ArekExcelsior

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Again, welcome!  Asher Heimermann 20:31, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Atlantis

Hi, and welcome to Wikipedia. You may not have noticed, but there's an entire article called Atlantis in art, literature and popular culture. Your paragraph about the Rifts RPG would fit better there. I suggest moving what you wrote to Atlantis in art, literature and popular culture and leave something shorter in the Atlantis article along the lines of "Atlantis is featured in Rifts and other role-playing games." Thanks for your contributions. Shaundakulbara 02:29, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Falun Gong's cultishness

Hello, I think you are making some worthwhile arguments on the talk page. I hope you understand if I don't join the fray. We have been doing this kind of discussion thing for a long time now and I must be up to a million keystrokes that went nowhere. Right now I just want to see how the ArbCom goes, and when the articles are unlocked and I feel it is safe, begin to actually start adding content from peer-reviewed journals and other wiki-friendly sources. I kind of hope that with the mediator and people like yourself, some of the more extreme approaches of presenting things may be curtailed, and I wish upon a star that some of the other endemic problems will somehow vanish like so many wisps of smoke. Anyway, enough of that. You may have already encountered something like this, or maybe I am even aggravating things, but I feel that I do not understand when you mention that Falun Gong has cultiness, in your experience. I don't know what contact you have with Falun Gong, so I suppose it would be meaningless to discuss things along those lines, and your experiences are now your own, but I just want to say that never felt anything like that from when I didn't understand Dafa to now considering myself a practitioner. I assume by cultiness you mean like, I am not sure exactly, but I guess secretiveness, umm, actually, I don't know what you mean, maybe like strangeness, you think it is strange to you? I am not sure what you mean, to be honest. Anyway, it has some bad kind of significance. So I will just say that I think Falun Gong is wonderful, and that since I first came into contact with practitioners, no one asked me for anything, asked me to do anything, told me that I could not do anything, asked me for money, expected that I give them money, etc. etc.. There were some old Chinese people who could not speak english and just smiled at me and said "hello! hello!", and a friendly youngish couple with twins who held the Fa-study at their house, as well as some other Chinese people with various backgrounds. For maybe 8 months I thought they were a rather friendly, if slightly misguided bunch. Anyway, I just did the exercises and read the book caused I liked them and felt good about them. I had approached things in an intellectual way, using complicated ways of thinking and justifications. I still have that, but now I don't do a lot of drugs, listen to chaotic music (drum n bass, jungle, etc.), watch porn, drink and smoke myself stupid on a regular basis, not care about other people etc.--I am just saying some good things that have resulted from me practicing Dafa. I can't site any bad things, obviously. Maybe you have heard some kinds of things like this from a practitioner before. I would just like to say it from my perspective anyway. When people don't want to learn Dafa I don't care. When people say they think Dafa is bad I just try to say this kind of thing, to tell them that in my experience it is not bad. I hope that you do not think Dafa is bad, but merely that you think it doesn't suit your taste, if you know what I mean.--Asdfg12345 02:31, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Asdfg: What I mean is that the evidence is pretty good that, structurally, people take the words of Li verbatim, part and parcel. I have failed to see, for example, many people who are devoted FG followers attack the blatantly homophobic comments he has made, or say that perhaps there is something just slightly suspect with saying that interracially-born individuals are damned (as if the soul were somehow altered by human concepts of genetics and tribalism). I hope that your experience is positive with your faith, as mine is, but the problem is that Li is part of a class of people who violate that principle, by declaring that, say, there are no Chinese people in Jesus' heaven (a fact that a lot of Christians would take as an affront to their faith as well). In pro-FG apologia for his positions, I have seen the same sort of evasion and refusal to either quote alternative viewpoints and quotes that might excise Li or the simple out "Look, I'm not Li, this faith has great things and..." . Because Li has declared himself to be a core part of humankind's ascension to the next era, he sort of ruins the game for everyone else. I have a lot of personal experience among family and friends with cult leaders, true believers and totalitarian faiths with charismatic leaders, and the signs are incredibly familiar. IMHO, Li can be separated from the Dafa.

I don't mean secretiveness, though that satisfies a condition. Actually, that condition applies much more to Scientology. But there is some good evidence that at least some FG individuals have tried to pass themselves off as simply another Qi Gong/Tai Chi/yoga/etc. school of thought and are not up front with their true credentials. This is deceptive and speaks poorly of the group. I'm not going to jump into the Luo camp of assuming that examples like that mean the entire organization must be flawed, but at the same time Luo has made an interesting case that the Master has exhorted his followers to do X then refused to take responsibility for those actions. Taking money is also not an issue for me: Tithing to the Catholic Church, or what not, can sometimes be wholly appropriate, especially when the church or spiritual group in the area provides valuable services to everyone and functions as a part of making the community work. Demanding unthinking obedience is actually far more onerous, IMHO: A psychologist asks for money, fascism asks for obedience, what is more dangerous?

Any spiritual group that is warm and helpful, which includes everyone from Christians to Buddhists, can help improve someone's life (though I would be careful of going too far in saying that, since they might also make you think that some things are "improvements" that are only tendentiously so: Say, watching pornography. Nothing's wrong with porn, per se). Where the problem comes in is where they a) expect an implied quid pro quo (so Christians often help people in time of need with an implied or explicated condition of conversion to the faith), b) ask you to become part of their group dynamic and forfeit your own opinions, c) argue that this is exclusive (like I said, many commmunities can help in various ways) to their group.

Like you said, I don't know your individual experience. One of the reasons I don't like the "cult" label the way it's used in the mainstream is that it's pejorative, unevenly applied and ignores that even very consolidated and monolithic groups have ranges of opinion and can be very helpful for some of their members.

The key, though, is for you to take in honestly the criticism people like Tomanada have been putting forth. Those people are speaking INSTITUTIONALLY about Falun Gong: About statements of Li, movements of the group, etc. There's nothing wrong, IMHO, about wanting the end of the CCP or at least moving towards a more pluralist, democratic China. What isn't okay is a) masking those intentions, which it seemed some people in the talk page were doing (note that you guys can claim rather plausibly that eliminating the CCP is actually self-defense, since they've pretty much tried to eliminate your religion at the root) and b) wanting to set up a theocracy. I don't know about FG's political motives... Which is exactly my point. If you want to get involved in politics, get involved wholesale. If Li has a problem with the CCP, he should explain it, explain what the FG's intentions are (secure civil rights for the FG only? for everyone in China? alter the governmental structure?), and describe what his ideal political world would be. Li instead seems to stick to the wholly disingenuous "Oh, I'm not involved in politics" BS that al Qaeda and Crusaders use. I applaud FG for seemingly using very few violent tactics (I would actually justify much more violence), but non-violently pushing for, say, a FG theocracy would still not be okay.

Those are my concerns, I just hope that you look wholly at the group that you are to whatever degree part of or influenced by and realize that the nice people who helped you out did not require you to lose your conscience or justify anything from homophobia to racism. And maybe I'm wrong about the representation of Li that Luo/Tomanada/etc. gave, but the quotes they give seem well sourced and even pro-FG people didn't deny it, so my stomach sinks a bit there. I hope I'm wrong. ArekExcelsior 02:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It's important not to let your anti-Chinese Government feelings lend any more credibility to FG teachings. It seems you have the basic overall pictures, but misunderstand the details. Anyway I've replied to your reply to my reply to your reply to my reply, on the FG talk page. Jsw663 05:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I really don't see what I misunderstand. Bear in mind: When people with elementary concern for freedom don't see human rights discussed as a primary point, they begin to ignore evidence (rightly) as apologia. SL needs to JUSTIFY the CCP's actions, not just blackball the FG. Anyhoo, idealogues on both sides will use my arguments to justify themselves, but anyone who looks at what I'm saying should find it clear that I don't like cults or religious domination.

Have you ever read[1] or saw[2] the Nine Commentaries? Since you are against totalitarian regimes, I think you will outright love it :) --HappyInGeneral 17:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I may read it, HIG, but my perception of it is that it is pro-FG propaganda. Everyone is against totalitarian states until their group is in charge. I'll keep an open mind till I read it, though. ArekExcelsior 01:59, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Falun Gong ban discussion

Arek, I made changes to my reply to you before noticing your response. Most of these changes are stylistic, I toned down my criticism against you. Two important changes are: 1) my response to your Christian Science argument and 2) my response to your personal attack-like comments. The passages of these changes are displayed below for your convenience. I also added this passage regarding Falun Gong suppression of critics—-The Falun Gong even demanded the government to step in to suppress freedom of the press: “Since this program will jeopardize the social stability in China and bring benefits only to the very few with ulterior motives at the expense of the good people at large, we Falun Gong practitioners sincerely hope that the governments at each level will prevent the airing of this slanderous program.”

1) The Chinese Constitution emphasizes protecting public health and order; the ban is perfectly legal in China. Religions like Christian Science and cults like Falun Gong that preach abandonment of medical treatment enjoy legal protection in the US. But in China where there is no such tradition (no traditional Chinese religion has ever preached that) this kind of practice is seen as dangerous and unlawful. The Chinese have the right to govern their country according to their tradition and law, provided that it does not violate the UN human rights Covenants. Do you have any right to demand the Chinese adapt to American values? Why stop at China, why not demand the whole world to adapt to American values?

2) Now I am going to respond to your personal attack-like comments. You said the following:

“it seems to me that your elementary misunderstanding of basic belief in freedom is throwing you so far off course here… it seems to me that either hate or prejudice is making you see the forest but not the trees… Have a little compassion… You read like a CCP propaganda piece!... What we keep coming back to, Sam, is that you beat up the FG with your arguments, but you don't even CONSIDER that the CCP might be just as bad, indeed worse. THAT'S where I think you become a propaganda artist … Sam: Your notion is to beat up people who you don't like, or rather to get the state to do that for you as a proxy… maybe you're confusing your problem with your PARENTS with your problem with a group.”

Arek, these insults say a lot about you. I bet you like to put down anyone who agrees with the Chinese government on anything and call him an apologist for the Chinese government. By any reasonable standards, you have to show that I defend the Chinese government regardless of what it does. While we disagree on many issues, I hope we can agree to respect each other.

Sorry for the inconvenient, please respond on the Falun Gong talk page. --Samuel Luo 06:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see why the FG's asking for a ban of a slanderous program (which, if I remember correctly, may very well have been at least partially) has anything to do with this conversation. Even groups with quite spotty libertarian credentials deserve protection under the same rules: Nazis, for example. And since I've never defended the FG, you seem to be at best preaching to the converted.

Re: 1) : Since I have never been very interested in Chinese law, since it stems from an authoritarian state and is practically by definition suspect, your argument is, again, arguing with a strawman. My point is that YOU are arguing, not the Chinese government, for a principle that you do not justify. However, that part of the Chinese constitution is balanced with protections for freedom of speech and religion, and while there is persecution of many groups it seems the FG are nonetheless being singled out in violation of these prescriptions. These are two, distinct, arguments you simply refuse to answer.

As for whether or not the whole world should adapt to American values: These values aren't especially American, as I again pointed out to no rebuttal. (In fact, America's seeing in some respects a wholesale assault on these values, and America's authentic democratic credentials are quite limited). I am making an argument that it is wrong to do what the Chinese government does. Your response is the same that American conservatives use to defend figures in American history: One can't judge them by the standards of our time and place. But just like even when Jackson was slaughtering Native Americans there were (obviously) some miffed Native Americans, and this argument definitionally silences them (and thus YOU are arguing for Falun Gong to accept Chinese values - why not stop there? why not the whole world accept Chinese values? It's a fun game), and also some voices in their own time and place. Both are true here.

I call people engaging in apologia apologists. The context you cut out is crucial to establishing my claims. I apologize if you're offended, but the fact is that you are engaging in massive apologia, which I demonstrated with as-yet unrebutted argument. You obviously deserve the respect of a human being, and I will apologize again for stridency. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ArekExcelsior (talk • contribs).

Alcoholics Anonymous

Thanks for yoru contributions to that page. Very appreciated. Would be brilliant if you could persevere. 213.235.24.138 15:48, 4 September 2007 (UTC)