Auuummmmmmm

yes the preaching about how terrible a godless country is and how much suffering they must endure was a repeating theme in my childhood, then i see suffering allowed by god in africa that would make a man insane and then come to country where materialism and virtue before marriage actually exist with out  a religion to promote either, and the western interpretations of the bible always mention the feared russians but leave out china, even the book of mormon's idea of disciples in central america doing the great deed of spreading the gospel (great commission) but no disciples were sent to china that i ever read about, when you trace biblical history to the bible, you find a lot of facts you knew or suspected, sadly most of the facts are not there, probably by design, because it did not meet someone's narrative for control over a particular society.

if a god lets a country kill 40 to 70 millon civilians, kill peasants for their land, kill teachers, doctors and landlords, steal everything all over the world and no punishment is ever enforced, and some jackass tells me its his plan and your not smart enough to understand his vision of the world, sorry just send me to hell, i dont want any part of that horseshit. besides the descriptions of protestant heaven, gold streets, singing 24 hours a day, perfect health, sounds like a boring place i dont want to be any where near.

EDIT. I don't really want to get involved in debate about religion just now so I'll delete what I said.

Sheer do you get the idea that China is an atheistic country? The CCP might claim that but there are more Christians in China than Communist Party members! And Christianity is growing here. 

Then em you have Muslims. The Hui minority are practicing Muslims, as are a lot of Xinjiangren. 

You're also forgetting the masses of Buddhists & Daoists. 

Why there is even a Chinese Jewish community in Kaifeng. 

Now what was that about an atheistic country?

Ps. Religions ARE just a control mechanism 

Is Q about Atlantic City? I can't find my glasses ....

To Iron 12:

Well no country is completely atheistic. Most all countries today have had some kind of missionaries. You may have a lot of atheistic attitudes around you, your work, around your home, school, but it seems like you are young Christian and little unsure of yourself.

And your being tested!

So hang on to your bootstraps and get back into the Word of God, and prayer. Go back to Romans 8:3-4. If you think you are becoming helpless to obey the high commands of God, then don't forget the atonement of Christ, you are able to obey. God will work in you, through regeneration and of course the Holy Spirit, to enable the grace of God to be sufficient for all that will be required of you under the Atonement. 

For those who say it is impossible to keep God's commandments overlook one important consideration, that through prayer and faith, you can be changed and made to participate in the divine nature. 

Now, I don't live in China yet. I got on this website to find me a teaching or consulting job, but I have been around a lot of non-believing people.

You can not let them get to you, you must stand your ground and realize that they are not capable or cannot obey God and they show a lamentable ignorance of the work and implications or their words and actions. Some even say they want to go to Hell.....so let them go! I think they have no idea what they are saying. 

All you can do is pray for these people. Remember a penitent sinner always seeks pardon and salvation and has an answer to his prayers, even if its a life strained with atheist and sin. 

Your one of God's intercessors

Actually, despite being a non-believer, I have come to appreciate the Judeo-Christian society I come from, as it is clear to me, that some of the core values in Scandinavia most likely derive from or have been influenced by the centuries of enslavement to the Church. 

This not meaning that I think religion is required in order to have moral. But China certainly proves that not all people have morals. 

Gratz on being shaky on your beliefs, perhaps there is hope for you

no why ?

If anything I feel that there is more of a feeling of God here in China than there is back home.

A divine presence that is invisible, all-powerful and all-knowing...

I come from atheistic country. In my country just about 18% of population declares to belong to some religion. Majority then say no religion and no god (not always the same).

China is not atheistic country.

See my thread about ghosts - if you say there is no ghost but you are still afraid of one so you are not atheist regardless of what you say.

Majority of Chinese are like that.

But it's fully understandable - the economical and technical development is faster than development of human minds.

Nevertheless talking about Christians - I find always quite funny to meet people claiming themselves to be Christians - if you are real Christian so one of your major goal is evangelization - but apparently many Christians forgot that - one of the possible reasons for that can be that they always loose with 'freeminded' people, if they are not too bigot to get it ...

But luckily for China Christianity is not really an option - it would be either Buddhism or Taoism - both to certain extent better and more tolerant than Middle East religions now so widely adopted in the West (Christianity, Islam).

I am an absolute firm believer that all Governments should be secular. The Party is officially atheist of course, and that to me goes to far. State should be separated without a doubt, but atheism is in a strange way, almost like a religion. It's a belief system.

Now, I have been thinking about the Party and why it recently banned all officials, either serving or retired, from embracing any religion. And to me, I can see why, after consideration.

Religion, specifically interpretation of it, can have a profound effect on people's opinions on things, often in a rather irrational way.  A Party official who embraced Christianity for example, would be under the influence of his preacher. So money might be diverted from where it is needed, to go to causes that the official would think could guarantee his salvation.

Religion has it's place. But religion should play no part in any government.

What if i told u: u are the creator of all this infact echinacities doesnt exist? everything is your creation.....you willed everything into reality!

what if : scotsallen, nzteacher, HotWater, icniff, .....alll these cats dont exist and u realise that you created this reality to make some sense of your life?

what if philbravery, crimo, ririri, ambivalent, coinenaugh, , stiggs.....many more, what if all this is just figment of your imagination?

you are who  you are.

all these cats : diverdude, spiderboens........i could go on and on.....but is this really real?, are we really here?

the greatest  trick the devil played on man was to prove he doesnt exist.........poof!!!

I think you have some problems with your definitions.

Firstly, while China is nominally 'atheist' (just as Russia is), the government clearly accepts (tolerates?) religions here. to the extent that it has its own Dalai Lama for Tibetan Buddhism.

Secondly, the Abrahamaic religions are not the only examples of theist beliefs.

Thirdly, even being monotheist, does not mean that your options boil down to Christianity, Judaism, or Islam (or their offshoots, like Bahai'i).. . There is no logical necessity for 'the creator' (aka, 'God') to actually be hanging around and giving a damn about humanity. Let alone that 'he' (gender for a universal creator??) did anything like help to promote 'his' religion (unless this was done on every other planet throughout the universe, to all other sentient life - this would be rather ridiculous... 13.4 billion years, and the only ones to know about his existence are those measley few million on one measley planet who have read or heard of one measley book??? WTF?)

I haven't noticed much difference between living in China and my home country, the US. Materialism is pretty much the norm in both countries and the only time I came across actual religious people was in Nepal and India with the Sadhus (Hindu holy men) who gave up all their material belongings to live a very simply life (probably similar to the founders of all the major religions.  I have to say though, I'll take a country that doesn't take monotheistic mythology and superstition that seriously (the Nordic countries for example) any day over countries that take monotheistic mythology and superstition too seriously (Iraq, Syria, etc.)

Nothing. Never noticed whether there was a religion or not. 

look at the stats, China is the bottom rung in terms of religiousness, at the top we have vatican, saudi, italy, Philippines, Iraq, afghanistan...USA is 50／50, ...and so on. Im talking about countries that have religious holidays or are inclined to pen their constitution according to a particular religion and say“so help me God” “in God we trust” or “inshallah”
In China religion is regulated by the ccp if im not mistaken. I mean you cant just have a Pentecostal weekend or crusade here, even the Islam this side is a ccp version.
If i may be blunt, the only religion here is money and spiritual growth is the equivalent of GDP, in my experience here, most religions are usually regarded with suspicion same with NGOs.

back to my question：how has this kind of environment affected you？

A bit off topic, but I find the epic of Gilgamesh and some parts of the old testament of the Bible too similar to avoid without serious critical thinking...

Atheistic is a term that lends substance to something that has none. It serves religious naratives that characterize non-religious people a certain way. It's just a word used to describe all those who lack a certain characteristic, namely religion.

It's like saying people who don't wear sandals must hate sandals. There's a bit more sense in saying that people who DO wear sandals less often have stinky feet, or that they at least don't *hate* sandals. People who don't wear sandals perhaps live in societies where sandals are not commonplace, or the weather it just too cold for it. Atheists are also a diverse population with no defining characteristic whatsoever (lack of a trait does not constitute a trait). And there are diverse reasons why the many atheists out there don't wear sandals - I mean worship a religion.

Since the term atheist will be widely used in religious circles, it has inevitably become linked to some language-redefining characteristics that in reality do not apply to the atheist population. Atheist has now become a charged term, loaded with lots of undeserved baggage. It has become like this because theists need these definitions to understand atheism and put it in the right place in their mind. Sometimes atheists need to remind theists that they've wrongly ticked the box "Other" on atheism, instead of "None".

A minor example of this, is when theists ask me what I think of the universe. How it was created, and all that. Going back and back, after reciting my limited knowledge of the big bang theory, the question remains: "Yeah, but who created that?" When I can't answer it to their satisfaction, they either say my reasoning is stupid because I admit I don't know, or tell me their faith has the answer. In their mind, there must be a conscious power who created everything. I like to poke fun at it and turn the reasoning around: "Yeah, but who created God? Someone must have created him too. You just said that everything had to be created by something." At this point, they get irritated.

One thing that might be considered a philosophy for atheists is the Scientific Method. Being able to accept that you don't know something for sure becomes a lot easier with it. Some things are beyond our ability to explain properly, and may always remain so. Religious stories are nothing more than stories with no proper explanations, and don't help us explain things at all. But let me reiterate that atheits have no common trait, and not all atheists are aware of the Scientific Method.

This discussion reminds me of the differences between monophyletic and polyphyletic clades in phylogenetics. A group that has a single ancestor can be considered a real clade, but over the years, taxonomists have mistakenly identified polyphyleteic clades. An example would be Pachydermata (thick skinned mammals), lumping Hippos, Rhinos, Elephants and Whales together into one group. Although they do have a common ancestor, there's a host of non-thick skinned mammals in between them.
Warm-blooded animals were also considered to be a single clade based on body temperature, until we could prove that birds and mammals evolved from different reptiles. There's plenty more examples where that came from.

So, let me try to explain that 'atheists' are polyphyletic.
- I grew up in a society where the majority of people are not religious, so ending up non-religious is nothing special.
- Some people are from societies where religion is the norm, but decided to clash with the mainstream, just to be different.
- Some may have developed true moral objections to the practices in a religion, and avoided it, or broke away from it.
- Some may have 'married out of' religion, by submitting to a dominant atheist partner (the opposite is more likely, but it might happen).
- Some might have had arguments with people of a certain religion, causing them to avoid/break away from it.
- Some religions may have outcasts, considered to be so shameful and undesirable, that they are banned from any religious gatherings. They were forced out.
- Some people may have come to the careful conclusion that religion has nothing to offer them.
- Some may have been 'converted' by the Scientific Method.
- Religions require contributions, often monetary and mandatory. The high tithes may be what keeps some people out of the faith.
- An ominous nightmare might spook a person so much, that they choose to avoid/break away from the religion.
- Some people may simply not like the silly outfits or dress codes.
... the reasons people are atheist are varied. So varied, that it's pointless to make any kind of statement about the group of people. It's not a monophyletic group.

Atheism does not have a prophet or holy book. It did not start at any time - there is no "single ancestor". Atheists are not unified under a single movement, most don't care (as much as theists) about spreading atheism. There are no rules defining an atheist's behaviour, and they do not all share the same values, moral code, or ethics.

Yes, there are some small organisations for atheists, but these are the exception, not the rule. They are usually in heavily religious countries, where it's impossible to avoid being labeled an atheist (with all the additional baggage that comes with it), and people must band together to form a unified front against the dominant theist environment.

I expect that there will be strong objections among theists about this statement (atheism is not a belief, and they are not a real group), because there have been a lot of value judgements about this polyphyletic group. But all the things that have been said about atheists rely heavily on the pre-assumption that it's a monophyletic group just like any religious movement. But it definitely isn't, and anyone who maintains this despite the obvious evidence to the contrary is indoctrinated, and just repeating religious propaganda.