Is the Christian teaching on sin a ‘stumbling block’ to Chinese accepting Christianity? This paper critiques the notion that Chinese have difficulty comprehending ‘sin’ because of the culture's long-standing belief in the humanistic potential for self-perfection without any reference to the divine. This view of Chinese culture has been too narrow and does not account for the fact that Chinese religious traditions have always had at their disposal a wide variety of resources to comprehend the Christian concept of sin. Incorporating a history-of-practice perspective can contribute to a more productive balance between the representation of Chinese culture and its actual practice and avoid the current tendency to posit Western theology against a narrowly constructed and idealised version of Chinese culture that is severed from both historical and present-day realities.
This study examines factors contributing to depression among migrant factory workers in Shanghai. A survey was designed with mental health questions under a framework explaining: (1) social capital, (2) migratory stress, and (3) mental health consequences. With a return rate of 98.3%, 1966 individuals completed the survey. Only 11.1% of the respondents indicated having a religious affiliation. The findings are not surprising about the relationship between trust, economic condition, and depression. However, it is surprising to find that not having a religious affiliation is significantly connected to better mental health. The effect of religious beliefs should be examined as a trust factor to remove the barrier of perceiving religion as an added stressor.
Every function of n inputs can be efficiently computed by a complete network of n processors in such a way that: If no faults occur, no set of size t n /2 of players gets any additional information (other than the function value), Even if Byzantine faults are allowed, no set of size t n /3 can either disrupt the computation or get additional information. Furthermore, the above bounds on t are tight!