martin willett

Why do we still assume that churches collecting money with the express
aim of spreading Christianity among the "less developed" people are
being "charitable" and are deserving of special status? Are these
people asking to be taught about baby Jesus and sin? Wouldn't they
prefer to learn to read and write their local languages, mathematics,
science and engineering rather than foreign theology?

"What did you learn in the white-man's school? How to make a truck?
How to fly a helicopter? How to build a ship? How to grow the white
man's crops? Did they tell you the things we could trade with them?"

"I'm not sure, some songs about some man nailed to a cross. Perhaps
the good stuff comes later? Nothing of any use so far."

Why do we continue to allow religious people to call their missionary
work charitable? The reality is that it is simply indoctrination. If
the material they were passing on was propaganda of a political nature
their work would be treated very differently. How much spare change
would be contributed to a box marked "For spreading communist ideas in
underdeveloped countries"? What is the difference? There are people
who do good work overseas, who help people to be part of the modern
world, and there are missionaries who help to make people feel they
are sinners and permanently inferior to the people in the west.

Indoctrination of children is not a charitable act. It is a policy of
systematic denigration of their culture and beliefs and the
force-feeding of Christian ideology. It is un-called for. How many
times have native tribes asked to be taught about baby Jesus and the
white-man's superstitions? What they really want to know is how to
have an advanced material culture, trade, medicine and engineering.
What they get is happy-clappy Jesus freaks telling them they are
sinners and are going to fry in hell unless they believe the white
man's voodoo. They go along with it and listen to the religion because
they can see how it works, the white man isn't going to teach them
anything useful until they sing about the man on the cross.

If you were an Amazonian Indian in the Brazilian rain-forest in a loin
cloth what would you want charitably funded teachers to teach you? How
to read and write Portuguese, how to read and write your own language,
mathematics, chemistry, biology and physics or how much Jesus loves
you and why your tribe are evil heathens?
--
Martin Willett

http://mwillett.org/

steveol

And why are YOU proselytizing your Atheist beliefs (which you profess on
your web site) on a Lutheran BBS?????