Missionaries should be banned

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you guys don’t believe in freedom of speech?
I’m an atheist but I don’t understand why you would favor banning speech.

Going to other countries, using your money and power to exploit people is not Free Speech.

Trying to convert people to your religion is the very definition of free speech. And, like all free speech that needs protection, many people don’t like it. And, like all free speech that needs protection because people don’t like it, the problem with banning it is that it is a slippery slope to banning more speech.

we don't allow religious "free speech" even in America, in the schools or by our government. And since religion is declining in American and Western countries, the missionaries have to prey on the poor countries of the world for converts because people just aren't buying it here.

This is irrelevant, because it is not the government who are the missionaries. Everything the missionaries do elsewhere, they can (and do) do it here as well.

That's completely false. You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment. We have restrictions, thank goodness, on the extent of activities the religious people can practice.

Actually, case after case have held that free religious speech does not stop at the doors of public schools or other government buildings.

Really? Name one. And don't cite after school clubs -- that's different.

Different? How? Because they disprove your assertion. Sorry. The statement “You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment” is absolutely false and displays a profound ignorance of first amendment history and jurisprudence.

Then go ahead and cite me a federal case, Sup. Ct. or Circuit Court would be good. And after school clubs are not proselytizing - because there is no excessive entanglement between religion and school officials. I repeat, you cannot proselytize in public schools -- give me one federal case that says you can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have never met a Muslim proselytizer. Have you?

The Saudis are essentially proselytizing just the same as Christian missionaries. Places like Pakistan didn't use to be so conservative. Saudis poured money into "schools" and "education" (with an agenda), and effed the culture up.

All missionaries and proselytizers of all religions are horrible, horrible people.

Very true.

For the whiny PP, most people who post on here are from areas where Christianity is the dominant religion. We don’t come across Muslim proselytizers much here. We are just drawing upon our personal experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have never met a Muslim proselytizer. Have you?

The Saudis are essentially proselytizing just the same as Christian missionaries. Places like Pakistan didn't use to be so conservative. Saudis poured money into "schools" and "education" (with an agenda), and effed the culture up.

All missionaries and proselytizers of all religions are horrible, horrible people.

Each and every one? Without exception?

Wow. I thought only God was all knowing, but here you are judging the hearts and lives of millions of people you’ve never met.

Oh I'm totally judging missionaries and proselytizers of all religions. You can't *not* be an arrogant, selfish jerk and try to change societies because YOU think it's right and they're going to be "saved" by you. They're awful. All of them. Unless it is 1000% truly humanitarian, without religion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you guys don’t believe in freedom of speech?
I’m an atheist but I don’t understand why you would favor banning speech.

Going to other countries, using your money and power to exploit people is not Free Speech.

Trying to convert people to your religion is the very definition of free speech. And, like all free speech that needs protection, many people don’t like it. And, like all free speech that needs protection because people don’t like it, the problem with banning it is that it is a slippery slope to banning more speech.

we don't allow religious "free speech" even in America, in the schools or by our government. And since religion is declining in American and Western countries, the missionaries have to prey on the poor countries of the world for converts because people just aren't buying it here.

This is irrelevant, because it is not the government who are the missionaries. Everything the missionaries do elsewhere, they can (and do) do it here as well.

That's completely false. You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment. We have restrictions, thank goodness, on the extent of activities the religious people can practice.

Actually, case after case have held that free religious speech does not stop at the doors of public schools or other government buildings.

Really? Name one. And don't cite after school clubs -- that's different.

Different? How? Because they disprove your assertion. Sorry. The statement “You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment” is absolutely false and displays a profound ignorance of first amendment history and jurisprudence.

Bullsh*t, I'm very familiar with this area of the law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see, it’s evil, hateful, wrong, exploitative and every other badness for people to travel to share what they believe is good news, but it’s perfectly OK for you to denounce and defame generations of people from countless denominations because you disagree with them.

IME, people are most often threatened by a message that makes them suspect that what they insist they believe is not true, so they get aggressively defensive. When people think what they’re being told is silly, they more often ignore and/or laugh it off.

When the missionaries leave, should they take their schools, colleges, hospitals, water programs and everything else they brought with them?

Do the missionaries understand how un-Christlike their conditional so-called charity actually is? What would Jesus think of: Love thy neighbor as thy self — as long as you can first force thy neighbors to celebrate every twisted conditions that have been attached to this mockery of “Love”?

I’m sorry, but the cartoonish, caricature you paint really bears no resemblance to reality. Even in the 1500’s, the goal of Jesuit missionaries in Asia was to alleviate corporal suffering as well as to offer people the tools to (as the Jesuits saw it) attain eternal life. The letters of St. Francis Xavier are replete with examples of this. I don’t know where you got this idea of “conditional” charity; I’ve spent a ton of time around missionaries spanning nearly three decades and I’ve never once encountered anything like that.

? if they're not spreading the word they're not "missionaries." What you're describing as helping people can be done by any secular charitable organization. The difference is that along with the missionaries' help comes a sermon and efforts to convert them to a particular religion.

That is simply not true. Mission work is an example of love in action. People give in love and typically receive love in return. The missionaries I know don’t force a sermon or try to force conversions. What they do is give an example of agape, self giving love. The people they help often receive from them for the first time the respect and dignity due them as human persons. And if you think “secular charitable organizations” don’t have an agenda as powerful as any overdrawn Bible beater caricature dreamed up by any fiction author, well, you’re not doing your homework.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I am from South East Asia and was born into one of the eastern religions. It absolutely enrages me to see western Christians come to third-world countries to convert us, trying to destroy our local practices, languages because they think they know better than us. The absolute disdain they have towards us brown people is disgusting. I think they should just be banned by all governments. Want to do humanitarian work - enroll with non-religious AID organizations. Keep your bible and your prejudice to yourself.

Most people who agree to get "converted" in this way merely graft their existing religions and beliefs onto Christianity, and take the food, the dental care etc, but go ahead and believe what they want. For all the money they spend, I don't think the missionaries are very successful.

Many missionaries, particularly in the current age, make no effort to make converts beyond their own example of a life well lived. In one major Asian country, for example, all the “best” schools are Christian. They are in high demand. Students of the predominant (pagan) religion come and are educated. Most of them stay the religion they were. But their lives are changed for the better, and they in turn better the society.

The best schools are Christian because there is so much meddling of the church and state (and concomittantly $$$). Some Koreans I know see this as a profound problem and wish for more separation of their government and church, so "their lives and society are changed for the better" is just your opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you guys don’t believe in freedom of speech?
I’m an atheist but I don’t understand why you would favor banning speech.

Going to other countries, using your money and power to exploit people is not Free Speech.

Trying to convert people to your religion is the very definition of free speech. And, like all free speech that needs protection, many people don’t like it. And, like all free speech that needs protection because people don’t like it, the problem with banning it is that it is a slippery slope to banning more speech.

we don't allow religious "free speech" even in America, in the schools or by our government. And since religion is declining in American and Western countries, the missionaries have to prey on the poor countries of the world for converts because people just aren't buying it here.

This is irrelevant, because it is not the government who are the missionaries. Everything the missionaries do elsewhere, they can (and do) do it here as well.

That's completely false. You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment. We have restrictions, thank goodness, on the extent of activities the religious people can practice.

Actually, case after case have held that free religious speech does not stop at the doors of public schools or other government buildings.

Really? Name one. And don't cite after school clubs -- that's different.

Different? How? Because they disprove your assertion. Sorry. The statement “You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment” is absolutely false and displays a profound ignorance of first amendment history and jurisprudence.

Bullsh*t, I'm very familiar with this area of the law.

And so confident that you feel compelled to add weasel word evasions to your claim, and become personally profane and abusive when challenged. Last time I looked, club activities in schools were “in schools” and people advancing religious arguments before legislatures were doing so “in the halls of government.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you guys don’t believe in freedom of speech?
I’m an atheist but I don’t understand why you would favor banning speech.

Going to other countries, using your money and power to exploit people is not Free Speech.

Trying to convert people to your religion is the very definition of free speech. And, like all free speech that needs protection, many people don’t like it. And, like all free speech that needs protection because people don’t like it, the problem with banning it is that it is a slippery slope to banning more speech.

+1000

The Antebellum South was full of language like this about Abolitionists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I am from South East Asia and was born into one of the eastern religions. It absolutely enrages me to see western Christians come to third-world countries to convert us, trying to destroy our local practices, languages because they think they know better than us. The absolute disdain they have towards us brown people is disgusting. I think they should just be banned by all governments. Want to do humanitarian work - enroll with non-religious AID organizations. Keep your bible and your prejudice to yourself.

Most people who agree to get "converted" in this way merely graft their existing religions and beliefs onto Christianity, and take the food, the dental care etc, but go ahead and believe what they want. For all the money they spend, I don't think the missionaries are very successful.

Many missionaries, particularly in the current age, make no effort to make converts beyond their own example of a life well lived. In one major Asian country, for example, all the “best” schools are Christian. They are in high demand. Students of the predominant (pagan) religion come and are educated. Most of them stay the religion they were. But their lives are changed for the better, and they in turn better the society.

The best schools are Christian because there is so much meddling of the church and state (and concomittantly $$$). Some Koreans I know see this as a profound problem and wish for more separation of their government and church, so "their lives and society are changed for the better" is just your opinion.

Actually, I’m the country I’m thinking of, Christians are a very tiny minority, with no power (or personnel) for much meddling.

The characterization of something as “just your opinion” is perhaps the single most vacuous intellectual artifact to emerge from the relativist intrusions into the US educational system, long bereft of any semblance of actual logical or philosophical training. That said, I think it is fairly clear that a society where missionaries have laid the educational groundwork for colleges and universities; the training of engineers, physicians and other professionals; and the example of actions motivated by altruism and charity rather than clan or tribe, is objectively far better off than if that had not happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you guys don’t believe in freedom of speech?
I’m an atheist but I don’t understand why you would favor banning speech.

Going to other countries, using your money and power to exploit people is not Free Speech.

Trying to convert people to your religion is the very definition of free speech. And, like all free speech that needs protection, many people don’t like it. And, like all free speech that needs protection because people don’t like it, the problem with banning it is that it is a slippery slope to banning more speech.

we don't allow religious "free speech" even in America, in the schools or by our government. And since religion is declining in American and Western countries, the missionaries have to prey on the poor countries of the world for converts because people just aren't buying it here.

This is irrelevant, because it is not the government who are the missionaries. Everything the missionaries do elsewhere, they can (and do) do it here as well.

That's completely false. You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment. We have restrictions, thank goodness, on the extent of activities the religious people can practice.

Actually, case after case have held that free religious speech does not stop at the doors of public schools or other government buildings.

Really? Name one. And don't cite after school clubs -- that's different.

Different? How? Because they disprove your assertion. Sorry. The statement “You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment” is absolutely false and displays a profound ignorance of first amendment history and jurisprudence.

Bullsh*t, I'm very familiar with this area of the law.

And so confident that you feel compelled to add weasel word evasions to your claim, and become personally profane and abusive when challenged. Last time I looked, club activities in schools were “in schools” and people advancing religious arguments before legislatures were doing so “in the halls of government.”

We're talking about proselytizing here, go ahead and give me a case. After school clubs are allowed because to deny them and allow others type of clubs would be discriminatory. But the school cannot get involved with endorsing religion. Nor can government.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you guys don’t believe in freedom of speech?
I’m an atheist but I don’t understand why you would favor banning speech.

Going to other countries, using your money and power to exploit people is not Free Speech.

Trying to convert people to your religion is the very definition of free speech. And, like all free speech that needs protection, many people don’t like it. And, like all free speech that needs protection because people don’t like it, the problem with banning it is that it is a slippery slope to banning more speech.

we don't allow religious "free speech" even in America, in the schools or by our government. And since religion is declining in American and Western countries, the missionaries have to prey on the poor countries of the world for converts because people just aren't buying it here.

This is irrelevant, because it is not the government who are the missionaries. Everything the missionaries do elsewhere, they can (and do) do it here as well.

That's completely false. You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment. We have restrictions, thank goodness, on the extent of activities the religious people can practice.

Actually, case after case have held that free religious speech does not stop at the doors of public schools or other government buildings.

Really? Name one. And don't cite after school clubs -- that's different.

Different? How? Because they disprove your assertion. Sorry. The statement “You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment” is absolutely false and displays a profound ignorance of first amendment history and jurisprudence.

Bullsh*t, I'm very familiar with this area of the law.

And so confident that you feel compelled to add weasel word evasions to your claim, and become personally profane and abusive when challenged. Last time I looked, club activities in schools were “in schools” and people advancing religious arguments before legislatures were doing so “in the halls of government.”

We're talking about proselytizing here, go ahead and give me a case. After school clubs are allowed because to deny them and allow others type of clubs would be discriminatory. But the school cannot get involved with endorsing religion. Nor can government.

And that is precisely the opposite of the entirely different statement I responded to. Thank you for clearing things up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see, it’s evil, hateful, wrong, exploitative and every other badness for people to travel to share what they believe is good news, but it’s perfectly OK for you to denounce and defame generations of people from countless denominations because you disagree with them.

IME, people are most often threatened by a message that makes them suspect that what they insist they believe is not true, so they get aggressively defensive. When people think what they’re being told is silly, they more often ignore and/or laugh it off.

When the missionaries leave, should they take their schools, colleges, hospitals, water programs and everything else they brought with them?

Do the missionaries understand how un-Christlike their conditional so-called charity actually is? What would Jesus think of: Love thy neighbor as thy self — as long as you can first force thy neighbors to celebrate every twisted conditions that have been attached to this mockery of “Love”?

I’m sorry, but the cartoonish, caricature you paint really bears no resemblance to reality. Even in the 1500’s, the goal of Jesuit missionaries in Asia was to alleviate corporal suffering as well as to offer people the tools to (as the Jesuits saw it) attain eternal life. The letters of St. Francis Xavier are replete with examples of this. I don’t know where you got this idea of “conditional” charity; I’ve spent a ton of time around missionaries spanning nearly three decades and I’ve never once encountered anything like that.

? if they're not spreading the word they're not "missionaries." What you're describing as helping people can be done by any secular charitable organization. The difference is that along with the missionaries' help comes a sermon and efforts to convert them to a particular religion.

That is simply not true. Mission work is an example of love in action. People give in love and typically receive love in return. The missionaries I know don’t force a sermon or try to force conversions. What they do is give an example of agape, self giving love. The people they help often receive from them for the first time the respect and dignity due them as human persons. And if you think “secular charitable organizations” don’t have an agenda as powerful as any overdrawn Bible beater caricature dreamed up by any fiction author, well, you’re not doing your homework.

So missionaries are just spreading love? Well, that should make OP feel better, see she thought they came to third-world countries to convert the people and destroy their local practices and languages because they think they know better than those folks. But you're saying that's really not the case, they're just spreading love. O.K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you guys don’t believe in freedom of speech?
I’m an atheist but I don’t understand why you would favor banning speech.

Going to other countries, using your money and power to exploit people is not Free Speech.

Trying to convert people to your religion is the very definition of free speech. And, like all free speech that needs protection, many people don’t like it. And, like all free speech that needs protection because people don’t like it, the problem with banning it is that it is a slippery slope to banning more speech.

we don't allow religious "free speech" even in America, in the schools or by our government. And since religion is declining in American and Western countries, the missionaries have to prey on the poor countries of the world for converts because people just aren't buying it here.

This is irrelevant, because it is not the government who are the missionaries. Everything the missionaries do elsewhere, they can (and do) do it here as well.

That's completely false. You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment. We have restrictions, thank goodness, on the extent of activities the religious people can practice.

Actually, case after case have held that free religious speech does not stop at the doors of public schools or other government buildings.

Really? Name one. And don't cite after school clubs -- that's different.

Different? How? Because they disprove your assertion. Sorry. The statement “You cannot proselytize in the public schools, or in the halls of government. It's prohibited by the first amendment” is absolutely false and displays a profound ignorance of first amendment history and jurisprudence.

Bullsh*t, I'm very familiar with this area of the law.

And so confident that you feel compelled to add weasel word evasions to your claim, and become personally profane and abusive when challenged. Last time I looked, club activities in schools were “in schools” and people advancing religious arguments before legislatures were doing so “in the halls of government.”

We're talking about proselytizing here, go ahead and give me a case. After school clubs are allowed because to deny them and allow others type of clubs would be discriminatory. But the school cannot get involved with endorsing religion. Nor can government.

Schools and the government cannot, but students aren't either of those things. Here's a case for you to read: Westfield High School L.I.F.E. Club v. City of Westfield, it involves a "club" but the proselytizing happened during school hours.

-DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see, it’s evil, hateful, wrong, exploitative and every other badness for people to travel to share what they believe is good news, but it’s perfectly OK for you to denounce and defame generations of people from countless denominations because you disagree with them.

IME, people are most often threatened by a message that makes them suspect that what they insist they believe is not true, so they get aggressively defensive. When people think what they’re being told is silly, they more often ignore and/or laugh it off.

When the missionaries leave, should they take their schools, colleges, hospitals, water programs and everything else they brought with them?

Do the missionaries understand how un-Christlike their conditional so-called charity actually is? What would Jesus think of: Love thy neighbor as thy self — as long as you can first force thy neighbors to celebrate every twisted conditions that have been attached to this mockery of “Love”?

I’m sorry, but the cartoonish, caricature you paint really bears no resemblance to reality. Even in the 1500’s, the goal of Jesuit missionaries in Asia was to alleviate corporal suffering as well as to offer people the tools to (as the Jesuits saw it) attain eternal life. The letters of St. Francis Xavier are replete with examples of this. I don’t know where you got this idea of “conditional” charity; I’ve spent a ton of time around missionaries spanning nearly three decades and I’ve never once encountered anything like that.

? if they're not spreading the word they're not "missionaries." What you're describing as helping people can be done by any secular charitable organization. The difference is that along with the missionaries' help comes a sermon and efforts to convert them to a particular religion.

That is simply not true. Mission work is an example of love in action. People give in love and typically receive love in return. The missionaries I know don’t force a sermon or try to force conversions. What they do is give an example of agape, self giving love. The people they help often receive from them for the first time the respect and dignity due them as human persons. And if you think “secular charitable organizations” don’t have an agenda as powerful as any overdrawn Bible beater caricature dreamed up by any fiction author, well, you’re not doing your homework.

So missionaries are just spreading love? Well, that should make OP feel better, see she thought they came to third-world countries to convert the people and destroy their local practices and languages because they think they know better than those folks. But you're saying that's really not the case, they're just spreading love. O.K.

Those are the missionaries I have experience with. They do what they do because of their religious beliefs but nothing they provide is contingent. I’m sorry if that doesn’t comport with your preconceived notions.

The problem with the OP’s assertion is that it demands the existence of a nebulous “they,” entirely alike in motive and behavior, across decades or centuries, if not millennia. There is no such “they.” Missioners are people. People’s motives vary and not infrequently change over time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see, it’s evil, hateful, wrong, exploitative and every other badness for people to travel to share what they believe is good news, but it’s perfectly OK for you to denounce and defame generations of people from countless denominations because you disagree with them.

IME, people are most often threatened by a message that makes them suspect that what they insist they believe is not true, so they get aggressively defensive. When people think what they’re being told is silly, they more often ignore and/or laugh it off.

When the missionaries leave, should they take their schools, colleges, hospitals, water programs and everything else they brought with them?

Do the missionaries understand how un-Christlike their conditional so-called charity actually is? What would Jesus think of: Love thy neighbor as thy self — as long as you can first force thy neighbors to celebrate every twisted conditions that have been attached to this mockery of “Love”?

I’m sorry, but the cartoonish, caricature you paint really bears no resemblance to reality. Even in the 1500’s, the goal of Jesuit missionaries in Asia was to alleviate corporal suffering as well as to offer people the tools to (as the Jesuits saw it) attain eternal life. The letters of St. Francis Xavier are replete with examples of this. I don’t know where you got this idea of “conditional” charity; I’ve spent a ton of time around missionaries spanning nearly three decades and I’ve never once encountered anything like that.

? if they're not spreading the word they're not "missionaries." What you're describing as helping people can be done by any secular charitable organization. The difference is that along with the missionaries' help comes a sermon and efforts to convert them to a particular religion.

That is simply not true. Mission work is an example of love in action. People give in love and typically receive love in return. The missionaries I know don’t force a sermon or try to force conversions. What they do is give an example of agape, self giving love. The people they help often receive from them for the first time the respect and dignity due them as human persons. And if you think “secular charitable organizations” don’t have an agenda as powerful as any overdrawn Bible beater caricature dreamed up by any fiction author, well, you’re not doing your homework.

So missionaries are just spreading love? Well, that should make OP feel better, see she thought they came to third-world countries to convert the people and destroy their local practices and languages because they think they know better than those folks. But you're saying that's really not the case, they're just spreading love. O.K.

Those are the missionaries I have experience with. They do what they do because of their religious beliefs but nothing they provide is contingent. I’m sorry if that doesn’t comport with your preconceived notions.

The problem with the OP’s assertion is that it demands the existence of a nebulous “they,” entirely alike in motive and behavior, across decades or centuries, if not millennia. There is no such “they.” Missioners are people. People’s motives vary and not infrequently change over time.

wait. you are talking about missionaries affiliated with particular religious organization, right? Like the Mormons or a specific church?