Ah, I thought so. Notably, it's often used by jewish people to avoid implying that Christ was in fact the genuine Christ.

And all this time I thought Xianity was a new religion I'd never heard of...

Needless to say, the thread makes a lot more sense now :p

Originally posted by CapNColostomy
As far as your opinion on whether or not they actually help by feeding and clothing people, I fail to see what grounds for debate you have to stand on. Feeding people helps people. Clothing people helps people.

Yes, but what you fail to consider is cultural norms and practices that already exist. For instance, I've a friend that did a recent ethnography in Southern Mexico on an indigneous culture that was subjected to Christian Missionary work. Her findings were that infant mortality rate, as well as maternal death rate increased. As did the rate of medical complications at birth. Significantly.

What did this have to do with the Christian Missionaries? It turns out that these complications and mortality rates were directly correlated to the birth weights of the infants, which increased at comparable rates. The problem with this is that natural selection had already compensated for low birth weight children and the mothers had dropped the alleles for larger pelvic bones in favor of smaller, more narrow ones.

As a result, the necessity for cessarian sections became common place, increasing the cost of health care. Larger birth weight babies increased the cost of food needed to provide nutrition, since the mothers weren't producing enough milk. Bottles were then introduced to provide additional nutrition, which, again, incurred more cost. In addition, bottles & nipples introduced bacteria and viruses that weren't present before or were eliminated by the antibacterial/antiviral properties of the mother's milk.

Now, in that same region, infant/maternal mortality rates are higher; C-sections are commonplace; health care costs are prohibative; nutrition and infant care costs are prohibitive; etc.

All because Christian Missionaries supplied pre-natal vitamins for free.

There are many, many other altruistically intended actions of Christian Missionaries, as well as completely self-serving examples. The introduction of diseases, including (especially?) STDs to indigenous peoples. The encouragement by Christian Missionaries for indigenous to abandon subsistance strategies that have worked for centuries in favor of cash crops, which lead to economic collapse of the culture; the use of missionaries to secure footholds for colonization; the encouragement of missionaries to have indigenous peoples abandon their cultural traditions and "modernize." etc, etc, etc.

Cultural Obliteration

Take these two missionaries (http://www.geocities.com/mdshreve/), for instance. They seem to think that it is there duty to deliver their god's word to those that already have a religion and culture in PNG.

Of the world's 6,809 living languages over half of them still do not have an indigenous translation of God's Word. Thus millions of people are cut off from the Gospel of Jesus Christ by language barriers.

It is the mission of God through the church to lovingly proclaim his message of ultimate grace to people in every language group around the world.

Discipled and sent by Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, our goal is to see local bodies of believers among the Abu people of Papua New Guinea worshiping the Lord in the power of his Spirit with Scriptures in use.

We believe our role in God's mission is to make disciples among the Abu people through vernacular Bible translation, literacy and other teaching ministries.

The only validation these two have that their "word" is superior to the Abu people of PNG is, well.... their "word."

In the mean time, I'm sure the Abu people will gladly trade their primitive religion for one that can supply them with a bag or two of sugar. Bribery will get christians everywhere in countries where commodities are controlled by availability.

Ironically, Shreves (the minister at the link) criticizes the Abu for "not knowing" what happens to a person when they die. At least these primitive Abu are at least occasionally willing to admit when they "don't know" something rather than create a myth then repeat it as fact. Shreves doesn't seem to understand the difference between "knowing" and "believing."

Originally posted by SkinWalker
Yes, but what you fail to consider is cultural norms and practices that already exist. For instance, I've a friend that did a recent ethnography in Southern Mexico on an indigneous culture that was subjected to Christian Missionary work. Her findings were that infant mortality rate, as well as maternal death rate increased. As did the rate of medical complications at birth. Significantly.

What did this have to do with the Christian Missionaries? It turns out that these complications and mortality rates were directly correlated to the birth weights of the infants, which increased at comparable rates. The problem with this is that natural selection had already compensated for low birth weight children and the mothers had dropped the alleles for larger pelvic bones in favor of smaller, more narrow ones.

As a result, the necessity for cessarian sections became common place, increasing the cost of health care. Larger birth weight babies increased the cost of food needed to provide nutrition, since the mothers weren't producing enough milk. Bottles were then introduced to provide additional nutrition, which, again, incurred more cost. In addition, bottles & nipples introduced bacteria and viruses that weren't present before or were eliminated by the antibacterial/antiviral properties of the mother's milk.

Now, in that same region, infant/maternal mortality rates are higher; C-sections are commonplace; health care costs are prohibative; nutrition and infant care costs are prohibitive; etc.

All because Christian Missionaries supplied pre-natal vitamins for free.


what the heck does that have to do with christianity?? deturmining the effects of a new drug into an area is far from a science. i'm sure they had no idea that would happen. if the government had been the ones to issue the free pre-natal vitamins, i highly doubt that you would be so critical.

the point is that some missionaries try to help the local areas solve problems as a demonstration of love. most outreach churches, such as my own, operate in this manner inside our local communities. as i have stated earlier, showing God's love is the most effective method of witnessing. unfortuanately, the vitamins had a negative effect on the population.

apparently, you missed the whole concept of the missionaries providing those vitamins: they were demonstrating God's love. the act itself may have caused a negative result, but the act is still an act of love.

Originally posted by Skinwalker
Cultural Obliteration

Take these two missionaries , for instance. They seem to think that it is there duty to deliver their god's word to those that already have a religion and culture in PNG.

The only validation these two have that their "word" is superior to the Abu people of PNG is, well.... their "word."

In the mean time, I'm sure the Abu people will gladly trade their primitive religion for one that can supply them with a bag or two of sugar. Bribery will get christians everywhere in countries where commodities are controlled by availability.

Ironically, Shreves (the minister at the link) criticizes the Abu for "not knowing" what happens to a person when they die. At least these primitive Abu are at least occasionally willing to admit when they "don't know" something rather than create a myth then repeat it as fact. Shreves doesn't seem to understand the difference between "knowing" and "believing."
first, let me define why giving food is an act of love. no one is forcing us to give people food. this food is funded directly out-of-pocket from several charities and churches (since the church is not a corporation, funds have to come from out of pocket). why would you give someone something simply on the basis of compassion whenever it will cost you big time financially?? the simply answer is that it provides a method of manifesting God's indistinguishing and indiscriminatory love for all of mankind.

giving someone a bag of food in order to reach someone is not neccessarily bribery. the Bible specifically teaches that God provides for his people. thus, whenever someone accepts God through an act of love, they are accepting more than just a temporary solution to a problem.

as for the shreves, they did not create a 'myth'. the bible has been around for thousands of years, thus they could not have created it. your viewpoint on the bible as a myth is nothing more than pure opinion on your part, as is my opinion that God exists and the Bible is his living word. neither one of us can prove that we are correct.

for every religion, they're particular beliefs are truth for them. your arguement is a prime example: your beliefs have been expressed to be superior to that of evangelical christians. all christians should believe that the bible is superior to other religions because the bible is God's word.

and yes, every christian has a duty to reach out to the world: Then he said, "Go into the world. Go everywher and announce the Message of God's good news to one and all." (Mark 16:15)
this is merely obediance to God's word.

oh good, this threads back ;)

clearly ive created a monster

Originally posted by stingerhs
what the heck does that have to do with christianity??

It was Chrisitian missionary work that decided that the people of this province in Mexico were "disadvantaged" and needed prenatals to increase birthweights. These idiots chose to distribute without first doing a study to determine the impact on the population.

Originally posted by stingerhs
deturmining the effects of a new drug into an area is far from a science.

It is precisely a science. A social science; a health science; anthropology; etc.

Originally posted by stingerhs
i'm sure they had no idea that would happen.

Of course they didn't. They acted out of ignorance and ethnocentrism, as is expected from christian missionaries based on the history of their meddling.

Originally posted by stingerhs
if the government had been the ones to issue the free pre-natal vitamins, i highly doubt that you would be so critical.

You would be wrong to make that assumption. I'm critical of idiots of all walks of life, be they religious, governmental, or NGO. I've already been far more critical of the government of Mexico over treatment of indigenous peoples than I have christian missionaries.

Originally posted by stingerhs
apparently, you missed the whole concept of the missionaries providing those vitamins: they were demonstrating God's love. the act itself may have caused a negative result, but the act is still an act of love.

I think that there were probably some people within the missionary organization that thought they were doing the "right thing," but the problem is that they didn't bother to do an impact study. There were probably many doctors who could have predicted the outcome of increased birthweights and there may already have been literature available on the subject. They didn't bother to look.

That's called incompetence, regardless of the motivation. But I find it hard to accept that missionaries, in general, are altruistic. They make investments in social and political capital by doing "good deeds" with peoples that will remember them months or years later when they come calling again, but this time with bibles in hand and ready to rebuke the indigenous worldviews as pagan, heathen, incorrect, etc.

Originally posted by stingerhs
why would you give someone something simply on the basis of compassion whenever it will cost you big time financially??

Social and political capital. Its an investment. I help you and you owe me later. Its a modern potlatch.

Originally posted by stingerhs
the simply answer is that it provides a method of manifesting God's indistinguishing and indiscriminatory love for all of mankind.

Right. "Indistinguishing" and "indiscriminatory."

Originally posted by stingerhs
giving someone a bag of food in order to reach someone is not neccessarily bribery.

Even by your use of the word "necessarily," you concede that bribery is probable.

Originally posted by stingerhs
as for the shreves, they did not create a 'myth'. the bible has been around for thousands of years,

And the worldviews they are attempting to change have been around, in many cases, for thousands of years longer. The bible is only about 4k old max. Current redactions and edits are only 2k old max.

Originally posted by stingerhs
your viewpoint on the bible as a myth is nothing more than pure opinion on your part,

But its an opinion that I can back with fact. I can clearly demonstrate that the bible is mythology and show clearly the epigraphical origins of these myths in other Mesopotamian texts. But the problem is, if I did, you would refuse to acknowledge the facts and the evidence and continue to use your "bible" to give evidence to the veracity of your "bible."

Originally posted by SkinWalker
But its an opinion that I can back with fact. I can clearly demonstrate that the bible is mythology and show clearly the epigraphical origins of these myths in other Mesopotamian texts. But the problem is, if I did, you would refuse to acknowledge the facts and the evidence and continue to use your "bible" to give evidence to the veracity of your "bible."
links to these Mesopotamian texts would clearly help your arguement. even then, i will indeed continue to acknowledge the Bible as God's word. so far, the Bible has been proven to have inconsistancies, not complete falsehoods. if anything has been proven thus far is that the Bible is the only documentation of several events in history, thus is unverifyable, not false.

please consider that we are both operating on our own opinions. clearly, your opinion will not be changed until you see absolute proof that:

God is real
the Bible is fact

thus, we could easily fill this thread with hundreds of posts trying to prove our points. the fact is that i believe that there is a God, the Bible is his word, and that Jesus died for the sins of humanity. call me ignorant if you like, but nothing will change that.

just a note: i am NOT a big fan in how some missionaries do their work. as you have stated, some missionaries fail to do their homework and operate out of pure compassion. to me, that can and has caused some trouble before. that point is conceded.

Originally posted by stingerhs
links to these Mesopotamian texts would clearly help your arguement.

What's that? a link? (http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh/tab11.htm)

This was written around 3000B.C.E., more than 2000 years before Genesis was written.

Originally posted by stingerhs
God's indistinguishing and indiscriminatory love for all of mankind.
unless you're gay, right?

sorry, had to ask.

Originally posted by stingerhs
operate out of pure compassion. or in otherwords, in pure selfishness of spreading their wonderful beliefs without care of consequence.

unless you're gay, right?Note that I'm not rushing to the defence of ACTUAL Christians when I say this, but if one were TRULY Christian, one would love all people equally according to God's edicts, gay people included.

Shame these Christians are so un-christian, innit. :D

Indeed. It amazes me how un-christian these christians truely are.

Yes, in point of fact a slight majority of the self-proclaimed "Christians" in the world, especially the US, are not in fact, christians. They simply don't qualify. They make no effort to follow Christ's teachings, they do what their preachers tell them, that's all they do. They're merely puppets.

Indeed, puppets made of bigotry and foolishness.

thats why i prefer to study the bible for myself and NOT listen to a lot of the bigotry that exists in modern christianity.

come on, some of these guys actually believe that some parts of the bible are false, but believe the rest. hate to break it to them, but I give fair warning to all who hear words of the prophesy of this book: If you add to the words of this prophesy, God will add to your life the disasters written in this book; if you subtract from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will subtract your part from the Tree of Life and the Holy City that are written in this book. (Revalations 22:18-19) then again, they may have decided not to believe that part as well...

and about gay rights: i'm for gay rights. i don't believe that homosexuality is natural, or thus OK to do. however, i do believe that since they don't harm anyone else in what they do, they should be allowed to have equal rights. we do live in a democracy, right??

and this is where I give you my respect. You have your beliefs, and you recognize that others have different beliefs. And are okay with that. You have my respect sir and I tip my hat to you. :)

Originally posted by Spider AL
Yes, in point of fact a slight majority of the self-proclaimed "Christians" in the world, especially the US, are not in fact, christians. They simply don't qualify. They make no effort to follow Christ's teachings, they do what their preachers tell them, that's all they do. They're merely puppets.



Funny how I said something like this on the first page and got my head bitten off...:rolleyes:

What I said:
Ok, here's the deal. I'm a Christian and don't go door to door. I understand that there are probably people who claim to be Christians who do so... in fact, I know for sure they do... what I'm questioning is if they truly are.


The response:
I grow tired of this they're not christian BS. Christianity is about understanding and trying to follow in the path of christ, accepting him as your saviour. When you do that, you are christian. I grow tired of this apologetic BS of "oh they aren't christian, we're not like that we do this, not that"


I suppose this should be expected in a thread like this, but come on, guys. If you're gonna make the same argument as I do, don't slap it down when I make it.

Spider AL, thank you for bringing this argument back...

InsaneSith, you were the one to slap me down, yet you complimented Spider AL.:rolleyes: If you're gonna object to an argument, do it all the time, not just once.

Wildjedi

Originally posted by InsaneSith
and this is where I give you my respect. You have your beliefs, and you recognize that others have different beliefs. And are okay with that. You have my respect sir and I tip my hat to you. :)
exactly. christianity is too full of bigotry and corruption of different forms at this point. fitting things to your own views is otherwise known as a 'spin'. this has been done so much straight from the pulpit that it frightens me sometimes.

i think that this is the source of your views with christians: they take matters into their own hands. you won't agree with me on this one, but if God ain't in it, then something wrong is bound to happen. there's countless examples of this in the bible itself, but yet, they insist on leaning on their own understanding.

in the forementioned example with the missionaries handing out pre-natal vitamins, this is a good example of what happens when christians try to lean on their own understanding (and obviously not a doctor's understanding). what would have been much better would have been for them to build a medical clinic strictly for the use of helping expecting mothers. that would have accomplished something useful, and it would have helped in the long run, possibly for future generations.

that would be my idea of a good way to offer God to the people, not to force it. :D

Originally posted by wildjedi
InsaneSith, you were the one to slap me down, yet you complimented Spider AL.:rolleyes: If you're gonna object to an argument, do it all the time, not just once.

Wildjedi it was how you said it. It came off more as an excuse than a reason.

You hav to put yourself in the Christian's POV. Why would they go door to door trying to convert people?

To tell you the truth, it sounds like a blast. XD Telling people how to live and watching them get angry. I mean honestly I would never do it, but for ****s and giggles it would be awesome. :D

Originally posted by InsaneSith
it was how you said it. It came off more as an excuse than a reason.

An excuse? Excuse for what? Reason for what?

Wildjedi:

When I say "These christians are unchristian" I'm condemning their lack of adherence to Christ's principles. I'm attacking christianity as a group of people, and the church as a bastion of hypocrisy.

When YOU say "people who do bad things aren't real christians" it's an excuse, absolving christianity as a group of people from responsibility for the actions of their members, and absolving the church for its negative influences on its flock.

Thus, my quote was a REASON to dislike christianity as a group of people, and your quote was an EXCUSE for the bad things that christianity as a group has sanctioned. That's all.

I wasn't agreeing with your point, nor ressurecting your argument. Completely different connotations, you see.

Thanks for the explanation. Please remember, though that not all Christians behave this way. Also please take note that I did not say "They're not Christians." I said "They might not be Christians."

I'm sure there are Christians who do these things that irritate you all so much. Let me tell you something. It would irritate me too. It's a person's own decision what religion, if any they want to take. It's wrong to attempt to force it on somebody.

(Now that I've parrotted a couple of things already said in here, I'm going to bed.;) )


Goodnight for now,

Wildjedi