” They cannot imagine certain abstract concepts any more.”
Now that’s scary.
The question I’ve been asking for awhile;
How do you evangelize when there is no concept of sin?
How do you create an idea of God in a mind that only accepts what is seen?
Communism is evil.
Islam is evil.
When they join forces (and they have) they are double evil.
This article is no good. The noted Dr. El Tassa was not talking about the Chinese people under Communist China.
He/she got the concept of Chinese being too simple because lack of concept of god, from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (in his own words, ‘intellectual KGB of China’).
Even if the intellectuals believe in something else, they won’t speak out loud to noted Dr. El Tassa (the first westerner ever got a graduate degree from such institution). They will have suspected he is a complete convert to the Marxism God and therefore, the bait.
And yes, in this case, both the interviewer and Dr. El Tassa are the simpletons themselves.
I lived in China and I have 4 opinions on this subject based on the time I spent in China and the many people I knew there:
1. Although the Chinese people are mostly not religious (despite the fact that there are some religious people, Catholics, Falang Gong, etc), one idea that seems ubiquitous in their society is the idea of “fate”. I’m not sure what they mean by it (beyond the obvious) — who or what controls or determines it — but I believe that a vast majority of the people strongly believe in it.
2. Very few, if any, Chinese people have communism as a religious belief, the way many westerners do. Those Chinese who are not in the communist party look at communism as a yoke on their lives, something they are fated to endure for as long as it lasts. Those who are in the Communist Party look at it as a vast system of perks that they are lucky enough to be the fated recipients of. Only the Schmucks in the West actually worship Communism. I don’t believe there is a single living person in China who has the faintest inclination to have a religious-like faith in Communism the way every Harvard student and faculty member has (for example).
3. There is a very, very strong sense of “being Chinese” that, to me, is the closest thing they have to a true religion. Not being Chinese myself I don’t understand this very well and don’t feel very qualified to write about it in detail but having been there it is one of my strong “take aways” from the place. Every one of them “feels” their “Chineseness” in a way that is deeper and in some way more constraining than the way Westerners feel their national or group identity. Americans, for example, despite the deep patriotism that many of us have, feel our individuality first, and even feel that individuality as an expression of our American-ness. But the Chinese “feel” Chinese in a deep and self-constraining way. In my opinion.
4. Part of their belief in their Fate and in their Chinese-ness is a strong belief in the length of history and the value of patience, on a cultural scale. They have a strong belief in “this too shall pass” meaning, currently, The Chinese Communist Party. They believe that Communism is their Fate To Endure, but that, as Chinese, with their long, long history, they will outlive (as a group) everything, including the yoke of communism.