American missionary group want to convert uncontacted tribes.

[goldencoins]

So a couple of missionary groups have decided that the middle of a global pandemic is a great time to try and get up close and personal with uncontacted Amazonian tribes to try and save their poor, savage souls. Hopefully they'll be prosecuted, if they're not riddle with arrows before they get a chance to infect these tribes as John Chau thakfully was.

www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/mar/23/the-isolated-tribes-at-risk-of-illness-from-amazon-missionaries

"A radical group of evangelical Christian missionaries set on converting every last tribe on Earth has raised fears that deadly diseases – and even the coronavirus – will spread in the Brazilian Amazon. The group has based its newly bought helicopter right beside a reserve with the world’s highest concentration of isolated indigenous groups, who have little resistance to common illnesses. There are more than 100 isolated indigenous groups in Brazil, all highly vulnerable to common diseases such as measles and flu, and 16 of them live in the same reserve in the Javari Valley, a vast, remote area the size of Austria. Covid-19 could wipe out any of them.

“This virus is a potential killer that could easily wipe out the whole community,” said Adam Mol, a Polish doctor who worked with remote tribes in the Javari Valley. Mol cited the case of American missionary John Chau, killed by a tribe of hunter-gatherers last year after he landed on North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean to illustrate the risks New Tribes present to the region ."He literally accepted killing some of them with the excuse of bringing them God’s word. That’s literally how these people think” Mol said."

Idiots

Such people are at risk even from established viruses due to their isolation. They should be let be - who on earth do these missionaries think they are? We should be learning from the tribes, not the other way round, because it isn't remote tribes who are destroying our planet.

Let god convert them directly. It's almost as if the missionaries think he can't for some reason...

Murdering scum.

Morons

Does Christianity not have the concept of the sanctity of human life?

Blessed are the poor in spirit ... I suppose?

Just leave these poor people alone. Proselytising is annoying enough without a global crisis in the mix. This just takes the biscuit!

meh let them get killed

My least favourite thing about christians is that they tell themselves and others that they can do or say what they want because its not them that wants it, its God. And God is always right. Egocentric without even realising or being able to admit it.

They deserve whatever’s coming to them. (Which I assume will be in the form of tribespeople not taking influence to invaders.)

Bloody hell. I hope that their God conjures up some sort of helicopter malfunction before they can do any damage.

Kindly, not influence

meh let them get killed

The missionaries or the tribespeople? If its the former, I agree. But as for the latter, they are vulnerable to all sorts of diseases, including corona. Missionaries have killed people in that way before.

Besides, the guy who was killed by the Sentinelese a couple of years ago was hailed as a martyr, and Christian Concern wanted the tribespeople punished.

Oh, for fuck's sake, can they not just leave the poor bastards alone?

Uncontacted Tribes are not (or at least should not) be the Evangelical version of a fucking Panini Sticker Book for overprivileged white boys on a gap year.

Missionary bullshit of any sort should be illegal.

Oh for gods sake no just no.

@MitziK

I'd be far more interested in hearing about the Amazonians beliefs than any wanky bible bashing shite.

Sick, dangerous lunatics. Ffs, some people

Bolsonaro doesn't help matters. He recently put a missionary in charge of protecting indigenous peoples.

@ocarinan the missionaries

I think there is a really interesting ethical debate to be had about contacting isolated tribes. Their lives are likely to brutal and short. If they have no concept or knowledge of the alternative available, should that be rectified? Should they be contacted, and given choices?

But of course, not when there a global pandemic of a new killer virus.

There is an ethical debate to be had, I agree. I think one could go further and ask whether it's appropriate to judge their lifestyle and life-expectancy through a developed-world lens. That is, concepts such as 'brutal' and 'short' only exist because we have something to compare them to. In the absence of comparisons, the tribes won't be conscious that they lack anything. If they are content, would it not be wrong to disturb that contentment by introducing comparisons?

@whenyouveafirstinenglish That message reeks of white superiority. Maybe they're happy with their way of life and want to be left the F alone.

*Should they be contacted, and given choices?

But of course, not when there a global pandemic of a new killer virus.*
Any virus could be a new killer virus to an uncontacted population.

Absolutely.

From Wikipedia:

"Since isolated peoples lack immunity to common infectious diseases, up to half of a tribe can die of respiratory disease following first contact."