Storing the Quran on your phone makes you a terror suspect in China Authorities in the Chinese province of Xinjiang have conducted more than 11 million searches of residents' devices, to check for the presence of 50,000 items considered indicators of dissent or terror. Among them is the Quran – the central text of Islam. The list of material used by Xinjiang police was leaked to media outlet …
The UK wants precisely the same capability to evaluate all of the files on all citizen's phones.
To prevent kiddy porn of course, and only a paedo would object to that. Besides, if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear...
People assume the Online Safety Bill is about protecting children, but it is as much about "terrorism", a nebulous term at best. It can be used as required by whoever is in power...
The Chinese think that anything Muslim is indicative of terrorism... I imagine you wouldn't have to go too far to find some UK politicians with similar views.
No you dont understand chinese history and the mindset of an authoritarian government.
In the 1830s they had a civil war where over 30 million people died because someone called themselves Jesus Brother. Thats why the Falung Gong and other Abrahamic religions are treated with suspicion.
All religions are at their heart political movements and guess what political parties are also banned in China. All the worlds major religions were started, funded and exist today because of rich powerful rulers.
Europe during the middle ages was also the same, each state or kingdom also only allowed a single religion, where the king or queen was head of the church and state, eg Church of England, Vatican City, Lutheran church in Germany, Czar in Russian Empire, Caesar in Roman Empire, Jewish kings in ancient Israel, Pharoah in ancient Egypt etc. Only simpletons think religions are about beliefs, thats for the morons at the bottom.
When you are a dictatorship you understand or see these things, that religions are your opponents.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Xiuquan
> Hong Xiuquan (1 January 1814[2] – 1 June 1864), born Hong Huoxiu and with the courtesy name Renkun, was a Chinese revolutionary and religious leader who led the Taiping Rebellion against the Qing dynasty. He established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom over large portions of southern China, with himself as its "Heavenly King".
Hollywood has nothing on this story...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion
> The conflict resulted in approximately 20 million deaths.[citation needed] The established Qing government won decisively, although at a great price to its fiscal and political structure.
...
Europe during the middle ages was also the same, each state or kingdom also only allowed a single religion, where the king or queen was head of the church and state, eg Church of England, Vatican City, Lutheran church in Germany, Czar in Russian Empire, Caesar in Roman Empire, Jewish kings in ancient Israel, Pharoah in ancient Egypt etc.
That's a very... elastic definition of "middle ages". And "Europe", for that matter.
But your point is - not really true. Not as a general case, anyway. The Roman empire actively fostered a plurality of religions - their objection to Christianity was that it flatly refused to coexist amicably with the others. Lutherans in Germany preached religious tolerance (in their own self interest, of course) and would often worship alongside Catholics, sometimes in the same church even. The Almohads in Spain, the Ottomans in Asia Minor and the Balkans, the Shahs in Persia - all had no objections to Jews and Christians openly practising their religions, so long as they paid their taxes. The Church of England itself is carefully designed to appeal to people with as wide a variety of beliefs as possible, from almost-Catholic to almost-Puritan, almost-atheist and downright agnostic. And Jews have never stopped living (as an intermittently-persecuted minority) in all those countries. (Well, occasionally some unusually strong persecution would drive them out of a country for a while, as happened in England in 1290 or Spain in 1492, but the norm was that they were tolerated as long as they kept a low profile and made themselves useful.)
In the modern case of Falun Gong - I've seen some of their propaganda, and frankly I sympathise with the Chinese government - I'd want to suppress it too. Talk about toxic.
Islam, of course, covers an enormously wide range of practices. The implication of this story is that all Muslims are being stigmatised, there's insufficient care to differentiate between the peaceful and the... less-peaceful. On the other hand, that could just be spin by anti-Chinese propagandists, of whom there are many. I note that although the headline says
Storing the Quran on your phone makes you a terror suspect in China, the text says that only 1400 (out of 1.2 million) phones were identified as holding extremist content. Since almost half of the population of Xinjiang is Muslim, I find it hard to believe that only 0.1% of phones have the Quran on them. So the alternative is that the headline is - oversimplifying. Possibly bordering on hysterical. What a surprise.
My post was trying to show that the more authoritarian the government the less freedoms they gave to religions.
Sure England allowed minor religions with small numbers but thats a big difference to allowing a major religion like the Catholic church to have a large number of churches throughout the country. The czars of Russia were also the same, they would never allow the Church of England to have a thousands churches with Sunday servce in Russia, simply because they knew the COE was an instrument of their enemy for lack of a better word. When the communists came into power, they banned the orthodox church because the church was very much a tool of the Czar. The Czar was a messiah in their teachings and even today the Czar and his family are saints.
The Roman Empire includes a perfect example that the leaders understood the problem of opposition and religion. After the Jewish rebellions in 70AD and 130s they destroyed the temple and basically banned Jews from Jerusalem for hundreds of years. For them the wish for independence and religion were one and the same, and given the religion brainwashed the jewish people to believe the messiah was present and they were willing to fight its hardly a shock they did what they did.
Another example is that of the Aztecs, where they used religion as a weapon to terrorize their subjects, it doesnt get much worse than claiming the gods want your heart ripped out and given to them on a temple by the thousands.
The main point i was making is that religions are simply tools of their leaders, and most of the time the leaders of a religion is a political leader. Just look at the examples i gave politics being at the heart of Judaism, Islam and Christian beliefs where the believers are all waiting for someone from a certain family to come back and rule them. Interestingly none of these religions require their leaders to give away all their money and ban slavery, then again why would a king who owns the religion want a requirement that he should give away all his riches and have no slaves ?
"All religions are at their heart political movements" . I might refine that a little and suggest that the religious organisation are an alternate power structure, one that could compete with the "powers that be". The organisation itself could be silent - that it exists at all is seen as dangerous enough.
Not the religion per se. But that can be just details when a agent of the thought police is beating you with a large stick.
All the governments fear Islam because Islam teaches that nationalism and other fake religions are alienation. But governments of the world control people with those alienations.
There is no difference between the USA, France, China or an Arabic kingdom: to exist they need to gather people around their lies (my this, my that, our this, our that). At the end of day, they all have the same speech and when needed they all rally to protect their common falsehood.
China fears the Muslims it oppresses the same way India does, the same way Russia does, the same way France provides weapons to Al Sissi to kill Muslims in Egypt, the same way EU supports the dictatorship in Mali, the same way the USA to maintain their grip, fight muslims around the world, the same way European countries have been fearing Islam for centuries.
It is no coincidence that the Arab spring resulted in the return to the previous situation or worse. That's because all the powers that got involved like the western powers, Turkey, the Arabian kingdoms and dictators, were all acting to counter the uprising. At the end of the day, all those powers will help each other because they are all based on idolatry.
No they fear Islam because islam like all religions are political movements.
We only have Islam today because the empires of Mohammad and his descendants spread and forced Islam around their part of thew orld, just like the Christians forced Christianity on the world they conquered. its always been that way - thats a fact of life. These empires and leaders only allowed religion because it was useful for them not because it was true or right, but because they controlled it.
You speak nonsense because you don't weight what you say. Of course, Islam is political. Do you at least understand what you are writing? Everything is religion even the atheist nonsense.
That's exactly what I write above but you are too fanatic to even understand that you are just a worshipper.
Political movements are about telling people what and how to live. WHen they have power they write laws etc and they enforce those laws in different ways with different penalties.
You dont appreciate that religion is a servant of the political movement. ALL the worlds great religions as i mention exist and are today alive because of history as i mentioned. Christianity only is alive today because the Roman Empire chose it to be useful, just like Islam.
We only have the Jewish scriptures because the Jewish king and high priests could afford to copy them. Poor jewish people could barely feed themselves, they didnt have money to goto school and they certainly couldnt afford to make copies of one or an entire book. Writing material like vellum or papyrus cost a day or weeks wages. Killing a goat and then processing the skin to remove the flesh costs a lot of time and effort. A poor person who wanted to start a religion simply didnt have the money to write their thoughts down and make hundreds or thousands of copies.
Only the state could do that and thats why i said all religions exist because of kings and rich people.
Thats why you find laws in the bible and quaran that say what they say. Please go make a list of the occupations of the authors of the OT and Koran. Mohammad was an emperor, Moses was a military dictator of ancient Israel. So was King David, King Solomon and more.
Those types of people shared the religion with us not for charity but because they wanted to legitmise their position. Even today the biggest schism in Israel between the Shia and Sunni is about who are the legitimate leaders of Islam, and the Jewish people are praying for the Messiah a descendant of King David to rule them. Now tell me thats not a politcal movement - of course it is.
Dont vote me, down this is a fact.
Look at America, the Republican party and christianity are basically the same. One is the political party and the other tells people every sunday that the Republican party are doing gods will and the other side are godless and going to hell.
When you tell people what they can eat, who they can marry, thats power and the Chinese government see this as a problem they dont like and makes them nervous, because thats the kind of power they also want and try and enforce but religions get their power from telling people stories froma holy book.
Please don’t conflate the fundamentalist version of Christianity peddled by extremist conservatives in the US with the various and many flavours of Christianity in the rest of the world. The conservatives use a strict interpretation of Christianity as a tool to subjugate anyone who isn’t white and male, starting with women, anyone not white and then LGBT etc. Then they get power, go gerrymandering, make massively restrictive laws (or lax in the case of guns) as everyone can see if you read the newspapers.
But then that’s also the case in Iran, Israel and elsewhere. It’s all about those in power misusing religion for their own ends.
> The conservatives use a strict interpretation of Christianity as a tool to subjugate anyone who isn’t white and male, starting with women, anyone not white and then LGBT etc
Firstly let me say i dont agree or believe in any religion, but those extremists are only repeating things that are mentioned in the bible.
The bible does say homosexuals should be killed and its not a maybe its a fact, there a are plenty of scriptures that say that.
The bible also says in many places that men are superior to women, thats a fact.
The Apostle Paul says that women shouldnt talk in church thats a fact, so if anything modern extremist American christians are not doing christianity properly they are soft.
> Please don’t conflate the fundamentalist version of Christianity peddled by extremist conservatives in the US with the various and many flavours of Christianity in the rest of the world
You might want to do a little more reasearch about the christian kindness to gays in Africa or even in Russia today, where they kill and torture them by the thousands.
Wnat more examples ?
Want to talk about what Jesus and the bible actually says and what Christians did in his name for 2000 years ?
CowHorseFrog: The bible does say homosexuals should be killed and its not a maybe its a fact, there a are plenty of scriptures that say that.
Everything the Bible claims Jesus Christ said about homosexuals*:
"
"
See, e.g., https://lieu.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/rep-ted-lieu-recites-what-jesus-said-about-homosexuality-house-floor
The book of Leviticus does say that 'Man should not lie with man as he lies with a woman', but it also bans the consumption of seafood, wearing of red dresses and the mingling of wool and linen thread. I do not recall anything in the New Testament which actually requires the killing of homosexuals, indeed Jesus was the one who told a gathering "let he who is without sin cast the first stone".
But we should remember that the Bible was not written down by the participants, there are no contemporaneous accounts, and even the 'Dead Sea Scrolls' are interpreted from the Aramaic and other languages, so actually understanding what was meant can be difficult.
*Yes, I am, and yes, I have been personally told that I am 'an abomination before God' by a rather angry person as I was on my way to London Pride one year. I have also been spat on, punched kicked and beaten up, and of course called 'Faggot' and other less polite terms of abuse
> because Islam teaches that nationalism and other fake religions are alienation
Ah yes, the other fake religions.
It's remarkable that everyone who thinks this way is so lucky to have been born at the right time and place (in the last circa 200,000 years), to the right parents, that they grew up indoctrinated into the *true* religion - while everyone else has the misfortune of being born into one of innumerable fake religions, 'idolatry' or atheism nonsense.
It's really quite an astonishing stroke of luck, don't you think?
I think I might struggle to believe that. Of the situations that spring to mind, we have a war in Ukraine (not MvC); various long-running Middle Eastern activities, notably in Syria (and e.g. parts of Iraq or Pakistan) being mostly MvM; North Korea, Myanmar, and other unpleasant repressive states who tend to apply abuses to any sort of opposition, rather than be religiously selective about it. I suppose the various Jihadist movements in Africa, given their wide dispersal, might supply a fair proportion of abuses, but generally those seem - at least to me - to be aimed at anyone who isn't in agreement with the Jihadists, rather than aimed at the specifically Christian; although I can see that it would be harder for a non-muslim (of whatever - or none - religious stripe) to avoid their attention.
"Of the situations that spring to mind"
The situations that are reported in the media you follow isn't what is actually happening. Very little of what is happening in Africa is being reported, because, 'Africa'. No one cares if they kill each other...
USA
Thats American christians and their actions killing millions because they dont get free healthcare and tens of thousands getting killed bcause of their selfish refusal to support gun law change.
Want another example ?
Go back to the American civil war, who brainwashed the poor white men of the south to fight so the rich land owners could keep their slaves ? Only the power of religion could make that happen.
"Thats American christians and their actions killing millions because they dont get free healthcare"
There is no such thing as free health care. Someone is paying for it. Or, do you think doctors work for nothing, nobody charges hospitals for utilities or supplies, or drug companies give away everything they make? The government's solution to insert themselves in the middle will cost us more for worse medical care. Besides, if the US went socialized medicine, where would the Brits go for treatment when NHS tells you that they can't see you for 18 months?
"and tens of thousands getting killed bcause of their selfish refusal to support gun law change."
Another fallacy. The US is the 4th most dangerous country in the world, until you remove the statistics for Los Angeles, Baltimore, New Orleans, Chicago and New York City. When the statistics for these 5 cities are removed, the US becomes the 4th SAFEST nation in the world. All 5 cities are run by leftist Democrats, and have stricter gun laws than England. Criminals who want to kill, will kill.
And hey, want to blame someone for the 2nd Amendment? Blame the British. That Amendment was put in due to British attempts to confiscate colonial weapons.
"Go back to the American civil war, who brainwashed the poor white men of the south to fight so the rich land owners could keep their slaves ? Only the power of religion could make that happen."
You really are full of it here. The American Civil War had at its basis a disagreement over state's rights vs federal rights, and had nothing at all to do with religion. Just because two Christians have a fight, does not mean it's a religious disagreement. What you say is like calling the Irish fight for independence against England is a religious war because the Irish tend to be Roman Catholic while the British are primarily Protestants, when it's really the Irish want to be independent of England.
Disclaimer - I only have a general idea on what goes on between Ireland and England, and do not pretend to know what the real deal is there. If anyone other than CHF (who has proven himself to know little) wishes to elaborate I am always willing to learn.
"All 5 cities are run by leftist Democrats, and have stricter gun laws than England." There's that idiotic, magical force-field argument again. It makes no difference what laws any one jurisdiction in the US has with regard to guns, when freedom of movement exists alongside lax gun control elsewhere. Every location effectively has the same legislation as the most stupid one.
"Criminals who want to kill, will kill." Wrong. When guns are controlled in every sane nation on the planet, murder rates fall. If guns weren't available then the alternatives are not as conveniently lethal as guns. If they were then we'd arm the police and military with knives etc. Women in the US are five times more likely to die from domestic abuse in a house with a gun present than not. The reason is obvious. In a heated argument a gun allows you to kill easily, efficently and with little means of escape for the victim. That's precisely why they exist. Don't be stupid and argue that it isn't. It's why we don't arm the military with spoons. You can kill with a spoon but the very purpose of a gun is to allow killing swiftly and easily, negating the ability of a target to quickly get out of range.
"The US is the 4th most dangerous country in the world, until you remove the statistics for Los Angeles, Baltimore, New Orleans, Chicago and New York City. When the statistics for these 5 cities are removed, the US becomes the 4th SAFEST nation in the world. " Garbage. I live in a Republican led, very conservative state. Last year, the total number of murders in my state was 3/4 of that of the UK but the population is a tenth that of the UK. And that's just one state.
"There is no such thing as free health care. Someone is paying for it. Or, do you think doctors work for nothing, nobody charges hospitals for utilities or supplies, or drug companies give away everything they make? The government's solution to insert themselves in the middle will cost us more for worse medical care. Besides, if the US went socialized medicine, where would the Brits go for treatment when NHS tells you that they can't see you for 18 months?"
Also garbage. Health care in the UK is free at the point of use i.e. the opposite of the US where the first thing the ER does is to check your wallet, rather than your heart rate. "The government's solution to insert themselves in the middle will cost us more for worse medical care". At least in England everyone has the chance to get medical care. In the US too many die without adequate care and have to choose between food and a doctor visit. "more for worse medical care". We already pay more for worse medical care. The US maternal and infant mortality rates are worse than poor Eastern Europe countries and far, far worse than richer Western European countries.
"Besides, if the US went socialized medicine, where would the Brits go for treatment when NHS tells you that they can't see you for 18 months?" Brits don't go to the US. If anything they go to Poland or Turkey. Far more people from the US go to Mexico for health care (a million a year) than Brits go the US. What they do go for is specialist care. And that is the result of the comparatively large population size, not because our medicine is better. A medical specialist in a population of 333+ million people will become more proficient in rarer diseases and treatments than in one in a population a fifth the size.
Lets be fair the Bible also says the same in many many places.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery
Islam is just the arabic version of Judaism which is the Jewish version of ancient religious beliefs. They are very much the same thing...feel free to compare their laws and beleifs...the only reason for differences today is because many jewish and christians actually ignore their holy book...eg bible says you shouldnt wear cloth made of two materials, but nobody obeys that.
Rubbish. Christians _should_ follow the New Testament, but a lot of the more hardcore appear not to have come that far in the text.
My understanding is that you can use OT if the subject is not covered in NT. As an example, JC said pork was alright after all.
Just did a search for that verse. 27:63 returns this translation:
Who is it Who guides you through the darkness on land and sea? And Who sends winds as heralds of good tidings ahead of His Mercy? Is there any god associated with Allah (in this task)? Exalted be Allah above whatever they associate with Him in His Divinity!
You're not confusing surah 27:63 with Samuel 15:3 by any chance?
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Psalm%20137%3A9
> KJ21
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
ASV
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones Against the rock.
AMP
How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones Against the rock.
AMPC
Happy and blessed shall he be who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock!
Mohammad copied large portions of the Hebrew scriptures, they are both basically the same.
1 Samuel 15 is one of my fav Bible chapters. It's not the worst one out there. There's the ol' boy who sent his concubine out to be gang-raped to death, and then chopped her body into pieces and sent one piece to each of the 12 tribes of Israel. (Judges 12:25-30...) And there's the bit where a prince rapes his sister. Actually, rape seems to have been a very popular sport in Biblical Israel.
Another of my favs is where one ol' girl nails one ol' boy's head to the ground by applying a tent peg and a hammer. (Judges 5:24-30). And, yeah, there was more rape a bit later on. Rape was a very, very, VERY popular sport in the Bible.
And there's the young miss who prefers that her men (her many men...) have the, ahem, members of donkeys. An ancestor of Catherine the Great, no doubt.
There are all kinds of fun stuff in Judges and both 1 and 2 Samuel. And many other parts of the Old _and_ the New Testaments. But the Old Testament had the Really Good Stuff. Lots of it. And ol' Muhammad, umm, borrowed large sections of the Old Testament, including the Really Good Stuff, and re-wrote it a little. Often to make the Really Good Stuff be even better.
LOL!
That isn't what it says:
https://quran.com/27?startingVerse=63
Is this where you got it from? The author himself said he took verses from the bible and added "Allah" to it. A few people seem to have believed this to be the truth, too.
https://www.skeptical-science.com/religion/top-5-worst-verses-quran/
I am happy for you to share verses that you think are problematic. Some things can be interpreted in different ways, too, but I am still happy for you to share problematic verses.
But you are really just sharing misinformation, which can be dangerous to people like yourself who are happy to believe stuff they read but don't question it. I am also like that, but usually just when it comes to companies, stuff that doesn't make any difference to anyone. But when it is vilifying a group of people, then I try to find the truth.
This post has been deleted by its author
For China, if you're not Han Chinese, you're a terrorist or at worst highly suspicious. And the Quran would be highly correlated with not being Han Chinese. It doesn't even matter what it actually says, it means you are not one of the Real Chinese, you're an inferior mongrel only good for being worked to death.
The list says they are looking for specific extracts from Islamic texts, not the whole thing.
But it doesn't give the context of what those extracts are...
The UK's own anti-terror investigators take an interest in folk who obsess about the swords and smiting sections while ignoring the rest.
> For China, if you're not Han Chinese, you're a terrorist or at worst highly suspicious.
No the CCCP and the chinese people are very different things, dont blame the people because of the party.
> And the Quran would be highly correlated with not being Han Chinese. I
Says who and why ?
> It doesn't even matter what it actually says, it means you are not one of the Real Chinese, you're an inferior mongrel only good for being worked to death.
As an American who can barely point to China on a map that means a lot.
You probably havent a clue about anything about China or its history.
> As an American who can barely point to China on a map that means a lot.
> You probably havent a clue about anything about China or its history.
I worked in Baoding in Heibei, stooge. Spent some months for my job there in the early 2000s. It was the Chinese employees there who taught me about Han Chinese being the Real Chinese compared to the lesser ethnic groups.
Also good lord, the pollution.
Objection! False dichotomy and whataboutism
Never I said, nor implied that "CCCP bad" = "USA good"
The US has it's long and historied beef with HRW and with basic rights in general, but this is not what is being discussed, is it?
It is the cheap use by the cccp of religious material as a quick way to identify and get rid of "undesirables", and the fact that a portion of of the commentariat here seems to agree, because it seems that the billions of people who hold a religious belief are inherently below them
I would download the Quran onto my phone and encourage all my friends to do the same. They can't use that as way to identify suspects if there are too many false alarms. Hard for people in China to do the same unfortunately, because their government would probably censor any social media posts encouraging people to do this and crack down on the ones posting them.
Gumming up the works like this reminds me of the lament from some pathetic anti-gay activist that was reported recently in the press, where there were so many rainbow flags flying at houses he can't tell where the gays live anymore.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
