The Angry Chinese Blogger (link to left) wrote an entry in which he pointed out that Bejing did issue a brief statement with positive wishes for the Pope's recovery (safe enough since it was obvious he was in his last days), but continues to deny Chinese Christians the right to pray for him.

I am of the opinion that organized religions are organized superstitions and that too many inhuman acts have been committed in the name of religion. This is not to say that I do not have beliefs of my own; however, I cannot accept superstitions just because a priest in a collar or a bible-thumping evangelist or a turbaned cleric says I must believe them in contravention to all reason and experience.

So I can understand on a mental level when a political entity does not always distinguish between religion, superstition and philosophy, as he says is true of Bejing.

However, NOTHING, in my personal philosophy, justifies suppression, intolerance, torture and killing of one group by another, even if that group may labor under the grossest of superstitions, the most irrational of beliefs. The policy of the state is not sufficient authorization for harming people, nor are the beliefs of one religious group sufficient cause for slaughter of another.

Tolerance and acceptance have their limits: We must become intolerant of superstitions (religious or otherwise) which lead to the suppression, torture, and killing of any sentient beings. It's time to say, "Enough! All people have a right to live and believe as they choose, so long as they do not harm others. If they do harm others, they must be stopped from doing so."