This is an honest to goodness GQ, I don’t intend for it to get ugly.
So here goes:
What is up with all of the “witnessing” and religious recruiting? Do certain religions give a fast track to heaven if you save say …three souls? Please explain this to me. Why would it matter to someone if another person didn’t agree with their religious beliefs?
FTR I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools for most of my formative years. As far as I recall, we were never requested to bring more sheep into the fold.
Christians are commanded to go forth and spread the good news. Some sects and some people take this further than others. I would say that this commandment might have had validity in the past, when Christianity was a relatively obscure offshoot (one might almost say cult) of Judaism, but that it’s no longer needed in predominately Christian nations. I don’t know how this is supposed to reconcile with Mark chapter 6.
Jews are supposed to try to dissuade people from converting.
I have no idea what Hindus, Muslims, etc. are supposed to do.
I assure everyone that I am not a religious person, but I can understand religious witnessing, even as I am annoyed by it.
Imagine that you know that a building is going to blow up. The police won’t believe you, so it is up to you to save as many people in the building as you can. Even though many of the people you are trying to save might think you are crazy, you would probably be very passionate in trying to save them. Within their beliefs, religious witnesses are in a similar situation. They believe that (this world, the ways of sin, our sick society…pick one)is doomed. They want to save as many souls as they can.
And of course, there are some jerks who just like to boss other people around.
…get VERY angry when I hear of missionaries trying to convert to Christianity the third-world tribes with no or very little exposure to the outside world. To me it seems like taking advantage of a simple mind to tell a story about “someone dying for YOU” to these people who have had the same religion for hundreds or thousands of years. I mean, someone who has had NO exposure to anything outside of their own little world would be easily sucked in by someone telling them that there was this guy 2000 years ago who died specifically FOR THEM. Wouldn’t you think “God” would not like individuals taking advantage of people with no understanding of anything outside themselves or their tribe in order to get the people to believe the same thing as the individuals do?
I find myself in the very odd position of almost defending a position to which I am diametcially opposed.
Like Deacons, I oppose religious imperialism; however, I find it offensive too, to speak of non-industrialised people as “simple-minded.” Non-industrialised cukture are exceeding complex, and the history of religious conversions within such cultures is far from a complete success story from the standpoint of the invading cultures. More often than not, the cultures being invaded take up the new religion only as part of an existing pantheistic, polytheistic, or animist system of beliefs. In other words, they take the free stuff and use it in their own way.
Please note that is does not in any way justify religious imperialism, nor does it consider cercive methods.
It seems to me to be incredibly hypocritical to:
a) Claim to love your neighbor
b) Believe fervently that non-believers are damned to eternal hellfire
yet
c) Not try to save them from the eternal hellfire.
Not that this is the motive of all religious witnessing, but it probably accounts for some. It makes sense, after all.
Actually, to make the analogy correct, you would have to say that you have it on what you consider to be good authority that the building is going to blow up or that someone told you it was going to happen rather than knowing for certain that all who remain will be blown to bits.
And what if the people in the building say, “Thank you, but I have it on good authority that the building is not going to blow up. I appreciate the warning but I think I’ll stay here.” It’s their right to stay there and not be forced to leave.
That’s where most people find the problem with guerilla witnessing. Rather than accept that the other people have different information and different beliefs (that are just as likely to be correct as yours), these witnesses try to drag the people from the building kicking and screaming.
Why do people insist on believing that Great Debates are ugly? GQ isn’t better or worse than GD, we just have different fora for different purposes. The purpose of the GQ forum is to answer questions which have a factual answer, which this one seems to lack. This thread is much better suited for GD, so I’m moving it there.
If I truly believed that people who were not my religion were doomed to eternal damnation, I would certainly try to convert those I cared about at least.
I just found this thread and I posted my (lengthy) thoughts in the “faith” thread that about Christian faith specifically, and witnessing, tangentially. I don’t feel like wasting the space repeating it. It’s here:
Most of the fundamentalist christians I’ve talked to seem to feel that witnessing is necessary to prove their commitment to the faith, in addition to what they feel is the necessary task of correcting the behavior of their fellow sinners.
Of course, logic breaks down a bit here because most of these same people also emphasize the point that one cannot gain entrance to heaven through good works.
I recall having Biblical passages quoted at me that supposedly justify the incessant witnessing, but do not have them to hand.
Yes, but I think any religion which teaches this is already hypocritical. How can God say in one sentence that he loves everyone, and in another than the vast majority of people will receive eternal torture? Anyone going around preaching this type of religion needs to rethink his basic beliefs before trying to convince others of them.