Amazon tribe sighting raises dilemma of contact

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That sounds to me like hogwash.

Even if it weren't, it is still an example of the misuse of inductive logic, i.e. an overgeneralization as well as a claim that a practice has any debitional relevance.

Wow. And non-christians are the ones that are bigoted?


At least those of us that aren't christian have found ways of asking people about their faith and seeing if they are open to a discussion about another one without being intrusive and pushy.

I think you're confusing cowardice with good sense.

Instead of "hey, would you like to hear about god and go to church and get saved???? "
Those of us that are of other faiths listen to what other people are actually saying and seeing if the person is open to discussing their religious beliefs. Some people aren't, you know.

It is possible to share your faith without being like that. (that being without being pushy or using underhanded missionary moves with a -10 stealth or whatever)

Please go easy on iamnotaparakeet', "Onward Christian Soldiers" is not a metaphor for some Christians. They get marching orders from their Living God's Only Begotten Son. They are commanded to spread the word on pain of loss of paradise and their souls, nomnom_hampster. It is not like they have a choice or anything. Christianity is not a smorgasbord that you can pick and chose only what pleases you, if you pray, you gotta pay and save the world from its self. It's serious business.

Merle

I don't know if your reply was supposed to be serious or not merle, but it made me laugh anyways...

so..

We aren't given a specified method to witness. Besides, what I had already said was:

If they don't want to, then they don't have to. A person only believes what they want to anyway, even if someone tries to force a belief and get them to practice said belief, what they actually believe will still be internal regardless of the external.

Forced conversions are wrong and really don't work, changing a person's mind is more than changing their actions. So, my stance is: if they want to talk, talk while you can. If they don't want to hear, don't bother because it isn't worth it.

I think you are a bit disingenuous at missing the actual point, which is it is not the MESSAGE you are imparting that is the issue, it is the CONTACT WITH THEM that is the issue.

Once the pollution of all the material effluvia brought BY the missionaries, that the missionaries are so entrenched (i.e. Western Civilization) they don't even realize they are polluting the original peoples they contact.

Can you address this? How can they ever remain the same once they have been disturbed in their existence with nosey intrusion?

Merle

Many christians would be better served living their faith than proselytizing to others. How is it loving thy neighbor to expose him or her to fatal diseases, to disrupt their ways of life, all so you (in the general sense) can feel better about yourself and your faith? Bollocks. Cowardice? Perhaps choose your words more carefully next time.


M.

Ramen, Merle. Nicely said.


M.

Until you've been on the receiving end of missionary BS, you can't understand just how bad it really is. As somebody who was born into the Mormon Church, aka Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I have experienced harassment by the holier-than-thous firsthand. The Mormon Church is one of those places that does NOT let you leave without a fight. Using underhanded methods to get people baptized is ok, since all people deserve to know the truth of Joseph Smith's gospel, but once the dupe realizes he's been tricked and tries to jump ship, all the stops are pulled out to keep them in.

Regular visits by annoying 19 year old kids who of course know everything by virtue of being 6th generation Mormon are de rigeur. Sometimes they come en masse-I once got a visit from the president of the Elders Quorum (a young men's church group) with about a half dozen of his lackeys, including a pair of missionaries, and he WOULD NOT LEAVE. Then there were the female missionaries, a rare breed since the proper place for a young Mormon woman is barefoot and pregnant in her husband's kitchen, but when they do get sent out they tend to be the pushiest of all. One thing I DIDN'T get is the cookies and brownies left on doorsteps with equally sugary notes, which by the time they are found are playing host to a variety of insects. The Mormon Church had to lose a lawsuit before they agreed to let members resign, and even then they make it extremely difficult. Visits by the bishop (a priest figure) eager to interrogate you on your sins are not unheard of. I got a couple phone calls.

Now imagine being a member of some remote tribe that's never had contact with white people until evangelical Christian missionaries parachute in with jeeps and laptop computers and promise the goods to the tribe if only they convert. How is the tribe supposed to evaluate this? Look at the cargo cults in the South Pacific, and THEY were spontaneous religious groupings, not from missionaries. For you trekkies out there, think of why Gene Roddenberry wrote the Prime Directive into the show. Remember that show from the original series where a book on the 1920s mob gets left behind on some remote planet, and the natives think the book came from God and thus organize their whole society as a mafia?

The whole thing goes back to some principle of physics, I think it's the Heisenberg principle of uncertainty, where observing something changes its nature so that one cannot know if the observations are accurate. Well, if these tribes aren't protected from people like Parakeet and his fellow holy rollers, then they get irreversibly corrupted. Return to the old ways is therefore impossible. I think that the tribe deserves protection from the holy rollers, instead of needing to be "enlightened" by them.

Look what Islam and Christianity did to Africa. It's a basketcase right now largely because Muslim and Christian missionaries forced their gospels on the locals. Their gods are not real, yet wanton destruction of the environment and entire civilizations are a-ok by them because the whole world needs to be saved lest Jesus show up unexpectedly and the poor savages get thrown into hell for not knowing Jesus. Monotheism is the sickest philosophy ever invented by man, aside from Nazism.

You people must have fascinating presuppositions.

A vague statement without identifiable target or meaning. Please elaborate, as your statement is meaningless without context or direction. I disagree strongly with the idea that 'they don't have to listen if they don't want to' - to broach their existence is to change it irreparably, and to be justified by a mission to spread one flavor of mythology... it just doesn't hold water for me.


Pezar: I am familiar with the issues you describe; the idea of baptizing members in the name of the dead is something I find somewhat offensive, to be honest. But with almost all things... there are good elements within that faith - community, family - there are many practices that I find as overwhelming negatives, the missionary zeal being one of them. At the same time, one can not generalize here... there are some fine people, a good number of friends, who are also Mormon. Such broad strokes do not allow for the actual nature of those involved.


M.

All I can say is that they're lucky to have survive so long within their own tribal community without outside contact, and no-one should interfere with them. They're rightfully entitled to that. Sadly though I feel this discovery of their tribe might soon mean the end of them, I feel sorry for them already.

Last edited by Nexus on 31 May 2008, 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

no suppositions, pre or otherwise. We have just been on the other end of proselytizing. Surely you have heard push back and protests about the methods before this thread!
Or does one just disregard such defences as ignorance of what is best for them from those who know better?


Merle

Some of my in-laws have been missionaries. Semi-assimilated tribes get chosen to witness to the non-assimilated. My wife smirked at this news story and said "It's not only you Americans that don't take crap". If you REALLY want contact with non-assimilated tribes, you will go through semi-assimilated ones first. Even the "uncontacted" tribes have met SOME non-Indians. I don't blame these tribes for being violent. Even with FULL knowledge of the outside world, who would want to be a poverty-ridden underpaid peasant under the authority of a corrupt government?

I think the Amazon Indians can take care of themselves - watch this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdpSbVyejx4[/youtube]

What is that? Well, I'm not blind, but what is the video supposed to be about? It looks like a commercial or something.