MonCapitan2002

Yup. We are living in the end times. Just like many how other people believed the same thing over the last few thousand years.

SkyDancer_0202

particularly sickening, but typical, is the appropriation of these people's own myths to force 'god' on them. This article is, imo, a perfect example of the deceit of christianity.

SkyDancer_0202

Interesting claim considering it is NOT 'atheists' doing any such thing anywhere.

I agree with other poster that the problem is not 'christian' so much as 'outsider' convinve their one-right-way is better - which can include secular groups 'teaching' the 'one-right-way' of farming; as has been done in South Africa and other places causing mass starvation and destroyed desertfied lands.

Warthur

Call me a cultural hegemonist but somehow I think food, clean water, sanitation and medicine are better than traditional cures for illness, for example. I don't like what the Spanish did to the Aztecs, but I think stopping them ripping the hearts of slaves daily to make sure the sun would rise was probably sensible.

dado

well isn't this special: a bunch of atheists living on land stolen from an indigenous people who are still around complaining about religious folk destroying "some other" indigenous culture.



if you believe what you are saying, stop occupying stolen property yourself.

dado

well, we know it failed the evolution test. does anything else really matter?

Queen of Swords

And I never claimed that abiogenesis was a scientific fact that could be proven.

I leave those to you. It's my way of pointing out your double standard.

Nah, they convince christians as well. If not, why would you admit that "yes more people are rejecting religion"?

More self-contradiction, please!

Nah, we leave that to the fundamentalists.

Magus55

Funny how you tell me to back up my point ( with a very rude attitude i might add), yet you have failed yourself to back up your assertion that Atheists make up 25% of the worlds population. But since you're being rude, ill be happy to disprove you.

From www.adherents.com

Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 850 million

First of all, 850 million. 850 million isn't even close to 25% of the worlds population, and this number isn't just atheists. Its every branch of non-religious people, including agnostics, and those who may believe in God, but hold no religious affiliation. Now, i've officially disproven your pathetic argument with this data alone, but lets go further.

Here are some quotes from adherents, specifically stated under ths Secular/atheism category that i listed above:

Although atheists are a small subset of this grouping, this category is not synonymous with atheism.

Atheists actually make up less than one-tenth of one percent of the population in many countries where large numbers claim no religious preference

The highest figure we have for "Nonreligious" is 20% of the world population, or about 1.2 billion: "Over 20 percent of the world's population does not claim any allegiance to a religion. Most are agnostics.

Estimates for atheism alone range from 200 to 240 million



Now, I really hate math, but I'm pretty well positive that 200-240 million is not 25% of 6+ billion.

Now, onto your other wrong statement regarding Christianity.


"considerably larger than christianity's 20%"

Again from adherents:

Christianity: 2 billion

Hmm, 6 billion, divided by 2 billion equals? Oh yeah, ~33%, not 20%. In other words, every 1 out of 3 humans on this planet claims to be Christian. Compared to the every 1 out of 30 estimated to be atheist.


Now that I've backed up my "ridiculous" assertions, please back up yours.

espritch

Just some lyrics that seemed apropos to this thread.

reprise

If you read the link, these particular people have been exposed to "civilisation" and made a conscious decision to reject it. Are you suggesting that they do not have the right to make such a decision?

Given the whole slant of the article, it's difficult to imagine that the missionaries would not have made mention of rituals involving violence. In fact the missionaries don't seem interested at all in mentioning the means by which social control is maintained.

I'm not sure whether you're familiar with Sulawesi - it's actually a tourist island. The benefits of "civilisation" are available to Saluan people any time they wish to return from the mountains - they live in the jungle by choice, not necessity.