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The helicopter and rowboat is an old parable and works in the way it is gives credit to God for anything natural that is good.
I know of no parables that deals with the bad, other than Job. It is loathesome. and I can't imagine why it is held up as an uplifting tale.
When really bad stuff happens, well you get the mean attempts to screw some propaganda point out of a bad business. Hand out some rice and Bibles in a famine and say what wonderful work the church is doing. Blame destruction on gays and atheists being allowed to exist. Organise a praisegod -session when one person is gotten alive out of a disaster that killed dozens. The infamous 'God just letting us know he's there' by sending a disaster must have done a lot to drive the figures of irreligion up.
And here we are again with Some trying to make this interfering idiot into a martyr. Natural disasters are one thing; religion warping a man's mind so that he does criminally foolish things is another.
Couldn't have said it better, TRANS. Couldn't rep you so here's a
Point of clarification. The scripture you quoted in the OP related to the evidence of the signs and wonders not hurting the person. It does not mean that evangelism would not hurt the person.
Reading comprehension 101.
Believe what you want about Jesus or Christianity.
Why? I don't want you to "believe what you want" about Greenhouse Gases, Evolution of Species, Particle Physics, etc.
In what way is a God who refuses to protect His followers who are in the very act of attempting to spread His Word in any way different from a God who never existed to begin with?
In the promising/desirous way. If there were no hopes/desires attached, they wouldn't even bat an eye about a supposed ultimate Creator who seems non-existent by choice.
Based on the article, it seems as if the language is known.
But you said he knew the language, right? And that he tried to speak to them in their language, right?
In 1991 there was a successful expedition to the island, but since then, it's been the only expedition that was welcomed peacefully and seen off (likely, they got sick and their Trumpian anti-immigrant shamans said it was for being nice to outsiders that evil supernatural/airy sicknesses spread, and thus to keep killing foreigners who invade).
I'm just going by the article. Based on the article, it doesn't appear that this guy was some misguided youth on Spring Break who decided to just stop in to tell 'em bout Jesus.
I don't think any of us ever doubted he was sure of himself, perhaps even with group-surity, and zealous.
He didn't just trip-over into his beliefs, he was taught them and had them enforced by friends and family.
This was no spring break for him, this was a military mission for his Lord of Hosts(military groups).
Why do so many people have a comprehension problem about this?? Put on your Sherlock Holmes!
The mother said, "I know he's alive." Asked why, she replied, "Because I prayed." That right away tells you this lady is a fundamentalist nutjob. John Chau grew up in this unhealthy bizarro environment being indoctrinated to his core with religious propaganda about saving souls. Short people generally have inferiority complexes, so this guy had to compensate by being THE guy who would go among the most isolated tribe in the world and save them for Jesus. He didn't have a girlfriend---ALL Christian guys want a pretty girlfriend if they're halfway normal. The only girls he had access to were the Christian girls in his church club who often carry around more psychological problems than inmates in a lunatic asylum and he likely couldn't even get a date with one of them because if he could have he would have. Then he would have been so focused on making her happy that he never would have had time for this crazy idea he had of converting the Sentinelese. He got this insane indea in his mind that if he were the first guy to go among the Sentinelese people and live to tell about it and actually convert them to Christianity that would have made him the most famous evangelist in the world. It would have gotten him fame, a book deal, a movie deal--it was less about saving souls than it was about saving his dignity and sense of self-worth and getting so famous he'd have to beat off the pretty Christian girls hot for him now with a stick.
But the guy's delusions were totally out of reality. He couldn't speak the language. He totally miscalculated how hostile these people were. By the time he got shot with the first arrow in his Bible he could have swallowed his pride and limped home. He would have been a complete failure again but at least he'd be alive. But what good is being alive when you don't have a job, you don't have any job prospects, you don't have a Christian girlfriend who wants to live the good life sitting at home all day breeding Christian babies and going out to teas with her Christian girlfriend while her husband slaves all day at work? In short, this thing he got obsessed about would have either made him or break him. And sadly for him, with no Jesus in sight to bail him out it broke him and he paid for it with his life. He clearly was out of his depth. It's possible he even had a latent death wish because he knew this obsession was destroying him.
How do I know all this? Because I was a psychology major in university and a Christian for 60 years so I've seen it all first hand.
Although true to his unconscious brain processes, and it would have definitely molded his feelings about it. The conscious thought of it might have been him feel like a egotistical prideful nutjob and stopped him from it. Unless he was taught that pride "in Jesus name" and "to the Glory of Jesus" was fine.
Most likely, he rationalized/justified such ideas away, if they even came up to his conscious consideration at all (until he desperately needed a book-deal and its money in order to "spread the word").
So you've been on the front lines. I feel for you. In my Christian churchgoing days as a 20-something I had to beat Christian girls off with a stick they flirted so badly. But when things got a little serious when we were alone they'd freeze up and flee. Then they were back to their intense flirting the next Sunday. It was surreal. This happened in every church I attended.
Wouldn't this be normal? Sunday morning they could be their giddy socializing selves and the "Christian men" couldn't attempt sex. A lot of women like "testing the social waters" (i.e. flirt and mingle) without any of that pressure that most men so often exert for a pre-marital sexual affair. So for religious women who don't think they are allowed to have pre-marital sexual affairs, the sympathetic response from being alone with a man and having "sinful thoughts" might overwhelm their need for socializing and researching.
Although true to his unconscious brain processes, and it would have definitely molded his feelings about it. The conscious thought of it might have been him feel like a egotistical prideful nutjob and stopped him from it. Unless he was taught that pride "in Jesus name" and "to the Glory of Jesus" was fine.
Most likely, he rationalized/justified such ideas away, if they even came up to his conscious consideration at all (until he desperately needed a book-deal and its money in order to "spread the word").
If I had to describe him in one word it would hapless
Quote:
Hap*less (especially of a person) unfortunate.
"if you're one of the many hapless car buyers who've been shafted"
synonyms: unfortunate, unlucky, luckless, out of luck, ill-starred, ill-fated, jinxed, cursed, doomed;
From the beginning this guy was cursed to live a purely pointless life that could only end in him dying young for a hopeless cause. In short, we could describe John Chau as a
LOSER FOR JESUS!
Last edited by thrillobyte; 12-03-2018 at 10:01 AM..
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