What was so appealing about Christianity to indigenous people who had never heard of it before encountering missionaries? People who already had systems of worship and dogma?
I was watching Scorsese's latest shitty movie and couldn't believe there were over 100,000 Japanese Christians in the 17th fucking century
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I found the Christians in that movie baffling as well. What do they get out Christianity? The answer is that it's some kind of cognitive glitch. It's not a matter of theology or logic, it's something in our mind that can go wrong under specific circumstances but is beneficial most of the time.
You could ask why the fuck someone would become a cathar too.
>The idea of two Gods or principles, one being good and the other evil, was central to Cathar beliefs. The good God was the God of the New Testament and the creator of the spiritual realm, contrasted with the evil Old Testament God—the creator of the physical world whom many Cathars, and particularly their persecutors, identified as Satan.
fascinating tho
Christianity is based on logic, it logically """"works"""" and is easy to formulate logical apologies for.
It's just a variant of gnosticism.
Gee I wonder why a religion about love, forgiveness and eternal bliss after death is more appealing than being sacrificed to your old gods in order to appease them so they don't destroy the world.
Christians were powerful and wealthy people, and people generally tend to believe what the powerful and rich people say. Or in other words, you would rather listen to a missionary that comes from a global, highly developed empire, than let's say a homeless person on the streets preaching about things while having 0 followers. It's kind of self-evident that the Christians really have God on their side, because how else did they become so rich and powerful?
Māori were interested in Christianity because it was their first encounter with writing and the stories were new, but it took several decades for significant numbers of conversions.
>Gee I wonder why a religion about love, forgiveness and eternal bliss after death is more appealing than being sacrificed to your old gods in order to appease them so they don't destroy the world.
I'm not specifically talking about Mesoamericans. I never mentioned them.
>Christians were powerful and wealthy people
religious elites are generally powerful and wealthy people, this wouldn't have been a new phenomenon
> you would rather listen to a missionary that comes from a global, highly developed empire, than let's say a homeless person on the streets preaching about things while having 0 followers
let's say, a man of prestige with the support of the incumbent state government and backed by a thousand years of tradition. homeless person on the streets?....... what
>It's kind of self-evident that the Christians really have God on their side, because how else did they become so rich and powerful?
early missionaries were neither rich nor powerful.
I was mostly referring to their persecution. Who would die for an abstract idea? You'd think nobody reasonable, yet countless people have died for even more pointless crap.
They converted because God elected them to salvation and bestowed upon them the gift of faith.
>Gee I wonder why a religion about love, forgiveness and eternal bliss after death
If you don't do exactly as I say you burn for eternity .... yeah love.
Try again christianity is as cruel as it gets.
t. guy who has no clue about christian mission.
The fact that the christian world is so enormously wealthy and powerful always was, and still is, the main reason why christian missionaries are so succesful.
>If you don't do exactly as I say you burn for eternity
This is, of course, not what Christianity teaches. If it were then salvation would not be possible and Christ's sacrifice would be meaningless.
>convince missionaries to take you on a trip to England
>meet George IV, get muskets and a suit of armour, ask for a lion as a pet
>take your muskets back home
>wage war across the North Island, raiding villages and displacing thousands
>take captives and make them grow potatoes to sell for more muskets
Was Hongi Hika a Chad?
I think most Maoris are chads. Which is partly why their culture is (was? (if you're reading this, Bill, I'm not racist I swear) so violent.
explain pls
Christ came to save us because we have failed to do what God requires of us, because we are doomed sinners. If there is no forgiveness for our sins then we cannot be saved. The only person that has ever fulfilled the will of God perfectly is Christ.
They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
God created people so they could not fulfill his demands and refuses to forgive them unless they attempt to do an impossible thing. And people are supposed to be grateful that he allows some of them the chance to get forgiven by him.
That's just mean.
how does this refute user's paraphrase:
>If you don't do exactly as I say you burn for eternity
Because if you fail you can be forgiven.
>God created people so they could not fulfill his demands
Man cannot fulfill God's demands due to the inheritance of sin passed down through ordinary generation from Adam. Man was not initially created in a fallen state.
>and refuses to forgive them unless they attempt to do an impossible thing.
He will forgive those who lay their sins at the foot of the cross. He has no obligation to do even this, to creatures that spite him and disobey his rule.
>And people are supposed to be grateful that he allows some of them the chance to get forgiven by him.
It seems reasonable to expect gratitude for such a thing.
>That's just mean.
God isn't a pillow in the sky. He is the sovereign of all creation and can do with his creatures as he pleases.
tl;dr god is evil, but he is god, so suck his cock
Alright.
What is evil about a king punishing a subject that rebels against him?
Nothing, if you reject the principles that human suffering is bad and human happiness good.
Christianity rejects this principle.
I know, that's one good reason to reject Christianity that doesn't rely on autism shit like facts and logic. It's something every retard can understand and get behind.
Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; Therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies which the LORD shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.
Well many indigenous peoples were attracted to conversion since it would usually lead to access to European arms and technology. From a more psychological view, however, of course a god is going to seem more powerful or even the true god if his worshippers are hugely more powerful than those they conquer. And for others it was simple exoticism and a genuine desire to learn more about this faith.
Why? The statement "human suffering is bad" is absurd if taken absolutely. What of withdrawal from a drug one is addicted to? What of surgery? Should people be punished for crimes in any sense? I doubt that you think that all human suffering should be avoided.
the dude that said christian missionaries were so succesful mainly because of christian nations being so advanced is right.
imagine if an alien civilization lands on earth and presents humans some sort of religion. there would be millions of humans who start following the religion no matter what it says, simply because it was brought here by this incredible, super-advanced alien civilization that is capable of interstellar travel and is probably millenias ahead of humanity.
that's basically what was the case with europeans spreading christianity.
He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood.
Oh that's exactly what it says and you know it damn well.
I was a christian for over 20years stop lying about the cruel basics of your cult.
This also came at the cost of eternal hellfire for those who deceased without faith
What the fuck man?
What? The concept of the trinity is the furthest you can get from "logic".
Have you not read the Book of Mormon?
The Gospel was revealed to the tribes, the believing Nephites fought against the Lamanites and so on, with the unbelievers winning.
>
I was watching Scorsese's latest shitty movie and couldn't believe there were over 100,000 Japanese Christians in the 17th fucking century
Japanese tradition religions were all over the place before Buddhist missionaries came into the area. That was a "we need to get our game together moment" for them. Even after that it was still a mess for a long time but that was okay because Buddhism in Japan was a also mess at the time.
en.wikipedia.org
That does not go into full details but most of those schools outside the Zen family were very different from each other. As in a level of makes Catholicism and Protestantism like look very alike.
>People who already had systems of worship and dogma?
In the case of Japan they could not agree on a single system or dogma.
>What was so appealing about Christianity to indigenous people who had never heard of it before encountering missionaries?
Well, those missionaries tend to be preceded by European soldiers, most of the time.
Anyway Christfaggotry failed in East Asia, ME, and South Asia. It was only really successful with tribalniggers.
South Korea is more than 25% christfaggot
Paulicianism is the True Faith
Koreans have always been the weakest of East Asia.
The trinity is the result of applying logic to things humans can't fully understand. The OT/Gospels/Acts are "data" and the trinity is a way of organizing the data in a way that fits together as logically as possible. All of the theological disputes the led up to the trinity becoming the orthodox church teaching were based on logical discourse.
So they converted to Catholicism instead of Dutch Calvinism?
>logic means "everything that is correct or comprehensible"
>1+1+1=1 is totally logical because the bible says so
That's not how it works.
Better than nothing
>being this retarded
Holy shit
So do people who have never heard of God go to hell anyways, despite never having a chance to know him?
>Some virtuous mysterious odd looking man who comes from a place you have never heard of, a repository of wisdom that puts your most exalted learned men to shame, probably equipped with technological wonders.
>WTF how did they persuade anyone?
A bunch of societies even ascribe some value to paler complexions too, Europeans slid comfortably to the top of those caste systems.
Most native tribes already believed in an ultimate creator spirit so they heard of blackrobe priests from other tribes and were eager to be instructed the faith. As for japan the zealous laity worked with the missionaries to propagate the faith and attract converts until they had over 300,000 japanese catholics spread across every province before the persecution began.
Because God is real, and Christianity is the only path to true understanding of the universe. Accept the Lord and be saved anons!
The standard answer to this will be that humans already know god in their heart and still make the choice to deny him. This this is an answer which leads to other questions
Often the time was right. For example the priests and druids of celtic Ireland already discussed making the Celtic Pantheon into something more like a Montheism/ Monolatry (God's being declared to birth themselves in "circles" of Gods etc.) so when the Christian Missionaries came in they had a good solution for already ongoing theological discussion. Same thing happened in other parts of Europe.
A similar thing happened when Islam rushed into North Africa, the Levant and Asia Minor. - Islam easily absorbed large chunks of Arian Christianity without any fights, cause Arianism already was in a similar Sport towards mainstream Christianity as Islam.
invincibly ignorant people who seek after the truth will be led by God to a missionary who will baptize them. as was the case of st caius of korea. those who are ignorant and die in a state of sin/original sin will probably go to a part of hell where there is less punishment than say a baptized catholic who dies in a state of sin.
How did this work out for people in pre columbian america?
Christians, everyone. Ultimate religion of might makes right. A king can punish anyone who rebels, regardless of how harsh his rule is. A god can punish any of his creation no matter how horribly he treats them.