I know this is meant to be a casual conversation and this topic can get deep fast, but I’d love to hear everyone’s elevator pitch for their religion or lack thereof. peace and love<3
I know this is meant to be a casual conversation and this topic can get deep fast, but I’d love to hear everyone’s elevator pitch for their religion or lack thereof. peace and love<3
My family is from Manchuria/Beijing where the communist party has a much stronger grip so… I’m not kidding, a lot of ppl literally practice no religion whatsoever; probably got stamped out by the CCP. I think there might be a rather strong North/South divide in China: the North unfortunately has always been under stricter supervision by the party so…
Like they separate it very clearly. My grandparents’ generation have old folk religion but ppl would call them “Mi Xin” so… my dad did burn the fake money things, but only during my grandparents’ tomb cleanings or anything to do with the older generation. One of my grandparents is Buddhist, but she does make it quite clear. Otherwise most ppl I know literally have nothing remotely resembling religious in their apartments
Wow, this is so interesting. I feel like the fact that the Communist Party “stamps out” all types of religion is simply a testament to how important it is for humans to share with eachother something higher than our mortal plane. Would you be willing to share more about your experience with your grandparents, and how the culture has now switched to a vast majority practicing no religion at all?
It’s not as interesting… three of my grandparents passed away before I started memorizing things so I don’t know that much stuff first-hand. But basically… At least where my parents grew up, old folk religions (again… just referred to Mi Xin now) used to be quite common. The last generation (starting 30-40 years ago) just don’t really practice them anymore, so my generation are full of complete non-religious people; not even any folk religion. Not sure if it has anything to do with that region being the manufacturing hub of China for a while… so maybe CCP had a much stronger influence there
Beijing is kinda duh, the government is there so… I mean it is the city that destroyed nearly all of its Hu Tongs and historical housing and stuff to build highrises/business districts, how would people imagine Beijing treat its less tangible cultural norms
There was a new religion purge that started sometime 10-15 years ago… but I think it was separate. I just remember there was a Christian family friend whose church was in a bit of a trouble