Communist youth group in China releases propaganda video to advocate atheism

China's Communist Youth League has recently released an 11-minute video that says it was the people, not God, who saved the world.

The video titled "What If Atheism Is a Religion?" was published earlier this month on the Chinese social media website Weibo, according to The Diplomat. It is different from traditional communist propaganda videos because it features satire and Japanese-style comics in order to attract young viewers.

The conversations in the video include questions, such as "If atheism is a religion, who will be the icons?" and "Who saved the world, God or the people?"

In the video, an atheist "pastor" answers the second question by discussing the achievements of philosophers and scientists, such as Galileo Galilei, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and others.

As an example, the atheist cited Willis Carrier, who invented the modern air conditioner, saying he "saved the world from ending up in hot hell."

The video also features atheists participating in daily activities such as reciting the physical laws, singing the song of the periodic table of elements, and praying to "the almighty self."

In another part of the video, the young man asks the pastor: "Other religions always curse us atheists to go to various hells. Now since we atheists also have formed a religion, shall we curse them back?"

"Our atheist religion is only a joke in the video, but we atheists will never curse anyone, despite other religious people holding prejudice against us in reality," the pastor replied.

The Diplomat noted that the response to the video has been mostly positive, although it is not known whether negative feedback has been deleted.

The video ended on a more serious note, encouraging some prominent professors from Chinese top-ranked universities, media workers, and online opinion leaders to declare their atheism.

It also quoted part of China's Constitution which states: "No state organ, public organization, or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion."

According to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, more than half of China's population of nearly 1.4 billion is unaffiliated with any religion or belief.

The advocacy group International Christian Concern, which reports on religious persecution in China, maintained that the popularity of the video does not indicate that atheism is on the rise in China. The organization noted that Christianity continues to grow at exponential rates in the Communist country and that there are now more believers than ever.

ICC suggested that the video could be a sign that the Communist Party is losing its battle against religion, and it is trying out a different tactic to counteract Christianity's growth.