Which is more important: Secular or Religious education
- Thread starter Michael
- Start date
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
I never believed in Santa. I always knew it was my mother running around to buy gifts.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Successful at what exactly? Have you ever thought that they receive U.N funds? Point is that they are not there to evangelize.
"SAN ANDRES ITZAPA, Guatemala (AP) - Maya Indians cross themselves in Roman Catholic fashion after walking miles to visit San Simon, a wooden idol seated in a chair, his fat cigar jutting from beneath a big hat.
The shrine, 20 miles west of Guatemala City, is filled with smoke from multicolored candles - each signifying a prayer for the icon, whose origins are unclear. Photographs crowd the back wall.
Such shrines to pagan saints are common throughout Latin America, where many Catholic priests have long tolerated the mixing of Christian and native rituals. They are especially prevalent in Guatemala, where about 60 percent of the population of 10.7 million is Maya.
When Pope John Paul II arrives here Monday, he will find a Maya population that more openly practices the animist beliefs long veiled by the cloak of Catholicism.
For the first time since Christianity arrived here five centuries ago, Guatemalan Indians are increasingly rejecting Christian worship in favor of ancestral rites, anthropologists and Maya activists say.
"Many are returning to the Maya faith," said Vitalino Simolox, a Presbyterian minister. "I personally know three Catholic priests who privately practice the Maya theology."
As many as a fifth of Guatemala's Indians practice their ancestors' faith despite Catholicism's centuries-old hold and a recent wave of Protestant evangelism, said anthropologist German Curuchiche of the private Center of Maya Cultural Studies.
There are now at least 5,000 native priests publicly practicing Maya rituals and thousands of others who worship clandestinely, said Maya priest Eduardo Pacay Vide."
http://www.indigenouspeople.net/maya1.htm
If this new religion is so perfect why do so many indigenous people shroud it under their old religion?
They are rebelling:
"After 500 years, the problem of evangelization has not ended. In many ways the Catholic Church and the evangelical Churches are still political instruments of domination, just as they have been for the past 500 years. They forget that we are all children of God and the churches should be concerned about the social as well as the spiritual interests of the children of God. We feel that the church can play an important role in reconciling conflicts, especially the ongoing armed conflict in Guatemala. The churches, including the fundamentalist sects, must take a stand against the powers of domination, against those criminals responsible for the horrible crimes in our countries. The voices of the disappeared and the murdered in Guatemala are crying out for justice.
We don’t have to live as if we belonged to the past. There are still more pages of history to be written."
http://www.epica.org/Library/indigenous/menchu2.htm
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Yeah, but you probably believed in some make believe Harry Potter sort of stuff? Thats why children love fairy tales hey?
Anyway, I suppose my other point is we don't know if the culture causes a retarding of their abstract thought processes or due to a genetic mutation they can not think abstractly and therefor have a culture that reflects this. OR both or something entirely different.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
No I played make-believe but I didn't confuse it with reality.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
But not successfully.
Evangelicals >.01% but <=2%. Christian Adherents >5%.
Ethnic Religions 80.20 %
Successful indigenous communities rebel:
"Many are returning to the Maya faith," said Vitalino Simolox, a Presbyterian minister. "I personally know three Catholic priests who privately practice the Maya theology."
From the first link above. Post #183
Evangelicals >.01% but <=2%. Christian Adherents >5%.
Ethnic Religions 80.20 %
Successful indigenous communities rebel:
"Many are returning to the Maya faith," said Vitalino Simolox, a Presbyterian minister. "I personally know three Catholic priests who privately practice the Maya theology."
From the first link above. Post #183
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
You are not responding to the fact that these communities eventually either shroud or shirk the indoctrination.
They may be too stupid to count but not too stupid to shirk off a foreign religion.
So what? Who follows the original gospel?
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
No Sam, the point is that they are not following the gospel they are following their indigenous religion. Why? If they are so concerned with health and reading and writing is it necessary to pass on their gods?
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
'One very old tribal Aboriginal from north Queensland who had become a Christian, recalled for me a conversation he had with his father when only a young boy. He asked, ‘What is God like?’ his father replied, ‘I don’t know—we have forgotten.’
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
That is the 'gift' they use to evangelize isn't it? That is what they promise better health and wealth if they take their god. But history has shown in Australia, Africa and the States how destructive this practice is. The gospel tends to bring absence of cultural identity, alcoholism and degenerated family units not to mention subservience to European identity and authority. Some god
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Well the land has something to do with it but that is not the only thing that killed off these people and their cultural heritage which they have every right to keep in their own country. By the way the UN's job is NOT to pass on christianity and the missionaries as we well know are not there to protect the indigenous people they are there to harm with 'good intentions'. Can it be that you have no clue as to what happened to the indigenous populations of Africa, the America's and Australia? You don't know the negative outcomes of such intervention?
Its like the pope now telling his flock in africa that the use of condoms are wrong when so many are dying of AIDS.
"Three-quarters of all AIDS deaths worldwide in 2007 were in sub-Saharan Africa, where some 22 million people are infected with HIV _ accounting for two-thirds of the world's infections, according to UNAIDS.
Rebecca Hodes with the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa said if the pope is serious about preventing HIV infections, he should focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on how to use them.
"Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans," said Hodes, head of policy, communication and research for the group.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/17/pope-condoms-not-the-answ_n_175623.html
Its like the pope now telling his flock in africa that the use of condoms are wrong when so many are dying of AIDS.
"Three-quarters of all AIDS deaths worldwide in 2007 were in sub-Saharan Africa, where some 22 million people are infected with HIV _ accounting for two-thirds of the world's infections, according to UNAIDS.
Rebecca Hodes with the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa said if the pope is serious about preventing HIV infections, he should focus on promoting wide access to condoms and spreading information on how to use them.
"Instead, his opposition to condoms conveys that religious dogma is more important to him than the lives of Africans," said Hodes, head of policy, communication and research for the group.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/17/pope-condoms-not-the-answ_n_175623.html
Yeah and we've already seen how flimsy those rights are.
Who said it was?
So the indigenous people didn't always adapt, like you said they did?
Just goes to show how ignorant such people are of reality. In a place where infant mortality is high and children contribute to the family income, they expect people to use condoms? Do you really think the people care what the pope said? As you so rightly said, their Christianity is overwhelmed by their indigenous religion.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
No it wasn't about not adapting, it was about what they lost with their old traditions that gave them a place in the world and kept their families and communities healthy. I mean these traditions were indigenous to them and their way of life, the new religion was like an exile, with a foreign god, foreign morality and sense of reality in their own lands. Why do you think there is such a strong wave of these indigenous groups now returning to their traditional religions? They are attempting to restore themselves.
Yes Sam the priests at the pulpits care what the pope says and the people do listen to their priests whom they are convinced knows how they are supposed to live. Even some of his own priests and nuns have gone against him on this issue and yes they do use condoms when it is explained to them how it is to be used and when. This goes hand in hand with testing of course.
Yes Sam the priests at the pulpits care what the pope says and the people do listen to their priests whom they are convinced knows how they are supposed to live. Even some of his own priests and nuns have gone against him on this issue and yes they do use condoms when it is explained to them how it is to be used and when. This goes hand in hand with testing of course.
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
I am glad that they are rebelling against a domineering 'colonizing' religion that breeds intolerance, arrogance and ignorance in the followers who brought it to them. Look at any of these groups who have fallen into the hands of an occidental religion, how many of them are thriving and how many are lost, impoverished? How many degenerated under the guidance of these missionaries? Look at all they have lost. Its a great testament to the 'virtues' of occidental traditions.
Ever read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe? A very interesting read on the wonderful missionaries in Africa.
Ever read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe? A very interesting read on the wonderful missionaries in Africa.