North Korea has created religion in its attempt to reject it

Daily News (NW Florida) ^ | 05/07/07 | PAUL ASAY

[TigerLikesRooster]

North Korea has created religion in its attempt to reject it

PAUL ASAY Freedom News Service

Monday May 7th, 2007

We all know North Korea’s Kim Jong Il is a happenin’ dude. He’s got the nukes. He’s got the hair. He’s got a basketball signed by Michael Jordan. And he’s got his very own worshippers, too. The North Korean state-sanctioned philosophy of Juche is the 10th-largest religion in the world with 19 million adherents, according to Adherents.com, a Web site that tracks world religions.

It’s bigger than Judaism, bigger than Jainism, bigger than Baha’i. Sorry Tom Cruise, but it’s nearly 40 times bigger than the Church of Scientology.

Not bad for a religion that isn’t even considered a religion by its followers.

If you told a loyal North Korean that Juche (pronounced “JOOCH-ay”) is a religion, he might punch you in your shamelessly heretical mouth.

Kim’s Top 5 slogans and speech titles

1. Let Us Prepare the Young People Thoroughly as Reliable Successors to the Revolutionary Cause of Juche! (1990)
2. Let us train, study and live like the anti-Japanese guerrillas! (1976)
3. Let Us Enhance the Role of the Country and Effect a Turn in the People’s Living Standards! (1994)
4. Let Us March Forward Dynamically along the Road of Socialism and Communism under the Unfurled Banner of the Anti-Imperialist Struggle! (1987)
5. Let Us Bring the Advantages of Our People’s Government into Fuller Play! (1992)

SOURCE: Kim Jong Il: Brief History, from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Official Web Page (www.korea-dpr.com)

“Juche,” he might say, “is definitely NOT a religion: We’re atheists, for heaven’s sake.”

And then he might tell you how Comrade Kim Il Sung, Juche’s founder and Kim Jong Il’s dad, is laid to rest within the Sacred Temple of Juche, near signs that read “The great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung will always be with us!”

If religion is a duck, says Tom Belke, author of “Juche: A Christian Study of North Korea’s State Religion,” Juche quacks big time. In an attempt to run away from religion, North Korea has run smack dab into it. “They have their holy sites, they have their ceremonies, they have their own exclusive belief system,” Belke said. “It’s something that demands one’s all.”

Now, with Kim Jong Il in the news for his controverisal nuclear weapons program, you might want to know more about North Korea’s real prime mover — the religion/philosophy/personality cult that forms the backbone of the nation’s beliefs.

Without further adieu, here are the answers to your burning questions about Juche.

QUESTION: What the heck is Juche?
ANSWER: The word “Juche” means “self-reliance.” Or, as Juche’s founder Kim Il Sung described it, “the independent stance of rejecting dependence on others and of using one’s own powers, believing in one’s own strength and displaying the revolutionary spirit of selfreliance.”

Catchy.

Moreover, Juche is North Korea’s mandatory philosophy, embodying loyalty, determination, devotion to state and whatever else Kim Jong Il wants it to stand for. James Church, a former Western intelligence expert now writing North Korean-based novels under an assumed name, describes Juche as a flexible tool that North Korean leaders can mold to fit their ideological needs at the moment.

“Juche is, from my vantage point, very pragmatic in one sense,” said Church, author of the North Korean detective story “A Corpse in the Koryo.” “It was not ideologically laden with Marxism or Leninism or anything else. To that sense, it was almost value free.”

Q. When did it start?

A. Kim Il Sung created Juche in 1955, shortly after the Korean War. Church said it was an effort to ideologically buffer North Korea from its pushy neighbors.

“During those years, there was a huge (philosophical) struggle between the U.S.S.R. and China,” Church said. “What they (North Koreans) needed to do was carve out a philosophical niche, which gave them sort of a protective bubble.”

Juche was North Korea’s way of saying, “Hey, we like you guys, but we don’t have enough in common for you to take us over, OK?”

Q. Is it a religion?
A. Depends on whom you ask.

“Juche is not a religion,” said Hae Won Suh, a pastor from South Korea who heads the Korean Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, Colo. “It is mind control.”

There is no god in Juche. There is no heaven or hell. But John Lennon’s “Imagine,” it’s not.

In place of a god, Juche substitutes Kim Il Sung, who’s called North Korea’s “Eternal President” despite kicking the bucket in 1994. Forget Christmas and Easter: North Koreans take off work for Sung’s birthday and the day of his death.

In 1979, journalist Bradley Martin visited North Korea and uncovered stories that attributed supernatural powers to Sung, including making bullets out of pinecones and walking on water. According to Belke, North Koreans must physically bow before a 90-foot-high statue of Sung in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital city, if they’re in the neighborhood.

Kim Jong Il honored his dead pappy by resetting the North Korean calendar to coincide with his dad’s birth year: Instead of A.D. 2007, North Koreans are in Juche 96.

“In a country like this, a leader really does occupy an almost unbelievably important place in the psychic universe of the individual,” Church said. “For much of the population, he (Sung) was the only leader they knew and heard about. Not unnaturally, they began to believe he was really the core of their existence.”

Q. So if Kim Il Sung is some sort of North Korean savior, does that make Kim Jong Il the son of a god?
A. Kim Jong Il’s no slouch on the divine scale. He’s referred to as North Korea’s “Dear Leader” (in contrast to Sung’s moniker as “Great Leader”), and the Korean Central News Agency, North Korea’s state-run news outlet, routinely runs stories praising Jong’s brilliance in all areas — from politics to poetry.

In September, the KCNA said old fruit trees were blooming out of season in anticipation of Kim Jong Il being selected for another national post.

“On the morning of September 22, fishermen of the fishery station in Rajin-Sonbong city caught a 10 cm-long white sea cucumber while fishing on the waters off Chongjin,” the release went on. “They said the rare white sea cucumber has come to hail the auspicious event of electing Secretary Kim Jong Il as Party General Secretary.”

And let’s not forget Kim Jong Il’s legendary skill as a golfer. His first time out, the leader allegedly scored five holes in one and finished 38 under par.

Q. So if Kim Jong Il and Juche are all that, why hasn’t Juche spread?
A. North Koreans don’t get out much. Most are forbidden from traveling abroad, which actually gets right back to the heart of Juche: Why leave the country when you have everything you need right here?

“They don’t have any freedom there, especially human rights,” said Hae Won Suh.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has called North Korea the most censored country in the world. It’s said even Kim Jong Il must surf the Internet through Chinese connections. Church also says that North Koreans may be less apt to “evangelize” these days. For the past five or six years, he says he’s seen a dip in people gushing over the philosophy. And frankly, he wonders whether most North Koreans were ever that passionate about Juche. “In one sense, it’s been overrated in its effect and philosophical breadth,” he said.

[TigerLikesRooster]

In one sense, it’s been overrated in its effect and philosophical breadth

This would break Kim Jong-il's heart.:-)

And let’s not forget Kim Jong Il’s legendary skill as a golfer. His first time out, the leader allegedly scored five holes in one and finished 38 under par.

And he is somebody with whom to do business together, according to Chris "Kim-jong" Hill and Condi "Sunshine" Rice.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[dfwgator]

If L Ron Hubbard ran a country, it would be a lot like North Korea.

[Red Badger]

If L Ron Hubbard ran a country, it would be a lot like North Korea.

If L Ron Hubbard ran a country, it would be a lot like North Korea with Californians in it.......

[rod1]

Wow that “turn” in the people’s living standards one worked really well.

[rod1]

He must of been part the foursome with Billy Jeff, Hugh Roddam, and Vernon Jordan, Jr. when he recorded all those holes in one. To bad Bubba still beat him.

[rockprof]

I never understand how people become so enmeshed in these cult of personalities. Then again, I think Al Gore’s starting his own religion as we speak centered on global warming.

[I still care]

We saw an intersting program a few months ago of doctors that had gone to NK to operate on people’s eyes (many are blind from malnutrition).

As each person had their bandages removed, they ran to the picture of the dear leader and fell down and worshiped him, thanking him over and over for their sight, and crying.

They viewed him as the giver of their sight, rather than the taker, while the bemused doctors looked on.

[BenLurkin]

There is no god in Juche. There is no heaven or hell. But John Lennon’s “Imagine,” it’s not.

Oh yes it is!

If John Lennon were alive today he would be singing Kim's praises along with the rest of the brain washed masses.

[CORedneck]

The people bowing down before pictures of Kim Jong II do not know any better and do not know about the Gospel (God & Jesus). Sad......

[50sDad]

Whew! Gotta steal that tag line!

[SevenofNine]

OH MAN Chia Pet is L Ron Hubbard LOL!

[jack_napier]

Years and years ago, C.G. Jung said that communism was nothing more than an attempt to replace God with the State, and the idea of eliminating religion was laughably naive.

[Straight Vermonter]

He was right and our country moves closer to state worship every year.

[Señor Zorro]

If you told a loyal North Korean that Juche (pronounced “JOOCH-ay”) is a religion, he might punch you in your shamelessly heretical mouth. “Juche,” he might say, “is definitely NOT a religion: We’re atheists, for heaven’s sake.”

Sounds like many an atheist stateside.

[I still care]

Found the clip!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmLJ8j5PIys

[CORedneck]

Sad and very interesting ! Those who received their sight back are worshiping the wrong thing and the sad part, they don’t know better.

[MrB]

Sounds like “secular humanism” -

ruled by the USSC to be a religion for “free exercise” purposes,

ruled by the 9th Circus to NOT be a religion when it violated the “establishment” clause.

[rdl6989]

That youtube clip is just too weird.

[Carry_Okie]

He was right and our country moves closer to state worship every year.

Naw, they've got a better gambit: The Environmint, with the State in "service" to Gaia, the life force of our planet.

It's all so selfless. /s