# Idiot missionary gets killed
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [November 21, 2018, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892 "2018-11-21T14:07:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 15
### Author:  [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2018, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/281 "2018-11-30T06:02:24Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#):
>
> John Chau could have been seeking asylum on the island and the POSI (President of Sentinel Island) could have previously closed the borders declaring that no new asylum seekers would be permitted and that all would be killed on sight.
Applause
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2018, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/282 "2018-11-30T06:26:00Z")
There once was a boy from Vancouver
Who recklessly preached : “Hallelujah!
God loves you! I’m John!”
But it’s hard to preach on
With a quiver of arrows stuck through ya.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2018, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/283 "2018-11-30T07:15:22Z")
> [@Wilson](#):
>
> I don’t think the canoes the Sentinelese use now are open seaworthy, but obviously they got to the island somehow in the past…
It may have been a land bridge/shallow water type situation at the time, though…
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2018, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/284 "2018-11-30T07:23:41Z")
> [@Riemann](#):
>
> But the idea that causation is as direct as physical contact ==\> disease? If that’s so natural, why did it take us until almost 1900 to embrace the idea in the West?
We \*had \*the idea that direct contact with certain diseases was bad, just not the causative agent. Witness t[he primitive CBW suit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_doctor_costume)…
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2018, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/285 "2018-11-30T07:34:59Z")
> [@Riemann](#):
>
> There once was a boy from Vancouver
> Who recklessly preached : “Hallelujah!
> God loves you! I’m John!”
> But it’s hard to preach on
> With a quiver of arrows stuck through ya.
Nice!
---
### Author:  [@JB99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JB99)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2018, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/286 "2018-11-30T21:54:01Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> I suspect in their eyes they are practicing foreign policy. So the analogue might be rules of engagement with respect to a hostile force.
Yep. Extreme hostility towards trespassers has been the norm for 99% of all human existence. If anyone is confused by their behavior, remember that it is _WE_ who are the exception. Their motives probably have nothing to do with disease (although in North and South America, the natives figured out pretty quick that white people equaled disease). Rather, the hostility is based on the fact that they live in insecure groups with no state monopoly on power and no external justice system to control them.
It seems strange to us, because we are accustomed to living in a world where there is (A) no scarcity of resources, (B) strong state-sponsored law enforcement, (C) lifestyles that are not tied to land or territory, and (D) foreign enemies separated by continents rather than hilltops. We meet more strangers on a trip to the grocery store than these people might encounter in their entire lives, and for all of these reasons we are accustomed to simply ignoring strangers who mean nothing to us. People who lived / live in traditional societies had / have valid, rational reasons for fearing violence from their neighbors.
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2018, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/287 "2018-11-30T22:24:59Z")
John Chau, idiot missionary, apparently went to idiot missionary boot camp, sponsored by All Nations: “John was one of the best participants in this experience that we have ever had.”
> **[John Chau Aced Missionary Boot Camp. Reality Proved a Harsher Test....](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/world/asia/john-chau-andaman-missionary.html)**
>
> Before being killed on a remote island in the Andaman Sea, Mr. Chau attended a missionary training camp in Kansas.
For those wishing to see the modern face of genocide, here’s the website of All Nations: [https://allnations.us/](https://allnations.us/)
Admittedly, Chau did apparently isolate himself in an apartment for 11 days, to avoid sickness before setting out. I’d like to know what is considered rigorous protocol and whether he practiced it. The local fishermen he hired with certainly didn’t isolate themselves. Now they reside in prison.
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [November 30, 2018, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/288 "2018-11-30T22:34:23Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> For those wishing to see the modern face of genocide, here’s the website of All Nations: [https://allnations.us/](https://allnations.us/)
They describe John Chau as “courageous” - well, maybe.
They also describe him as “humble”. Not so much. Seeking to impose your evidence-free superstitious beliefs on others is the height of arrogance.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2019, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/289 "2019-08-01T03:34:43Z")
[A new _long_ article about Chau](https://www.outsideonline.com/2400030/john-allen-chau-life-death-north-sentinel).
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2019, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/290 "2019-08-01T05:18:17Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> You don’t need to understand germ theory to observe that being around sick people often makes you get the same sickness. We understood the concept well enough to segregate lepers and use plague dead as biological weapons in the middle ages, for example. AIUI, the reason Semmelweiss’ contemporaries rejected his ideas was not that they didn’t believe that being near sick people could pass on sickness, but rather, the idea that a person could pass on a disease without suffering from it themselves. The objection wasn’t, “You can’t get disease from touching people!” it was, “I can’t be giving people diseases - I’m perfectly healthy!”
Also that the idea had been triggered by his observation that midwives’ results were better than those of doctors; midwives did not infect patients, doctors did. Semmelweiss had the gall to say that a bunch of barely-educated women were getting results superior to those of university-educated men, and that in a context in which a lot of the business those men had stemmed from the cultural assumption that they were inherently superior to those women (everybody had access to midwives, not everybody had access to the more-expensive and rarer doctors). The men were so busy being offended that they couldn’t be arsed listen.
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### Author:  [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2019, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/291 "2019-08-01T13:48:45Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> [A new _long_ article about Chau](https://www.outsideonline.com/2400030/john-allen-chau-life-death-north-sentinel).
Interesting article. I hadn’t realized that Chau had been radicalized into fundamentalist evangelical Christianity.
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### Author:  [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2019, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/292 "2019-08-01T19:33:21Z")
Indeed, an interesting article.
I would have liked to ask John whether he’d be willing to give his life for Jesus if he knew he’d go to Hell regardless.
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### Author:  [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2019, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/293 "2019-08-01T22:12:37Z")
Chau was brave the way that Christopher McCandless was brave, in that he did something really stupid for no good reason that anyone with an ounce of sense knows is tantamount to suicide.
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### Author:  [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2019, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/294 "2019-08-02T03:11:44Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#):
>
> Indeed, an interesting article.
>
> I would have liked to ask John whether he’d be willing to give his life for Jesus if he knew he’d go to Hell regardless.
It sounds like the sort of conversation he would have loved to have.
> [@Atamasama](#):
>
> Chau was brave the way that Christopher McCandless was brave, in that he did something really stupid for no good reason that anyone with an ounce of sense knows is tantamount to suicide.
It does seem likely he set his mind on this years ahead of time, and was so caught up by the chance of glory that he would not stop. He clearly knew the risks. He seemed obsessed with them.
This reminds me of the story about the man whose house was getting flooded. His neighbor offers to drive him to safety. “No, God will save me.” Rescuers in a row boat come to pick him up. “No, God will save me.” The water keeps rising and the man ends up on the roof. A helicopter comes and he refuses to go. “God will save me.” He drowns. When he meets God he asks him, “why didn’t you save me?” “Well, I sent you your neighbor, the boat and the helicopter. Why didn’t you leave?”
Chau just couldn’t stop.
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### Author:  [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2019, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/295 "2019-08-02T13:26:15Z")
Some sects, JWs and Westboro BC to name two, thrive on the abuse they get when they proselytize; it drives the members to herd up within the group. Could this have been the same thing on an individual basis instead of group-think?
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### Author:  [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2019, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/296 "2019-08-02T18:19:44Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#):
>
> \
> This reminds me of the story about the man whose house was getting flooded. His neighbor offers to drive him to safety. “No, God will save me.” Rescuers in a row boat come to pick him up. “No, God will save me.” The water keeps rising and the man ends up on the roof. A helicopter comes and he refuses to go. “God will save me.” He drowns. When he meets God he asks him, “why didn’t you save me?” “Well, I sent you your neighbor, the boat and the helicopter. Why didn’t you leave?”.
Heh. I was just reading a longer version of this in a novella called _Lifeboats_, by Diane Duane.
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### Author:  [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2019, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/297 "2019-08-02T21:06:24Z")
> [@Atamasama](#):
>
> Chau was brave the way that Christopher McCandless was brave, in that he did something really stupid for no good reason that anyone with an ounce of sense knows is tantamount to suicide.
I went to junior-high with Chris McCandless; he was quiet, kind, humble, and brilliant, if you’d like to know. He did what he wanted to do with his life, and suffered an accidental poisoning, probably due to potato seeds and fungus.
His death was a tragedy.
So fuck you and your pretentious assumptions.
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### Author:  [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2019, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/298 "2019-08-03T03:02:40Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> [A new _long_ article about Chau](https://www.outsideonline.com/2400030/john-allen-chau-life-death-north-sentinel).
Thanks for posting this link.
I’m not a psychologist, but everything I’ve ever read about Bipolar II lines up with this.
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### Author:  [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2019, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/299 "2019-08-03T03:40:53Z")
> [@TruCelt](#):
>
> I went to junior-high with Chris McCandless; he was quiet, kind, humble, and brilliant, if you’d like to know. He did what he wanted to do with his life, and suffered an accidental poisoning, probably due to potato seeds and fungus.
>
> His death was a tragedy.
>
> So fuck you and your pretentious assumptions.
Hardly assumptions. His actions are well documented. He went into remote wilderness without the skills, experience or equipment to survive.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2019, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/idiot-missionary-gets-killed/824892/300 "2019-08-03T14:01:25Z")
> [@Nava](#):
>
> Also that the idea had been triggered by his observation that midwives’ results were better than those of doctors; midwives did not infect patients, doctors did.
Puerperal fever rates and associated deaths in the 19th century were lower (at least in some instances) when midwives were involved as opposed to physicians, but [midwives still spread infection and death](http://www.medicine.mcgill.ca/epidemiology/hanley/minimed/DiseaseMaryDobsonPuerperalFever.pdf) at a much greater rate than when women delivered at home without such assistance.
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