Missionaries. *shakes head disapprovingly* I do not understand them.
First of all, I somewhat hate people who think their beliefs are the only correct ones and therefore have the audacity to try and “fix” or force down their beliefs into the throats of those who are different. It is so absolutely arrogant that it disgusts me. Christian missionaries are, in my opinion, by far the worst when it comes to such nonsense.
Let’s look at the classic example of white man vs. Native American. Back in the day, European settlers came to America and ran into the believed-to-be lesser race of people known as Native Americans/”Indians.” These people did not worship the one Christian God nor had they ever heard of, let alone believed in, Jesus Christ. Well well, the Euro’s thought, they must be savages! They believed that God is everything and everything is God; they worshiped the very ground they walked upon; how beastly! Unlike their haughty Christian counterparts, the Native Americans didn’t lay waste to any- and every-thing that came across their paths in the name of Christ. So what happened? The Native Americans were slaughtered, herded like cattle, and/or forcefully converted to Christianity by the so-called true Christians. Decades of degradation, poverty, and a lack of human rights ensued and we now find ourselves coming full-circle. Missionaries are now being sent to the utterly poor and crime-riddled Indian Reservations in order to do “God’s work” by helping to ease such conditions which, if we actually think about it, are in existence today because of the very same missionary work started a couple of centuries ago. Bravo, Christianity, bravo!
I just don’t get how that makes sense to anyone, but sure enough- there are still hundreds of thousands of missionaries at work around the world. In no way am I saying that being a Christian is bad or that Christian beliefs are the wrong beliefs. What I am saying is that we all should be made more aware of the hypocrisy which often comes along with dogmatic beliefs- not just in Christianity but in religions and other groups worldwide. It is so dangerous to lose the value of open-mindedness, as is evident by so many things in history- holy wars, ethnic cleansing, witch hunts, etc.
Though I do not expect such a thing to happen, I do hope that a day will come when the human race can get past that natural tendency of putting one’s own way of life on a pedestal and looking down upon all others who do not share in that path.
“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
