Why is it okay for missionaries to lie?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Evil? I created this thread because I'm having trouble finding an explanation for this behaviour. And for the record, "evil" isn't one of my assumptions, try "con artist" instead. Or "blinded by faith". As for me thinking you're "evil", that's just silly.

I haven't commented on your "miracle"(or whatever it was), have I? I have noted that you don't believe they raised the dead, and as such you don't believe anything I would call absurd. The "smaller miracles" are quite different to the outrageous ones like raising the dead. The motivations of those believing in one but not the other is obviously quite different to the ones believing god raises the dead.

And finally, my mother is quite the New Age-woman, and while I do not believe what she does, I don't view her negatively. Just like I don't view you negatively for your faith, Philipvs.

I'm sorry - I don't really buy it. The way you talk about religious people indicates a great deal of loathing. Not that that measn you're lying to me, you could just as easily be lying to yourself.

Never assume malice when stupidity is a simpler explanation, but you always seem to anyway.

[Sarmatian]

That's just because religious people believe in God. If it weren't for that, I'd be totally ok with religious people.

Unless they believe in Thor. Thor's cool and then it's okay.

[HoreTore]

I'm sorry - I don't really buy it. The way you talk about religious people indicates a great deal of loathing. Not that that measn you're lying to me, you could just as easily be lying to yourself.

Never assume malice when stupidity is a simpler explanation, but you always seem to anyway.

There's not much for me to say to that, really.

Anyway, you seem to be under the impression that I regard "lying cheats" as a bad/evil. I don't. I don't have I holy book saying that lying is bad. Saying the missionaries are lying cheats is not a moral judgement that they're bad people. Instead, I am much more interested in knowing what motivates them to lie, and how they rationalize their lie with their supposed gods damnation of such acts.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

There's not much for me to say to that, really.

Anyway, you seem to be under the impression that I regard "lying cheats" as a bad/evil. I don't. I don't have I holy book saying that lying is bad. Saying the missionaries are lying cheats is not a moral judgement that they're bad people. Instead, I am much more interested in knowing what motivates them to lie, and how they rationalize their lie with their supposed gods damnation of such acts.

You are making an assumption of dishonesty, and how can dishonesty not be negative?

You default to the negative judgement about religions and religious people, always.

[HoreTore]

You are making an assumption of dishonesty, and how can dishonesty not be negative?

Whether it's positive, negative or neutral to lie(or "be dishonest" if you prefer) is based on the context. In this context, I'd say it's neutral and more of an interesting feature than good or bad.

You default to the negative judgement about religions and religious people, always.

I see no reason to respond to this statement.

[ajaxfetish]

Your problem, HoreTore, is that you're equating credulousness with stupidity (or perhaps ignorance would be more accurate). On one level, that's fine; you're welcome to think that someone must be daft to believe in something without satisfactory evidence. But on another level, it's simply wrong. Very intelligent people can end up believing in things without evidence, whether it be religion, the benefits of organic produce, some of the more questionable claims regarding climate science, or whatever. The point is, a person doesn't have to be stupid to be irrational.

Yet you're relying on the (false) premise that only stupid people can believe in irrational things. Your argument seems to be: believing these miracles occurred is irrational, western missionaries are not all stupid, only stupid people can believe in irrational things, therefore, the missionaries do not believe these miracles occurred. Then from that, you further deduce that the missionaries must be lying, and since the very religion they espouse is opposed to lying, you find yourself stuck with a paradox: how can people opposed to lying lie so cheerfully? But the whole problem goes back to that one incorrect premise.

Ajax

[HoreTore]

Your problem, HoreTore, is that you're equating credulousness with stupidity (or perhaps ignorance would be more accurate). On one level, that's fine; you're welcome to think that someone must be daft to believe in something without satisfactory evidence. But on another level, it's simply wrong. Very intelligent people can end up believing in things without evidence, whether it be religion, the benefits of organic produce, some of the more questionable claims regarding climate science, or whatever. The point is, a person doesn't have to be stupid to be irrational.

Yet you're relying on the (false) premise that only stupid people can believe in irrational things. Your argument seems to be: believing these miracles occurred is irrational, western missionaries are not all stupid, only stupid people can believe in irrational things, therefore, the missionaries do not believe these miracles occurred. Then from that, you further deduce that the missionaries must be lying, and since the very religion they espouse is opposed to lying, you find yourself stuck with a paradox: how can people opposed to lying lie so cheerfully? But the whole problem goes back to that one incorrect premise.

Ajax

Very good post.

So, then the question becomes: how can a medial proffessional discard everything he knows about medicine and "jump on the miracle bandwagon", so to speak?

How fully functional, sane and intelligent people can believe the most absurd things(raising the dead, ET rectal exams, enlightened masters living under the himalayas, etc) is a question that has puzzled me for a very long time.

[HoreTore]

There's a problem with your post though, ajax.

I don't think just the miracle part isn't true. I think its more likely than not that the entire story is a fabrication. Why? Two things(I've already explained the first, but I'll repeat it):

1. Imagine you're a missionary. Of the kind that believes that the way to get people to believe, and thus be saved, is to have them see miracles performed. Then, you see an incident which you for some reason(see the discussion above) take as a miracle. Not just a regular one either, god has raised someone from the dead! What would you do about it? Of course the only logical answer is "spread the story to as many people as possible". After all, not doing so would condemn people to hell, and you've made it your lifes mission to prevent that. But has this happened in this alleged case? Nope. The only mention of it is on their own website. One would assume that if such an event had taken place, the boy raised from the dead would've been a poster boy for gods work on earth. But we have no knowledge of him, he has not been used in that way.

2. This story is one I have seen before. With slight modifications. It was printed in the newspaper Norge IDAG. It was translated, of course, but that wasn't all. Instead of being raised from the dead, the norwegian version only had her cured from some disease that made her paralyzed(can't remember what it was though). So, for both stories to be true, two nuns living in New South Wales were both visited by a couple in the 50's. Both had been miraculously cured 30 years ago, and their healing had been written in a book, which both couples happened to have with them. They also chose to reveal that it was them the book was about in the same way. The likelyhood of that being true is incredibly low, of course. Thus, we must conclude that one or both stories is a fabrication. I'd say it's most likely both are fabrications. As we now know that this organization has tried to pass fabrications off as truth, this ultimately improves the likelyhood of their other stories to be complete fabrications as well.

So in conclusion: in all likelyhood, the entire story is a complete fabrication.



Which again leads to the question of why they choose to lie when lying is forbidden by their religion.