Mao didn’t know who to trust so he sent some of his trusted PLA troops who guarded the Forbidden City where Mao lived to find out. When they returned and Mao discovered the truth, he ended the Great Leap Forward early and the CCP asked for help from the West. The U.S. turned China down. At the time, China had been under a U.S. embargo since the Korean War in the early 1950s, but Canada and France broke the U.S. embargo and supplied wheat to China when Mao and the CCP admitted what was going on and that they needed help to end to suffering and deaths from starvation. France even acted as a middle man and bought U.S. wheat then shipped that wheat through France to China.
Then there’s the fact that for more than two thousand years imperial records show that China had annual droughts in one or more provinces and that people died of starvation every year in those provinces. China’s even known as the land of famines because of this history. But does the CCP get credit for the fact that for the first time in China’s history since 1961, there hasn’t been any deaths in China caused by drought and crop losses? The answer is no, because China’s critics make sure to keep the hoaxes alive for these alleged crimes that took place before Mao’s death.’
Then there’s the documented decision in the U.S. not to help China end the starvation and suffering of rural Chinese in 1958-59, because the U.S. leaders hoped the suffering and deaths of millions of desperate Chinese would cause an uprising and get rid of the CCP, so Chiang Kai-shek, another brutal dictator who was responsible for killing millions, could return from Taiwan to rule China and return China to the feudal state it had been before 1949.
Then you claim: “they basically attained that economic growth by offering abusively underpaid sweatshop labor to foreign companies, taking the minimum wage equivalent to that of a single American”
FACT: the rural Chinese who migrated to the cities and took those sweat shop, low wage jobs were better off than if they had stayed in the rural village where they earned much less. Even with the low pay and long hours of work, they earned more money in the factories than they would have earned if they had stayed in rural villages. What you claim was “abusive treatment” was often much better than the hard life of a farmer in a small rural village desperately working a small plot of land to grow enough food so his family wouldn’t’ starve. China only has about 10% of its land survive to grow food on because most of China is mountain’s or deserts.
Household surveys (in China) found that in 1985 average net per capita income for rural residents was – Y398, less than half the average per capita urban income, which was -Y821. The value of goods farmers produced and consumed themselves accounted for 31 percent of rural income in 1985. The largest component of income in kind was food, 58 percent of which was self-produced.
http://countrystudies.us/china/98.htm
Once again, being someone who was born in the United States where there are thousands of religions and many cults among them, it is possible to learn what the difference is between a cult and a legitimate religion because there are so many examples, and I strongly think the evidence supports the fact that Falun Gong is a cult that brainwashes its devout followers. That’s what I think from personal experience when meeting some of the members of Falun Gong who came to our house and spent most of a day with my wife and I, and I’m not about to change my mind. I was raised a Catholic and then left the Church when I was age twelve to study on my own and the Bible offers many warnings of false prophets showing in great detail how to recognize them and Falun Gong fits God’s Biblical warnings.
God clearly says, early in the Old Testament, that no one speaks for Him and only He will decide who He saves and allows into Heaven. No human has the right to promise what only God can give to those who earned it.
I am a Muslim. And I have to say that I agree 100% with Mr. Lofthouse.
Although I follow the understanding of Islam as was taught by Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835 to 1908), the founder of The Ahmadiyya Movement in Islam (now called The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community), which teaches that hot jihad has come to and end, that who attempted to exercise world public opinion against the use of war in settling disputes, OTHER interpretations of Islam (Wahabi, for instance) are DEADLY, and I DO NOT want them here in my country, the United States.
In Pakistan, if an Ahmadi Muslim is heard reciting the Kalima (the declaration of faith in Islam) by a sunni Muslim or a shia Muslim, that Ahmadi Muslim can be reported to the authorities, and be IMPRISONED for three years, because of the former dictator and President’s, General Zia-ul-Haqque, Ordinance XX.
Ahmadi Muslims are SLAUGHTERED, in Pakistan, to this day, simply because they believer that Muhammad was NOT the “last Prophet” in point of time, but that other Prophets can, and will come after him, as long as they bear his seal, i.e., are Muslims. Thus, the meaning of Khatam-un-Nabiyeen is SEAL. It can also mean “last,” but in the context of the verse of Qur’an, as is reflected in Arabic Lexicons, the word Khatam means SEAL; a stamp of approval.
In the U.S., I can walked to State and Madison, in downtown Chicago, and shout ALL DAY LONG, that “Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad is The Promised Messiah & Mahdi,” and NOBODY gives a damned. People will either stop and engage me in conversation, or dismiss me as a religious NUT. But, I won’t be arrested. I won’t be tortured. My shop won’t be burned down by Pakistani fanatic citizens. I won’t be butchered and murdered.
So, Mr. Lofthouse’s explanation of the approach of the CCP in handling religions in China, makes absolute sense to me. Religion MUST be contained, because (unfortunately) it has PROVEN, throughout the centuries, to have the potential to destroy. We can remember The Church of Rome (the Catholic Church) in history. Need I say more?
I believe in freedom of religion. And so did the Founding Fathers. But they put a CHECK on that freedom by subordinating religion, in the U.S., to the government. So, I see nothing wrong with China’s form of subordination of religion. Just my 2 cents.
i dont think benjamin is brain washed. he is just saying what he is paid to say. also, i would like to know the full financial disclosure of the flg. where it gets its funding from. if anyone knows how to, please request the full details of the flg, and the u.s govt via the freedom of information act. anyone have info, please post it here
The Freedom of Information Act may not do any good if this information has been buried under a top secret rating. Presidents have been known to hide damaging information by classifying it as top secret even if it is in no way the kind of information that would damage or cause a risk to the nation but would damage the reputation of a president or major political party.
Benjamin has obviously been brainwashed
I don’t get it why be disgusted for? Falun Gong is supposed to embody the spiritual wisdom and the sacred 5000 years of traditional Chinese Culture. A culture that was denounced, systematically destroyed and taken apart and no longer(or barely) even EXISTS in China anymore.