I had no idea atheists were the most hated people in America and more hated than rapists. Is this literal, or an attempt at hyperbole?
It's data from a poll within the last two years. Honestly, I thought everyone who frequents this community was aware of it!
I think your opinion of the atheist resolve is... misguided.
Ok, but what informs your opinion on that? Can you specify conversion or reconversion cases which aren't obvious shill stories? Shill-spotting is like a taxonomic excercise, but performed on the language which a person uses, and I've never seen any make this claim of "former atheism" without making it all too obvious that he never really understood atheism for what it is. For example, it sure isn't synonymous with being an irresponsible hedonist. Just because you stop going to church, that doesn't make you an atheist (**GROAN**).
Christians host mission trips all over the world, often in impoverished areas where there are already nominal Christians but also include Buddhists, Hindus and even the nonreligious. In attempting to make fun of Christian missionaries, all you're really doing is making fun of a large part of the world's population they witness to that doesn't really deserve your ridicule. Not all poor people practice voodoo and worship turtles for fuck's sake.
In conclusion, I had no idea you knew so much about how all Christians view all atheists, or knew so much about the demographics of the Christians that came to these forums.
Wow, that's a heady conclusion to jump to on my opinion of the people missionaries go to, based on what I said about missionaries, and not those people!
On the missionaries, their operating principles do in fact steer them to the more superstitious peoples of the world, wherever they may be - and a logical conclusion for why is that they are the easiest to convert! They really don't have to leave our country to find godless people at all, but they can keep themselves in business by going to poorer countries and setting up conversion camps.
On the people who they convert (not the people or their country as a whole): how much do you know about the superstitions of Africa and Papa New Ginea? I haven't actually been to either place, but articles from reliable sources describe some horrifically scary stuff they believe in, and this AFTER the missionaries came! Witch trials are going on right now in these countries against young girls, every time somebody gets sick, and the convicted "witches" are put to death by mob justice. Such executions have become more frequent in recent decades, not less - go google it. People who practice this terror have taken a very strict, literal interpretation of what they've found in their bibles, and they don't have the Western understanding of how we cherry-pick our interpretations. The lesson here is that introducing into a culture concepts (not just ideas) which they don't understand can be a very dangerous action.
But there's much, much more to the problem which makes them easy prey for Xtian missionaries, there is the complication of cultures with multiple religious ideas co-mingled to the point that large communities are open to anything because there are few things they have had good reason to reject. Why not, when you never worshiped a "jealous" god? Their cities are full of practicing Xtians who co-mingle in voodoo practices, as did Europe with its pagan practices for centuries after converting to Xtianity. So, how does this present a problem? Only that every African animal with large tusks is in danger of going extinct because they believe tusks give them virility, or something like that (I'll bet you had all the blame pinned on trophy hunters - I'm not defending them, but it's much more the black market for dudes who think it will cure a limp dick). Xtians among them. Oh, and don't get me started on how they deal with AIDS, and just how helpful Xtian ideas have
not been with that! Of course not everyone there is that stupid, but I'm afraid you've no idea just how much stupidity rules these cultures.
