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Missionaries?

AWPrime

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Sep 26, 2004
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What do you think about missionaries, you know the kind that go to 'godless' countries and try to convert everyone.
 
Imperialism under the pretense of charity and good will. Ideally, a good missionary should not pressure anyone to convert to their religion, that they should attract willing converts through example of Christian virtue, but that never really works. The goal is converts because it is supposedly a part of charity! So you have a very confused idea of a "need" which creates a political foothold. Prostletyzing becomes a necessity, and the flavor of the charity is ruined.
 
I think it's hilarious how the Catholics sent people into Africa to convert the heathens to Catholicism, and then the Protestants sent people to Africa to convert the new Catholics to Protestantism. The ones who stayed animist no doubt enjoyed a good laugh.
 
I think Terry Pratchett said it best (in his Discworld novel Eric):

Interestingly enough, the gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that’s where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go. Which they won’t do if they don’t know about it. This explains why it is important to shoot missionaries on sight.
Click to expand...
 
I know a lot of nice people who go around the country and overseas and do a lot of nice things for people who need the help. They call themselves missionaries, even though they don't spend their time proselytizing. That's why I voted that they are misguided - just considering the type of missionaries I have the most personal experience with.
 
I knew a guy who went as part of an expedition to do "charity work" in Egypt. It was actually a complete front for missionary work, which is not really well-liked in Egypt. At all. The whole thing was funded by the Southern Baptists. Never people to let things like endangering lives and causing international incidents get in the way of spreading the purported words of a dead carpenter.

I asked the guy if he considered the irony of preaching Christianity in a land where the oldest form of Christianity was still practiced. He had never heard of the Copts. And I bet he didn't see a single ruined temple or tomb or pyramid. I bet people just love it when someone shows up and tells them how to live their lives and what God's all about, when he doesn't know thing one about them or their country.
 
I voted for "cockroaches", because it was closest to "Human Embodiment of Evil", which is what I wanted to vote for.

Proseletization is evil.
 
There are a number of evil missionaries.

I've met a lot of nice people that do genuinely go abroad to help (very generously), and keep the aggresive conversionism at a minimum...some even abstain.

I think my opinions of missionaries changed when I learned that Larry Wall (the author of the perl language) was about to devote his life to such work. Perl haters can start their jokes now.

Extending the idea, I know there are a number of luminaries in various fields that are devout Xtians.. I know Donald Knuth is (computer science God who is at Stanford).
 
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