[HN Gopher] Japan may seek to dissolve Moonies church in wake of...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Japan may seek to dissolve Moonies church in wake of Shinzo Abe
       killing
        
       Author : anigbrowl
       Score  : 20 points
       Date   : 2023-09-04 18:29 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | hunglee2 wrote:
       | big move if they do - Christian cults have been a powerful force
       | in East Asian societies since WWII, having been seeded as left
       | behind anti-communist force by the CIA. Moonies in Korea, Falun
       | Gong in China, Aum Shinrikyo in Japan. They take millions in
       | donations and smartly reinvest in media and lobbying, including
       | overseas. Doubt Japan can do it, suspect this story will just
       | quietly go away
        
         | graemep wrote:
         | AFAIK Aum Shikrikyo anf Fulsn Gong are a Buddhidt cults,.
        
           | FooBarBizBazz wrote:
           | Yeah, Aum borrowed a tiny ( _tiny_ ) bit from Revelations,
           | but it was overwhelmingly Buddhist rather than Christian.
           | Their killing was initially justified through a corruption of
           | the concept of phowa. "You will become enlightened through
           | death."
        
         | selfhoster11 wrote:
         | Falun Gong and Aum Shinrikyo are not compatible with
         | Christianity.
        
           | 1-6 wrote:
           | You think Moonies are?
        
           | serf wrote:
           | that can be said about a lot of claimed-Christian sects
           | around the world.
        
         | anigbrowl wrote:
         | Falun Gong is staunchly anti-communist but I wouldn't call it a
         | Christian cult. I got quite interested in them ~20 years ago
         | and obtained their books to see what they were about. From what
         | I recall it was almost all watered-down Tai Chi mixed in with
         | constant emphasis on the founder's supremacy. Whereas Tai Chi
         | regards the navel/core as the center of the body from which all
         | bodily processes and martial art energy originates, and which
         | can be trained through exercise, Falun Gong asserts that a
         | symbiotic being called a 'Falun' is inserted in disciples by Li
         | Hongzhi or his delegates, and practitioners are then taught
         | exercises to 'maintain' it. Tai Chi practitioners I've met
         | regard this as a perverse grift. Their literature had a lot of
         | sci-elements reminiscent of scientology; perhaps the founder
         | recognized a winning formula and adapted it to the Chinese
         | market. I think he fled China and lives in NYC now.
        
           | o1y32 wrote:
           | Not really NYC but close:
           | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Springs
           | 
           | The Wikipedia page on Falun Gong is an interesting read.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-09-04 23:01 UTC)