If you don’t get this, we can’t talk

@Gloomy Sorry, immature of me to downvote your opinion, removed.

I would agree in the sense of unethical activities such as "Watch this Gospel presentation and then we'll give you food" but lots of missionaries give selflessly, following God's actual examples.

If someone agrees with the missionaries and their community rejects them, it is the communities intolerance that is it at fault.

If your parents were Christian and a friend told you about atheism and you agreed, and you came out as Atheist to your parents and they rejected you, it would be your parents fault for being intolerant not you or your friends'.

Would a Nigerian Yoruba missionary preaching to an unreached tribe in Nigeria be colonialism?

@BritishFailedAesthetic
Yes I consider the mere notion of having to convert someone to a different religion than they already adhere to perverse and when it comes to missionairies if they were truly only interested in helping others they would not go somewhere with this label and sponsored by churches.

@Gloomy
The thing is believing in the gospel is essential for eternal salvation (With the exception of babies, children and adults born with a condition that will give them a low mental age who will get eternal salvation regardless on death) everything pales in comparison in it's importance. What is eternity in comparison to say 70-100 years (if we're lucky)

@Gloomy For someone as much into trying to bring more info and nuance to the discussion to utter this


is pretty surprising. The universal affirmative is typically only true for defined characteristics.

@SomeMichGuy I base this on the definition of Missionary
and on the historic context. I stand by it because I consider the notion of having to convert someone by force and/or by exploitation or even by persuasion in non mutual discussions despicable.

@BritishFailedAesthetic
There you claim absolute truth and knowledge you do not possess and in the process diminish the worth of other spiritual beliefs.
Not everyone beliefs in salvation and many consider the prospect of eternal life a nightmare or have different believes on what is going to happen after death.

@Gloomy Well, this is where the beliefs go into the mystical realm. The experience of realising that I was not worthy of heaven and that Christ was my only hope cannot be quantified.

I'm sure you told me you were not American (my memory could be wrong) but if so you of all people then should know we're not all like this 🤪:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP3YHKghs_4

@Gloomy

[/quote]

No, you don't. Instead of using the denotation, the dictionary definition you present, and a full understanding of the historical context, you actually base it on the additional connotations which you throw in as an additional assumption:


I agree that conversion by force or exploitation is despicable.

Persuasion, well, that's different; if it's persuasion via argument, it seems you'd have to assume "mutual discussion" was available, without any proof otherwise. I'd think you'd welcome discussion over coercion...

@SomeMichGuy Just the fact that someone is specifically send to a different country in order to, often by aiding vulnerable people in need, convert people is reason enough for me to find it repulsive. You grasp at straws here to defend a reprehensible practice. Especially when thinking that missionairies are often backed by money and influence in these cases there are power imbalances at play.
How and more importantly why do you defend missionairies?

@Gloomy

No. I answered *your* claims.
And you DO bring in *selective* historical context/connotations as suits you.

Has missionary work been misused? Yes.

But again you don't grasp the logical error of assuming that ALL missionary work is of that same level (the fallacy of composition).

Missionary work generally is built upon trying to help one's "neighbor"--in the sense of the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37)--in the context of the "Great Commission" (Matthew 28:19-20, though v. 16 is the beginning of this section).

The Peace Corps is essentially missionaries of America. They do good works for neighbors in need, and it reflects well on us.


When people go into some area of destitute people, they often have raised money for their support, and of course they have more than those they help.

Do you condemn the simple charity of people with more giving out of the urging of their hearts to those with less?

As to power...I have been aware of missionaries with stronger connections (Mormons) and those with no "power".
It seems you are anachronistically translating governments using, e.g., the Roman Church, to try to gain territory overseas to *all* missionaries, which is both a compositional and temporal problem.

I have known/known of missionaries with little money and no power.

@SomeMichGuy This thread is about missionairies in Africa and

I don't condemn charity but in the context of christianity I find it to lose all value and charity is basically just a lazy fix to systemic issues.

@Gloomy Charity is a reasonable response to a broken system.

Would you have me smile and shake my head and say to a starving person, "Gosh, I hope this broken system gets fixed so you can get help!"? OR...get him a meal, give to a food charity, and try to save my neighbor's life?

Re: This thread
YOU are the one who said this:


There is no qualification of "African" there, but, if you must know, one of the missionary families which I *do* know *was* in Africa! lol They didn't fit your predetermined model, but it's clear that you regularly create arguments which fail on composition.

You are vociferous, opinionated, and as wrong with your own mission as the specific historical missionaries whom you despise. smh

@SomeMichGuy Well to be more specific I hate christians that try to impose their religion unto others and the definition I use is the go to definition of missionaries.
I just think being charitable because an old book tells me to while using the same book to justify hatred does not show good character.

@Gloomy lmao

1) You should hate anyone trying to impose their religion on others.

Presenting and demonstrating is not imposition.

2) The DEFINITION you gave is reasonable. Your adding in of NON-denotational aspects, and esp. assuming that ALL missionaries MUST be like SOME very sad/horrific examples is anachronistic, an error of composition, and manifestly unfair.

3)
Agreed.

The misuse of texts, sacred and otherwise, is, sadly, quite common.

The current "religious Right"/(large?) segment of "evangelical" "Christians" love to condemn/hate in direct denial of the teachings of the founder of their belief/interpretation system, Jesus.

If one's heart does not have enough of "the milk of human kindness" to allow one to act out of empathy for/sympathy with others...that's also sad.

@Gloomy correct, priests traveled with explorers for a reason.

@SW-User I'm sure not always....

@BritishFailedAesthetic The Spanish in the Americas certainly did.
The reason we don’t have the Mayan Codices is because of a power hungry Franciscan .

The story of Marquet and Joliet in American history,
Marquet was a Jesuit priest.
The Catholic Church has always been in the real estate business.

@Gloomy You call people trash that give their entire lives to help others by feeding them, building houses, and teaching their kids to read? Wow I think you don't know firsthand what most missionaries do!

@Carazaa Yes I do call them trash even though they do all these things they exploit the vulnerable state of the people to convert them to their faith. The rotten nature of Mother Theresa is a good example of how this may be presented nicely but is horrible in reality.

@Gloomy Again, the fallacy of composition.

Do you not understand how the universal affirmative FAILS unless its a simple part of a definition?

All modern people are H. sapiens.
-- trivially true

All people are cannibals.
-- you figure it out

@SomeMichGuy You still struggle with the definition of missionaries being christians that go to a foreign country to help and spread their religion. This is reprehensible.

@Gloomy You don't understand either logic or the scope of your examples.

I know specific, modern counterexamples which destroy your universal affirmative.

Q.E.D.

@SomeMichGuy please name some and even if these missionaires are absolute do-gooders I wouldn't care.

@Gloomy Then you might as well be a Trump supporter, if facts mean nothing to you.

But I personally know

• a couple who were missionaries in the Philippines,
• a guy who was a missionary to Mexico,
• a family who were missionaries in southern Africa,
• many people who did service work through the Applachian Service Project, a mission to the poorest counties in the US...and I was on two of these.

The latter was not coercive; we raised money for materials and our food/gas, went to people who were very impoverished, and improved their homes for free. Re-roofing, adding rooms, fixing porches, doors, etc. No expectation of any attendance, any thanks, etc.

Just helping to give people a fraction of that with which I've blessed. For zero pay, poor food, horribly hot/buggy conditions (in Campton, KY).

So you can sit and judge but I have given bits of my life to try to help others for no reason other than my beliefs and my desire to help others have some better conditions in which to live.

I was there. You weren't. You know nothing about this, or about the *full* spectrum of humanity, incl. the spectrum of missionary work.

@SomeMichGuy
For bringing politics into our faith, a penalty: