Posted on 10/03/2013 5:22:07 AM PDT by Colofornian
(Salt Lake City, UT) — With ten deaths involving missionaries with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, some are questioning the safety of the church’s youth. The “Salt Lake Tribune” asked the question of church officials, who said missionaries are safe and will continue to serve the church. The church noted three of the deaths were from natural causes, while four died from an illness. There are currently 75-thousand men and women serving the church on a mission worldwide, which is up 28-percent, primarily due to the church lowering the missionary age from 19 to 18.
What are you so bent out of shape about?
If a parent has an 18 yo choosing to go into the military, for example, some article on the "risks" of being in various branches of the military would be appropriate to discuss.
This is THE first year that the LDS Church has allowed 18 yo to become missionaries; parents should at least weigh risks as they would having a kid go into the military.
There's nothing sinister 'bout that...
...purported dangers...
If you broke down these deaths case by case, I would say the majority of these specific missionaries would be alive if they didn't go.
In your other recent post, you want to discuss ONLY overall world death rates of similarly aged males.
Quite impersonal and abstract, I might add...because it doesn't address the realities of MOST of these specific missionaries: Would they have died in their young adult years had they stayed home from the mission field? That is the key question for their family members, not some impersonal abstract death rate you cite of any given citizen of the entire world.
**Report: Are Mormon Missionaries Safe While Serving The Church?**
I should hope so. I would hope they don’t send out missionaries who are dangerous!
Well, there's true missionary work in Christ...
...
...and then there's counterfeit proselytization...
Take some of those who proselyted for Jim Jones, for example...
If we could place a spotlight upon say a few individuals who successfully recruited some people to come to Jonestown in Guyana...
...and say none of these spotlighted individuals actually wound up giving any koolaid to anybody there [IoW, they weren't active murderers]
...In fact, let's go further & say they were among the few who didn't commit suicide there...
...I don't think in hindsight you would be glorifying the "individual freedom" or "pursuing life to its fullest" theme-kick you've gotten on...
I mean, these people successfully brought people into a cult whereby the newbies committed suicide -- or were murdered...
And what is true in the physical realm (death) has a spiritual parallel: Eternal death, what the book of Revelation calls the second death...IoW counterfeit missionary work resulting in eternal death simply isn't laudable...
You stated: That's what individual freedom is all about..
Much to your potential chagrin, Jesus...for example...didn't glorify ALL of the proselytization under the sun -- as you might do:
Allow me to give you one example where Jesus didn't hoorah the proselyting activity of the Pharisees:
15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are." (Matthew 23:15)
So go right ahead, RM...if you might chide me on my lack of "freedom" approaches on this...just be sure you chide Jesus, too for His lack of tolerance on that matter.
Hey, if you want to glorify...
...without qualifications or caveats...
...ALL proselytization under the sun...
...whether it was the Rajneeshees in Oregon in the 1980s -- where some of the women were raped at that cult...
...or David Berg's cult (Children of God/The Family), whereby Berg allegedly was guilty of pedophilia & other deviant sex (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berg)...
...or wiccan witchcraft recruiting teens...
...or Muslim missionary work that's been done out of Pakistan going back to at least the 1980s...
...etc etc etc...
...as go right ahead, your accountability to a living God will come...
As for me...no...
I don't laud those Rajneeshees who recruited women to come to Oregon to be raped...
...or those who conned some into joing Berg's cult...only to be sexually abused (Koresh was another one like this)...
...or Heaven's Gate recruiters in San Diego who "missionary-ized" gullibles to believing that suicide was the doorway to getting in touch with aliens...
But if you want to treat "missionaries" as a one-size-fits all -- with zero recognition of any counterfeiters out there to the "real thing"
-- and frame their activity as allegedly "living life to the fullest"...
...then I gotta say it: You really haven't taken a very close look at the broad scope of "religion" -- have you?
You really have gone round the bend
Because I respond to posts rather than posting lots and lots is irrelevant. The posts you refer to are old. I asked for specific information from FR folks because I trust them. I received a most excellent referral and was successful in moving some family heirlooms.
The fact that you get so angry with anyone who does not agree with says much
What I am talking about is how there seems to be such a great concentration of these for a people group that is only 1.7% of our population.
<><><<
How would you know? You only data mine the Mormon disasters. Now if you actually dug down and did some real research and analysis, you might be able to make a case. But when you research no comparative data, your conclusions are simply made up out of whole cloth.
Somebody who is supposedly so keen on trying to knock down threads that they believe dilute our attention from whatever key battles that they think we need to fight should better have a pulpit from which to preach upon...and frankly, you don't.
You defeat your own stances on this.
If you are such a marvelous director of being able to "ID" where our attention needs to be focused, you'd have links to threads you've posted all lined up...but you don't.
And if this thread is diluting attention from where it needs to be, by you focusing your attention here defeats your own claim. You would instead be so busy on threads re: subject matter that supposedly REALLY needs our focus, that you would bypass this one. But you don't...therefore you have only reinforced the very vitality of this thread.
Thank you for that.
RM, let's say, for a moment that you were to think that I was a "judgmental" person.
And let's say, for argument's sake, that you said to me: "Colofornian, I think you're rather 'judgmental.'"
And then, let's say I responded: "RM, don't you have to be rather 'judgmental' to label another as 'judgmental?'"
Well, your comment above...seems to fit this same boomerang umbrella.
Example: Has it EVER crossed your mind...even once...that when you vaguely accuse Christians of...
being name-callers -- as you just did above...
...that you yourself have to engage in "name-calling" in order to label them as "name-callers"???
Or has it EVER crossed your mind...even once...that when you vaguely accuse Christians of...
...elevating themselves as self-righteous...(your "my faith is holier" claim)...
...that you have to "step up" and "look down" at them to thereby judge them as self-elevators...self-promoters...self-righteous?
RM...it almost becomes laughable. Why?
Well, please ask yourself...if it's possible...that when people accuse others of postering as "My faith is Holier than than thou", could it be that...
...they themselves are essentially saying: "You know, my faith is above the 'holier-than-thous'"...
...and doesn't that open the door to be accused of what you are accusing others of???
IoW, if you are communicating that "My faith is above the 'holier-than-thous'," can't others interpret it that you are making yourself "holier-than-thou" than the "holier-than-thous?"
Just a thought.
Time for you to go have a cup of tea....
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