Posted: 9/17/2006 12:24:05 PM EDT
|
Do they screw up cultures more than they help? I watched End Of The Spear last night and couldn't help but think that the tribe that the missionaries "helped" didn't need any help at all. The only thing needed was for the tribe to be left the hell alone. You could compare it to Islamics wanting to convert non-Islamics for their own good. I'm agin it! |
Says the man who's entire LIFE (from the land on which he stands, to the morality of western culture) is a product of Christianity. I think many of you are utterly clueless about how much missionaries have created the culture in which you live. In the next thread, you will of course denounce the Arab/Persian world for being animals... Go figure. Matt |
I don't think you have a very good read on me. 
|
Translation: I like the fact that the police keep other people in line but I want to be able to do anything I want, whenever I want, to anyone I want and get away with it. |
Is that MY fault for misunderstanding your words or is it YOUR fault for presenting yourself (or, at least, what you believe to be yourself) inaccurately? Matt |
Once again, I am faced with a huge problem. Do what Dolanp thinks is best? Or do what the God of the Universe says is best? I believe I will trust in God. 
|
ditto 
|
|
But what about their beliefs? They have a right to worship whatever god/gods they want just as missionaries do. Who decides? Does the first missionary on the scene get to claim the tribe in the name of their religion? The first Jew, the first Hindu, the first Satanist, Christian, Wiccan? Then what? Do they constantly guard the new "posession" against the next do gooder? I don't get it. 
|
I like how you group those three together, like there is no difference.
We are in total agreement on that.
|
|
Most people don't know the story of the Auca indians and the lives of violence, murder, and fear they lived. Their culture and beliefs were wiping them out and daily murders were part of life. You can't believe the fear of evil spirits and darkness. I have met some of these people. You ask those Aucas now who remember what thier lives were before they found God and they bless the day that those guys came to them. patsue |
A statement rooted in stereotypical bigotry and ignorance... you have not one clue what most missionaries in the third world do… which is largely save lives, mostly children’s lives. |
Yeah! Yeah! And let's create an organization to enforce that!!
|
 Another pearl founded in stereotypical bigotry and that is false… please explain why then it was ATHEIST that killed 100-150+ million people in the last century. |
Organized religion is responsible for Western Civilization. I am amazed at how easily people disregard just how important Christianity and her missionaries were to the development of the civilization we have today. You think that, because the '60s occurred without lightning striking down the morons who perpetrated the sexual devolution, God doesn't exist anymore and the last 1900 years were for naught. Get real. There is a HUGE difference between missionaries who convert by corpreal and spiritual works of mercy and "missionaries" who convert others with the business end of a gun. Most Christian missionaries convert by the FIRST method. I challenge you to show me an example in modern times (last couple of hundred years) where they did not. Matt |
When you talk about what can be done - that's possibility or reality When you talk about how it can be done - that's science or technology When you talk about what ought to be done - that's morality By stating that people ought to "mind their own business" and not "spread their moral superiority" you are making a moral judgement. Unless you are advocating a position you consider inferior (an odd position to take) then you are advocating a position of superiority. Therefore, you consider yourself "morally superior" to those who do not "mind their own business." To put it another way, once you posted advocating that others "mind their own business" you were no longer minding your business; you were minding theirs. It's a popular position, but a logically inconsistent one. Editted for grammar |
|
I've been a missionary. I served with Youth For Christ in Inverness, Scotland. My wife was a missionary nurse in Bangladesh. Where she worked in two orphanages, started three clinics. I have other missionary friends around the world. They do an incredible amount of help. Giving people both the physical and spiritual help that they need. As doctors, running orphanages, running air ambulance services. Missionaries are my heroes. They are some of the first people in after major disasters to bring in aid, food, clothing and medicine. OP |
actually, most of Western Civilization is based off of the advancement of our society beyond petty religion controlling our lives. Look at how the Catholic church held back the progress of Europe for over a thousand years, or how Islam has held back advancement in the third world for the entirety of its existence. God never was real, and our attachment to him results in most of the stupidity that goes on in societies today.
You don't have to kill people to fuck up their lives royally; institution of Western values of cultural superiority in Africa("You are Christian, and have the obligation to pass this on to those inferior, godless, heathens") have resulted in the increase in massacres in that continent. |
You don't know a whole lot about the Catholic Church, do you? While they had their head-in-the-sand moments intellectually and scientifically, they did far more than you or any other institution has to bring scientific, philosophical and mathematical knowledge to the world. That part just doesn't get a whole lot of press - which makes you parroting all the funnier.
Is THAT how you think Christians see the world? I don't know who taught you about Christianity, but they did you a massive disservice. Christian missionaries have seen just how much they NEED Christ and KNOW that others NEED Christ as well. They simply want to spread what they see as GOOD NEWS to the rest of the world. Get a clue. Matt |
They have over the course of the past few centuries(thinking Gregor Mendel and other monks), but the Roman church in its first ~1000 years did not do much worth supporting, except perhaps the crusades.
I had a few too many Pat Robertsons as pastors as a kid, and most of the Christian student organizations supporting missionary work among college students just propagate that image in my mind. |
The End of the Spear is a good movie. It was the missionaries who died, not the other way around. There were no forced conversions. The son forgives the guy who killed his missionary father. They actually become friends. It is about redemption and reconcilation. The those missionary families gave their lives or their lifetime to help those people. That tribe appreciates them, and loves them. It doesn't look like Islam at all. What you see in Darfur, Sudan is Islamic forced conversion / genocide. OP |
|
The goal of true missionaries is to live amongst the people and be a shining light of truth by living Christs word. Neither Jesus nor the Apostles beat people into conversion and neither should missionaries. The human soul yearns to be free. Free from oppression, free from sin, free from the earthly weights that hold us down. By living in Christ, we offer relief from our daily struggles and respite from the rigors of sin. Missionaries offer that to people who would otherwise never have been exposed to it. |
That is not true. You set up a strawman and then knocked it over. Missionaries go in and help all they can, and share Christ with whoever will listen, teach those that want it. They don't withhold good unless there is a conversion. Missionaries give, and spend their lives giving. Sometimes it costs them their lives, but they know that going in. The good news is called the good news for a reason. It is a message of love and it needs to be shared in love. I think that one of the best missionaries in our time was Mother Theresa. Even Clinton said of her "How can you argue with a life so well lived." With Mother Theresa, when she died, the Indian government gave her a state funeral. They are not a Christian government, but they recognized the love that she had for their people. It would have been a huge news story, if that hadn't been the same time that Princess Diana died. |
True. The Waodanis had a 60% homicide rate before |
|
So here we are all fighting about why one god's missionaries are better than anothers. Everyone wants to push thier own holy agenda and are suprised when others dont want it, then they fight, just like this thread. The mention that religion is a problem with the world and everyone gets thier panties in a wad. Classic. Kind of like I said before religion is a big root cause of the problems right now, and has been since the begining. 
|
Oh, Enlightened One, please teach us through your wisdom and benevolance. If there is anyone pushing anything, it is you and your kind - the intellectually lazy who would rather lump all religion together than learn the things that make them different. While I respect your right to HAVE an opinion, your opinion in this case is making you look rather foolish. Matt |
So your religion has a right to "pressure" others with your religion but those from other religions don't. That is an interesting thought process you have. If for instance from the begining of recorded time there was no religion to fight over how much would be different now? At least conflicts could be for more "pure" reasons like food, land, the simple things. With religion there is simply the excuse one gods superiority over another when killing others. Is that a reason for wars? Over gods and religions? |
Yet I have no dilemma whatsoever between choosing to think for myself or depending on ancient mystic texts.
|
One might argue such a point if the discussion where limited to what missionaries do outside of preaching, but the OP specifically mentions missionaries and Islamic types in the same post, which indicates to me he is talking about spreading religion. |
Oh, come on. Those texts were hand written by mankind. There is probably no more reliable source of information that that!
|
I don't believe I have ever felt "pressured" by your statements. If you feel "pressured" by a man or woman proclaiming the Gospel to you, it may be the Holy Spirit trying to get your attention. If that makes you uncomfortable, I am sorry for you.
Yes, because the victims of evil men are always concerned with the MOTIVES of those evil men. If not for religion, evil men would find another excuse to fullfill their "urges." But, I suppose I would feel MUCH better if I were to have my skull split open over food or land instead of in the name of some nebulous god... either way, my brains are still laying on the dirt.
That has never EVER been the sole reason for a war. It may have been the PRETENSE of the war, but it is not the actual CAUSE of the war. Do some reading on the theory and history of warfare. Matt |