""Fear of supernatural punishment may serve as a deterrent to counternormative behavior, even in anonymous situations free from human social monitoring,""

Some call it "superstition." Others call it "guilt."

You cannot suppress what’s in peoples hearts. China has for years tried to suppress religion and Christianity in particular, it was the oppressive government that was atheist.
The Christian church has always flourished when it's being oppressed, consider what was achieved under the Romans. If a government really wants to weaken and destroy religion they have to emancipate and liberalise it. Christian countries like the US and UK grew strong and prosperous as faith and ethical values were held as important and a subsequent decline in these values has seen a corresponding decline in these once great nations. China is on the brink, lets hope for Chinas sake it gets it right, all that glitters is not gold or even metal.

I certainly don't want to discourage China from ceasing their oppression of religious people, or from facilitating the growth of Christianity (as long as its done justly and without coercion), but it seems like they're reasons for doing these things are flawed.

The Chinese have shunned religion because it's supposedly "the opiate of the masses." Now they want to embrace it because they think that their people could use an opiate. They seem less interested in ending state oppression and more hopeful that Christianity will "dull the pain of oppression," as Marx said it does.

Unfortunately for the Chinese government, Christianity hasn't proven to be a particularly good pacifier. The CCP might look to the history of their neighbors in Korea for some lessons about what happens when Christian churches grow under a repressive regime.

As a Catholic, I feel sad about what has happened to China. I witnessed that video of a little girl ran over by a van with a lot of bystanders around not giving any help to the helpless girl. They Genomma Lab need to be taught Christianity so they know the real value of life. I felt sad, really why people in China turned out to be like this! God help them!

I am a Believer in Christ Jesus. I am an American.

I agree with you that the US isn't a Christian Nation anymore. However, this does not mean we need to erase the mention of God from the public arena for your personal satisfaction. You might want to forget all about God, but many still seek him including those working in the public sector. Celebration of the freedom of religion (or no religion) is a priviledge of America. Creation of an atmosphere to remove all mention of God from the entirety of the public sphere is just as radical as proposing there be one "legal" religion in a State. Atheists or non-believers aren't the only ones who get offended on a daily basis because of their world-view.

Also, the naturalist or atheistic world-view does nothing to create an atmosphere of objective thought. Those who hold this world-view retain as much of an exclusive position as the Christian or Muslim. You are just as emphatic in your desire to denounce God, not pray nor mention his existence and live life for yourself where you presume to be in control of all things (even if you won't admit it). Perhaps one day you'll see things differently.

Have you ever wondered why you get so easily offended and frustrated by a deity you are certain does not exist? Typically if I think something is nonsense, I give it little thought.

There is quite of upfront insult daily on the non-believers in the USA.

Admit it while you attemp to justify it.

I will never vote again unless for one we states that he or she will not cite deity when swearing into office.

The citing of deity on offical capacity is quite insulting to the non-believer.

Emotional consideration dictates that I am a single issue voter, or potential voter. Voting is moot for me. I will unlikely participate again; such is my statement.

if either China or USA does?

May be one has to use a calculator to count the items of religious repression in China and the USA.

China requires churches to register, places limits on some religious practices, and seeks to limit the power of religious organizations.

The USA slights the non-believers daily, stamps the arrogant hubris of the religious majority onto the minority in "In God We Trust", put words in the non-believers' mouth by the obligatory need of use of currency. The USA legitimizes exclusionary mentality, with the proclamation that one who does not believe in god or trust god is NOT American, not among ‘US”.

The USA openly assaults the honesty and denigrates the character of the non-believers in the American court of law.

The USA deters non-believers' participation in elections by requiring elected officals to cite deity during swear- in ceremonies on official capacity, to frustrate and emotionally hurt the non-believers and induce them to not vote.

if I don't scream no-god in your face with the aid of the government.

This is called separation of Church and State. Live with it if Americans want to preach to China or any other country about religious freedom.

Is this not patently obvious?

Beijing is short-sighted. Just because the old moral code doesn't work, it doesn't mean that you jettison your whole cultural history and throw the baby out together with the bathwater. The thinking that Christianity led the West to modernize is flawed at best. The Enlightenment that grew out of the Reformation and the Rennaissance, allowed the West to industrialized. The Enlightenment happened in spite of religion, not because of it. Even if it were true that Christianity single handedly industrialized the West, did Beijing seriously think they can just graft an imported religion and expect the same result? If so, why isn't Russia or Ethiopia or Brazil as industrialized? A better model would be Japan - graft modern infrastructure to your existing culture.

From a real-politik calculation, I suppose they didn't think that by embracing a religion typically associated with the West, they would in fact be injecting an additional combustive religious layer to the current (secular) civil strife in the Buddhist Tibet and the Islamic Xinjiang?

Beijing should learn the real lessons of the West - clear line of separation between Church and State, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of the press if they really want a sustainable great nation.

"Beijing is short-sighted. Just because the old moral code doesn't work, it doesn't mean that you jettison your whole cultural history and throw the baby out together with the bathwater. The thinking that Christianity led the West to modernize is flawed at best."

I think you get it wrong.

China does not regard Christianity as superior.

It is a matter of reality that some human beings have need for a sense of security that is subjectively more lasting and less earthy.

This is a sociological reality and China has to face it.

Separation of Church and State is the ideal except when there must be reaction to those who do not think so, those who act to use and viewed as likely to use organized religion to affect the state, even its definition or defined boundary, against whom no govt can refuse to react.

Plus we hound them on the religious freedom thing and they do want to have a better image worldwide, as long as they can possibly accomodate the West. Engagement works to a good extent.

"Beijing should learn the real lessons of the West - clear line of separation between Church and State, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of the press if they really want a sustainable great nation."

The West that you refer to pertains the least to the USA, the most to some parts of Europe such as Sweden.

in china, the state, in other words, the party controls everything. it's simply impossible to separate church from state.

Insteading of expecting elected official to cite deity during swear-in ceremony, the USA should expect them (especially the federal branch) to swear, without citing deity, that they will divorce religion from decisions they make on behalf of the USA on issues foreign and domestic.

China's warming to Christianity, if anything, underscores the very capitalistic nature of its economy. (See http://andycox1953.webs.com/)
It always amazes me that people are blithely indifferent to or unaware of the fact that any state in which there exists commodity production (the production of goods and services for sale in order to realise a profit), money, wages, profits, and private or state ownership of the means of production is, ipso facto, a capitalist state. China is clearly a capitalist country. Its decitful pretense that it is 'communist' or, indeed, a 'People's Republic', is no more than an attempt to legitimise the authoritarian regime of its bourgeois nomenklatura. True communism entails free access to all goods and services, common ownership of the means of production, genuine democracy, and the greatest possible liberty. That China should style itself as 'communist' is therefore rather like the emperors clothes, and I guess with its growing inequality, that line is beginning to wear a bit thin, which may explain why it is casting around now for a more workable ideology. Marx was absolutely right: ''Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.'' How profoundly true of a country where millions of workers are paid a pittance, subjected to the harshest of working conditions, and sometimes compelled to live cheek by jowl in large company dormitories from which they can be summoned to the factory floor in the middle of the night when a new order arrives.

"How profoundly true of a country where millions of workers are paid a pittance, subjected to the harshest of working conditions, and sometimes compelled to live cheek by jowl in large company dormitories from which they can be summoned to the factory floor in the middle of the night when a new order arrives."

This is what our great-grand parents and grand parents experienced.

Also the people of Singapore and Hong Kong just 40-50 years ago. Sweat shops were plentiful in the Asian Tigers. Now these places have first world income.

Give China time.

The masses will have greater aspirations and expectations with juxtaposed with standards of industrialized nations.

"Such insult has become more salient, perhaps since I started visiting China since the 1990s. The crisp and logical way of the Chinese wrt religion is refreshing and delightful."

There is certainly another reason, in addition to visiting secular China, that caused the daily insult from the religious majority to become more salient.

It is the abject situation that we are in as a country made possible by the religosity in American politics. Our religosity induced blunder in the ME is causing American decline. The trillion spent in the wars should lhave been used for infrastructure development and renewal here. There is no reason to be so deeply involved in the ME.

In my opinion, religion is good for development. I am an American people, I also a christian. This is the reason why i agree and like when numbers of christian more and more develop in the China. You know the major religion in china is Buddhism. Buddhism have developed for many year. I think religion is good to create a good person and Christian also have done it well which will help you to improve yourself. Make you how to become a nice person and how to please the others

In my opinion, religion is good for development. I am an American people, I also a christian. This is the reason why i agree and like when numbers of christian more and more develop in the China. You know the major religion in china is Buddhism. Buddhism have developed for many year. I think religion is good to create a good person and Christian also have done it well which will help you to improve yourself. Make you how to become a nice person and how to please the others