Recently, an article in the Huffington Post really pissed me off. It talked about how Christian missionaries are doing terrible things in India by…offering to pay for your kid’s life threatening illness.
Wait what?
Here’s the scenario. Your kid is terribly sick, but you can’t afford the treatment. A Christian missionary offers to help you by paying for the treatment if you convert to Christianity. This insidious offer, according to the author of the article is despicable and unfair. You know what I say?
Show some fucking gratitude!
Because here’s what happens if the missionary doesn’t make that offer. Your kid dies. That’s it. I suppose, that is a preferable outcome huh? I’m sure the author of the article can take great happiness in a child dying because the parent wasn’t able to garner the money to treat them.
How does having a choice leave you worse off than you were before?
“Oh my god, there’s a terrible fate awaiting me! But wait…someone is offering me an alternative. I don’t have to take it, but screw them. Screw that person I say!”
If you as a person would rather a child die than give the parent the option to change their religion and help treat them, then you need to evaluate your priorities. And more importantly, stop pretending to know what is good for other people. They are adults, and they can make up their own mind.
I don’t see the government stepping in to help the parents do I? If they, or adherents of any other religion don’t like the idea of converting people in exchange for help, then let them offer their own aid.
Offer to help, or get out of the way.
Having a choice is never a bad thing, and when someone gives you a choice, you should respond with a “Thank you” – whether you take the offer or not.
Why not just make the offer to help and leave it that ? By doing so they would be obeying Christs way of ” doing unto others as we would have them do unto us “..He would never have put a rider to become His follower, before He decided to help..
It’s sad that help is being given with a precondition; its not the way of Christ
If the help is accepted along with the precondition, well thats ok; it’s their choice
In reply to tp
I agree, they could just make the offer to help. In fact, you’re right – it would be more in line with their faith. But having the precondition isn’t evil. Imperfect perhaps, but not evil.
I absolutely agree with the second part of your statement; if people have an issue with this, they should do something about it themselves, not just stand around and complain!
Tell me one thing though; what happens if, by any chance, the parents refuse to convert? Is it possible that the missionaries would walk away? I agree with the comment above; I don’t think this precondition is very ‘christian-like’! It stinks of emotional blackmail of the worst kind!
In reply to Roshni
Yup, I completely agree! It is definitely emotional blackmail. Neither is it “christ-like” in the least. I don’t think you would find anyone to dispute that.
I still say however, that if I were the parent, I would rather be presented with the choice “as is” than not be presented with the choice. Just put yourself in the parent’s shoes. Wouldn’t you be happy if someone made you such an offer?
As such, I see it as something to be grateful for. Is the missionary acting selflessly or out of altruism? No. Is it Christlike? No. But is it evil? Definitely not.
I guess what makes people uncomfortable is that religion is supposed to be about “spirituality”. Offering medical expenses in exchange for your “soul” kind of strikes a harsh note.
But religion has ALWAYS been a business. Prayers in exchange for gifts, attendance in exchange for social acceptance. God comes into the picture for a very very small part. I completely agree with what you say Bhagwad – as long as there is a choice and no coercion, I would not be too concerned about it.
Now I would start getting worried if medical treatment was WITHHELD for people who did not belong to a particular religion, but that is clearly not the case here.
In reply to Clueless
I would also add that the person should be fully aware of the “deal” being offered. No hidden clauses and “gotchas”. Basically the same protections for any consumer oriented market.
Now in fact VHP and RSS is in complete agreement with your points. They are trying to reconvert people to hinduism (ghar wapsi) by luring them with monetary benefits. I guess there shouldn’t be complaints. eh?
In reply to Siva
None whatsoever. Their “ghar wapsi” project is exactly what they should be doing. It’s a competitive market and the VHP and RSS have realized that you need to provide benefits to get more consumers.
The only problem I would have if there are threats of violence or physical intimidation. Otherwise, big thumbs up!
I think the problem is more to do with the fact that if you do not accept to convert to Christianity, then your child dies. So basically, the deal is that only Christian children would be cared for, which strikes me as bigoted and disgusting. I basically agreed with your previous post about people setting up an auction for the highest religion bidder, but it also throws up basic human rights questions like this.
In The Motorcycle Diaries, there was this scene where this mission refuses to give food to non-Christians (or specifically those who don’t go to mass). I remembered thinking how horrible it was, even though they were providing food to many people. They choose who gets the benefit of charity. And that’s basically the problem with Christian (or any religious?) conversions. So no, I am not particularly grateful. I would prefer the State I live in to do something about sick children and hungry people.
In reply to Fem
You and me both, would prefer it if the state fills in the gap. Why should we depend on the largess of private individuals? So I totally agree with that.
I think we should also keep in mind that being an asshole isn’t illegal. While I completely agree with you that missionaries who only feed Christians are behaving in a very morally degraded way, that by itself doesn’t make them illegal. After all, they’re not a governmental organization who are obligated to treat everyone equally. No different in fact, from religious schools giving special admissions to students of their religion.
But when the state doesn’t step up to the plate, and someone allows me an option to let my kid live…yeah I think I would definitely feel gratitude. I mean, what else can I call it?
In reply to bhagwad
Fem’s comment brought up one objection in my mind. While Christian missionaries (or any other religious missionaries) are in no way obligated to help all people, they do enjoy government benefits of being a tax exempt charitable organization, which is a government benefit.
I would feel much better taking on the tax burden of organizations that do not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. A good solution would be to have a rule that says that any charitable organization that discriminates based on the mentioned criteria will lose its charity status and will be held accountable for taxes due. I suspect most of the religious organizations will lose their charity status with this, and that is perfectly fine by me.
While being an asshole is not illegal, the government should not subsidize assholes.
In reply to Clueless
That’s an interesting viewpoint – perhaps it can be workable. If implemented though, we’ll also have to remove charitable status for a host of other organizations. For example, I think there is one organization dedicated to improving the lives of impoverished Parsis (impoverished according to them anyway!) – that will have to go.
Then organizations that exclusively help women – one can argue that they have to also help men since it’s a government subsidized enterprise. For that matter, any religious organization will automatically lose its charity status unless it allows every single person to partake it its ceremonies…
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Just that we should think through all the consequences before advocating for such a move.
I agree. Moreover, there is no intrinsic harm or evil in converting from any religious belief to any other religious belief at any time. There apparently was a study done that showed that MOST people in the U.S. experience this at least once in their lifetimes.
I often think of A.R. Rahman who was an Atheist through most of his youth, and who converted to Islam / Sufism when his sister became very ill. This change had no known adverse consequences to anybody.
In reply to Micky Fernandez
Yeah, it doesn’t matter. How could it?
Mr.Bhagwad. I am from that sanskrit comments. I happen to scroll down to see your other blogs to really see your motivations to go against indian culture being indian y o u r self going by your name. Seems like you are that converted breed of indians who have been brainwashed to hate everything indian. You just wish evil for india. It’s only a matter of time these evil missionaries will be chased out of india. Most converted christians will be converted back soon. It’s just the beginning. There is the Ghar wapsi now. All these converted Christian and Muslims will be brought back gradually. Write your hidden agenda talk while you can under the garb of liberalism. You never know when and where you and your elk will be converted back to original Indian culture. At least then you will have the self respect of following your own culture.instead of some foreign culture that you or your ancestors got tricked into converting using some promise of rice bags and toddy as baits.
In reply to Ranga
You’re right. I wish all Indians to be free. I must really hate India!
Same thing i’ve always thought:kinda sleazy with the conversion thing, but does a lot of good with the benefits. Plus, if are a true believer it won’t mean shit, and if you’re not, who cares? I think the missionaries should just offer free of charge, but it’s their choice to not do so.
Originally I had the point that it kind of affects your children, but then again, they wouldn’t be alive if not for the missionaries, so that seems pretty fair. Plus, worst-case scenario they believe in one religion instead of another, which, who cares lol
In reply to tehy
Exactly…it makes no difference!
This guy sounds like you:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/how-terrorism-won_b_6440982.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
You act like there is an actual choice involved, as if the parents had a real “option” there. No. If your child is dying you probably don’t really have a choice; you will probably do anything. If a pimp came up to you in the same scenario and offered to save your child in exchange for prostituting yourself, would you say “Gee thanks that’s such a nice offer!”?
It’s like somebody kidnapped your child and gave you choice to pay a million dollars to get them back – man that’s a really nice OPTION!
It doesn’t matter how in what situation people are or how they got into it; it remains the fact that one party is in desperate need for something and the other party is taking advantage of it.
Fuck you, Christian missionaries.
In reply to Jessica
Comparing kidnappers to missionaries is ridiculous. The kidnapper creates the situation and then offers you the option to get out of it. Tell me – does the missionary create the sickness that threatens the child? No. So please learn to recognize false analogies when you see them.
If a pimp came to me and offered to save my child in exchange for prostituting myself, I would of course be happy to have a choice. You know why? Because without that pimp, I would have nothing. You claim “there is no real choice”. Well guess what – there is. The same choice that existed before the pimp or the missionary made the offer.
Try and understand that the missionary presenting the choice is adding something to an existing situation. Not taking away from it.
I can’t help but feel that you would prefer the child to simply die without any choice of help or chance of saving them.