Aleta Goodwin, a Christian living in Utah, said she was impressed by how many things in Mr. Li’s article she could relate to. “What’s so good about this article is that you don’t have to change your religious alignment,” she said she agreed with most of the concepts in the article upon first seeing it in Epoch Times’ print edition in January.
“What he [Mr. Li] espouses is meditation, gentle exercises, with a moral philosophy centered on truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. That really struck me. I go, ‘That’s such a noble good thing!’” she told The Epoch Times. “So that really caught my attention.”
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, encourages adherents to live by the universal principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance and teaches meditative exercises. Over the past 23 years, millions of Falun Gong adherents have been held in labor camps, mental asylums, drug rehabilitation centers, unofficial black jails, or other detention facilities. However, the followers’ peaceful resistance to the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution persisted. Many attributed their courage to stay steadfast to their beliefs and the power of faith.
“Truthfulness, compassion, tolerance—it really stuck out to me. That is such a good thing,” Goodwin said. “If I were in China, I would be persecuted just as badly as these people [Falun Gong adherents] were.”
‘Ancient Ideals’
Victor Mooney, a retired entrepreneur, said the article moved him. “It seems to me that he [Mr. Li] based his beliefs on some pretty ancient ideals that went back much farther than what you and I would ordinarily think of as Chinese history,” he told The Epoch Times, adding, “just about farther than anybody on the planet.”Mooney appreciated the “excellent articulation” of the article and that Mr. Li spoke with conviction.
“The way he [Mr. Li] has spoken, and the way he brought his message—I didn’t get the idea he was a preacher. It was very easy to see that he was sincere in his belief that he had the right idea. So when somebody’s talking to you about something, you can get whether he’s selling something or if he’s just revealing his own thoughts,” he added. “That may be what drew me to him.”
Currently living in Milan, Ohio, Mooney will turn 82 in September. He studied architecture in college but had to drop out to support his family. He started as a baker with American Bakeries Company, then moved to sales and management before he left the company and opened his own business.
Religious Aspect from China
Roy Campbell got to know Falun Gong from a different perspective: Shen Yun, a top classical Chinese dance and music show.He loves Chinese people and culture. To him, different from the Chinese communist regime, Chinese people are peaceful and loving. Over the past eight years, he has seen Shen Yun four times, with the latest in Bentonville, Arkansas, in February. He drove two hours from his residence in Missouri to see the performance. About a month before, he read “How Humankind Came To Be.”
He said the article was “very interesting.” “I do want to know the truth,” he added. “I think the Chinese people have been on Earth a lot longer than anybody has. And I find that fascinating.” A Christian, he found much in common between the Falun Gong belief and his religion.
“They both have a supreme being; both receive the blessing of heaven if they do good and resist bad. I believe the ultimate goal is the same. To achieve everlasting life in the most beautiful place imaginable. Sometimes I wonder if our two religions (and others) are a matter of different languages and interpretations of the manuscripts,” the 63-year-old retired ironworker said in his written comments to The Epoch Times.
When reading the article, Campbell had flashbacks of the Shen Yun shows, which introduced Falun Gong’s philosophies and traditional Chinese culture. He said he became sure that the religious aspect or the spiritual dimension of Shen Yun made the show unique and kept drawing him back repeatedly.
