The section about the French missionaries in this post about S Korean churches is possibly relevant - http://www.rjkoehler.com/2007/04/21/koreas-catholic-churches-gupodong-catholic-church/

If prayer worked, I might, but since it doesn’t, I won’t. And though I am totally against torture and killing of ANY religious group, I am not opposed to abolishing religion altogether. It is, more often than not, the cause of wars.

There is a simple way to do this without impinging on people’s personal rights; logic, reason, and rational thought. You start teaching these basic premises more thoroughly in schools, religion will eventually wither and die. Once you instill in young ones that some ancient people who lived in dirt huts had seriously flawed ideas of the world and that we know a heck of alot more about the world than they did, this will happen. Teach them that God endorsed, even commanded, genocide, slavery, oppression, etc. We now know these things to be immoral, so that’s a good starting point. All religions are ancient, old and busted. Time to evolve.

Power, greed and influence is the cause of wars. Not religion that is hi-jacked by power-hungry “leaders” of the world, past and/or present.

tor.que.mada meets double-byte characters is a nuclear combination

god doesnt exist. that’s all they had to say. saying isnt believing. does this actually prove strength of faith, or mere christian stupidity?

FYI, you can see the whole article for free by using a UserAgent switcher and setting your User Agent to that of the GoogleBot.

2795 °F is a pretty high temperature to be able to generate in a prison. I could see maybe saying it was molten lead (621 °F), or even aluminum (1220 °F), but molten iron seems like a stretch to me. I learned a long time ago not to believe anything that anyone who bases their life on faith and not facts tells me.

religion should be abolished. especially christianity. it’s followers like to claim moral high-ground, but their scripture is filled with murders, stoning, baby-killing, and “rules of rape”. if you deny this it’s obviously been quite a while since you’ve read all of the bible, or rather you think it sufficient to listen to the small selected phrases your preacher turns out. fuck your god.

christianity should be abolished, as well as all religion. christians need to stop claiming moral high-ground as long as they take advice from a book that advocates torture, rape, and murder of women and disobedient children as well as animal sacrifices. doesn’t sound familiar? maybe you should actually read the bible instead of simply going to church.

Oh, come on guys; just because this article is drawing a lot of—obviously—atheist attention is no reason to be heartless. I despise religion and think all of them are complete hogwash, but that doesn’t mean that I think that believers deserve torture. Believers, regardless how asinine their beliefs, are still human and deserving of inherent respect. There’s no call for this kind of inference that they “deserve” to be tortured—for their beliefs, or anything else. Given the nature of North Korea, the guards and establishment tends to find something, anything, to torture and hurt people for. Politics, religion, etc. I doubt anyone but those utterly aligned with the State completely evades harsh treatment.

While I find it hard to believe that North Korea has the facilities in their prisons to warm iron to melting point, I still feel for the plight of any and all those who suffer under dictatorships like that of North Korea. I may be atheist, but I’m not heartless.

Eradicating religion won’t stop all instances of brutality like these, as much as we’d hope it would. Bad men will still find excuses for their atrocities.

Kim Jong Il is human scum. Some of the comments in here are pretty bad and naive as well. Unable to grasp the notion of faith, geez. Get outside of your western bubble sometime, there are other religions out there besides Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. That Dali Lama is one evil d00d, right?

And you rip and tear into Christianity, yet I bet if you are American chances are you were born in a hospital that was named after a saint. You ever notice that? The number of hospitals that are named after saints? Do you know why that is? It must be because religion is evil and needs to be abolished…

Now go be good little moral relativists and worship the state. Moving to a place like NK would be a good start.

Listening to you angry interwebbers rail on how evil religion is makes me think of the Stalin quote, “how many battalions does the pope have?” Look up John Paul II and the Solidarity Movement and you’ll see that he had plenty, then talk more trash about how evil religion is.

The fact that some religious people are greedy and power-hungry won’t be a good enough excuse when you meet your Maker: God didn’t tell us to put our faith in religious people, but in His Son, our Lord and only Saviour Jesus Christ.

Hey J,

thats your ponit of view. But you cant speak for all other persons can you?

Incredible torture in North Korea is fact. By no means are only Christians (or any other religious believers) affected. It is not, that I think that people should not be tortured because of their faith, far more NOBODY should be tortured for any reason. If somebody has committed a very serious crime such as mass murder, okay we can talk about the death penalty which I indeed oppose. I have no objections to justified punishment, but punishment and torture are two very different matters. All of you can think about religion what you want.…and I guess I agree with most of you, BUT don’t let us behave as for example Christians behaved before us. If we don’t believe but protect our opponents from torture, then we can be that what Christians SHOULD BE!? Ofcourse religion is evil, no question about that.…but so is Kim Jong Il and the torture is within the two. I don’t want to be associated with either.…you????

What are your sources for this bullshit? A bunch of heresay? This is just more christian bullshit propaganda trying to defame marxists and communism. How about the Gays blacks muslim and jews murdered and tortured by christians? The holocaust, the inquisition, The crusades??? We have proof of these attrocities, there not just a bunch of rumors and myths circulated by pat robertson and the fascist religious right! I can bet that if there was any proof or pictures it was the “underground church in asia” otherwise known as RADICAL FUNDAMENTALIST TERRORISTS who scolded these people, they’ve done far worse to try to gain some political points including convincing young women to go into tiannamen square and set themselves on fire promising rewards in heaven. STOP SPREADING THEIR BULLSHIT PROPAGANDA!!!

What a sad angry person you are Jordan! Do you hate everyone? Don’t you realise that that is the result of Atheism and Marxism, just look at what happened in the USSR and other Marxist regimes. Did they set their people free and give them happiness? The whole population in North Korea is starving and despearate. They abolished religion - did that make people’s lives better? Look at the facts and don’t be so dominated by your own evil propaganda. Christianity aims to spread love, peace and goodness, even if people don’t always live up to it. Do Marxists always live up to their beliefs?

North Korea: A rare glimpse into remote North Korea uncovers new stories on persecution—300 people a year killed for their faith—amid an unbending communist regime | Priya Abraham

To get to Sonbong, North Korea, a remote city tucked into the country’s northeast, Julian Dobbs crossed a bridge from China slung across the Tumen River. On the other side, the icy blue-painted block that served as North Korea’s border post blended well with the snow-swept hills.

In Sonbong to open a new bakery, Dobbs is U.S. director of the Barnabas Fund, a charity that helps persecuted Christians around the world. His two-day trip last month into North Korea provided a rare Westerner’s glimpse at Kim Jong Il’s totalitarian society outside Pyongyang, the capital of a starving country that prohibits even the World Food Program from working in every district.

Dobbs worked to blend in, and soon noticed that the city’s residents also took care to blend into their physical and political landscape. Dobbs also heard fresh stories of crackdowns on dissenters and Christians similar to those that have trickled out of the Hermit Kingdom for years. In the last few months, U.S. diplomacy has focused increasingly on nuclear deal-making, offering aid concessions in exchange for shaky Pyongyang promises to disarm. On the eve of Washington’s annual مركز الاتصال North Korean Freedom Week, April 22-29, human-rights defenders feel a new urgency to emphasize instead Kim’s wrongs against his people. Want to read more? Get news and commentary each week from WORLD Magazine and up-to-the-minute news and Promotional gifts features from WORLDMag.com. Click here to find out how!

Did they set their people free and give them happiness? The whole population in North Korea is starving and despearate. They abolished religion - did that make people’s lives better? Look at the facts and don’t be so dominated by your own evil propaganda. Christianity aims to spread love, peace and goodness, even if people don’t always live up to it. Do Marxists always live up to their beliefs?

suffering of any person should not b mocked people are dying for christ its not for religion god is not religion he is a reality he sent his son to save the world and praise to him that even now those believers killed for refusing to deny him are with him we should pray they need us to pray of course the one who created ears can hear us and he alone can answer.

Great background article. Thanks as it is written very cleary and helped to improve my understanding