Jesus Heals Thai AIDS Girl
I’ve come across quite some missionaries during the years in Thailand. They’re mainly found in the northwestern region along the Burmese border and – since the tsunami – along the Andaman coast. They’re not rich, but money doesn’t seem to be an issue for them. Churches and believers back home keep the business of Christian missionaries here well funded.
I say business because praising Jesus, the Son of God, as a saviour is a comparably easy task among desolate people. You invest that much, you get back that much more. In no way shall this trivialize any belief, but hey, as even atheism is just another belief non-believers are left as homeless as believers must feel sometimes.
But that is not the aim of this post. The aim is you’ll have to watch the video below and make up your own mind. It’s a most carefully choreographed text emphasized by the right music and simple, clear images mentioning a “someone with pale skin speaking a language I couldn’t understand.” But remember Dostojevski’s Brothers Karamasov: If Jesus would be alive today he’d long been thrown into a dungeon as a revolutionary.
As we’re all aware that the first Gospel according to Mark was written some three decades after Jesus’ death. But even today with news broadcasted around the world within milliseconds, different people will construe a same event in many different ways. Now imagine what’s left of the real Jesus. The Old and New Testament are rather a condensation of humaneness. And here the modern-day missionaries come in:
They interpret Jesus as they wish. He heals from AIDS:
The story may be true you may say and whatever help neglected people get: it’s still help. What disturbs me most though is that missionaries will hardly “witness” such miraculous healings in a more advanced society. And why is that. But here, hey, do as you please, say what you want.
Jesus becomes a handyman of many kinds.
But who wants to regulate missionaries. Once I saw a bible distributed by some evangelical crusaders in Bangkok.
Opening the first page the New Testament’s probably most famous phrase of John 1:1 read: “In the beginning was Jesus Christ.”
By the way, struggled to find a fitting “Thai missionary” photo on Google Images with preferences set to non-filtered.
Atheism is not “just another belief,” it’s a rational decision and thus different from religion which perpetuates through brainwashing and superstition.
-A.F.
That’s one of the most sickeningly manipulative pieces of Evangelical propaganda I’ve come across in a while. Blatant lies (sorry) of this kind make me angry. Of course it’s not true, it’s a complete fabrication, and speaks volumes about the alleged morality of those concerned.
I feel strongly about this (how did you guess) – and about the arrogant imposition of one culturally-based religious faith on the poor and uneducated of other cultures who have zero need of material support with alien religious strings attached.
As AF says, atheism is not a belief. It is a lack of belief in G(g)od(s), and not a belief in the lack of G(g)od(s).
I have to politely disagree with you regarding atheism’s not just another belief.
Each are determined by the suggested existence of a higher power. The one denying it, the other embracing it. But each only understood within the concept of a suggested existence of some higher power.
Both as an extension of mentioned humaneness with each their own limitations and contradictions.
Atheism is as much a belief as organized religion.
Both neither prove nor disprove His/Her/Its existence. Evolutionists vs. creationists … who’s more right? Both beliefs, really, whereas for the evolutionist the universe is less mental/more physical while the creationist rejects the perceived physicality as a mere momentary appearance of some transcendence.
I haven’t met an atheist who’s not a believer therefore. The absence of belief in deities just makes him/her a believer in a less transnatural/more humanized world. That’s not less of a believer, even though the believed and the belief are more logical and transparent.
Atheists may not call a god a god, but that’s the only and a purely semantical difference.
BangkokDan
The classic misunderstanding Dan – with respect. Lacking belief in a deity does not equate to denying its existence as you suggest. Atheists may say that a god is more or less improbable, but even Dawkins won’t categorically deny the possibility. There is no more belief involved than there is, say, in not believing in faeries at the bottom of the garden, or not believing in Thor’s hammer, or not believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc. etc. etc.
We simply do not invoke ‘higher powers’ without the necessary evidence. We don’t need a god for the gaps in our (current) understanding.
Creationism – whether 10,000 year old universe based, or the fudge ID (intelligent design) – is a theory, as evolution is a theory. There is just immensely more evidence in favor of the latter. Belief doesn’t enter into it, as far as evolutionary science is concerned.
I’m shocked at this hogwash Bangkok Dan, I wrongly assumed you were “above” this and the posted video is especially offensive, with the whining American VO speaking for a Thai child, fabricated of course, but clearly the manipulators would never let a Thai child speak for herself … she may not have the chops to convey the sales pitch …
Reminds me of the pathetic bus driver who recently refused to drive a London bus with a mild atheist message /billboard on it. The same driver would be happy to drive around with the message that we are all doomed in not believing in his crap … your reckoning about religion is on the same flawed and hypocritical reasoning as the bus driver getting paid to be a public servant AND free to prosthelitize, except, unless there is something darker going on here, I have assumed, you are not bankrolled to write this codswallop?
Furthermore I am neither an atheist nor an agnostic, simply a student of life, and the more I learn, the more I realize that the attentive rendering of the universe’s massive questions will eventually lead to answers, and not dogma. The best aspects of Buddhism are not religious, but simply intelligent lessons on psychology and life. Understanding that doesn’t make me religious and subsumed by a higher power; the only higher oppressor is my own ignorance.
I knew I shouldn’t enter that slippery territory called religion, but myself a once student of theology I thought I risk it.
stefan dear! What are you suggesting. I wish I was bankrolled by anyone … But this site stands for integrity and that’s why I mirrored the video of this outrageous neo-supremacy going on here and now, and unchecked for that.
But then again, some people need and deserve the comfort of a religious belief. And you mention an important point, the non-religious aspects of Buddhism.
You’re well aware that “proper” Buddhism is rather a psychology than religion. So where does belief start/end?
It’s all about different manifestations of humaneness.
BangkokDan
So really then, Dan, in BKK, there is no heavy need (such in the West) for therapists and counsellors. You just need Buddhism to get you through tough times. Great.
In principle why not Girlie. Theoretically.
“Proper” Buddhism has a deeper understanding of the human psyche than other major religions.
Practiced mainstream Buddhism though has degenerated into a circus rendering homage to the mammon.
BangkokDan
Dan,
Agreed, in principle.
BUT, I also think Buddhism is very radical in some ways, and yet has a lot of value, moreso than most religions. Esp. the part of giving up all desires and pleasure. I think balance is important.
I have wondered with Buddhism being such a strong influence in Thailand, why is there so much corruption? Seems hypocritical to me. Or Buddhism is just not “working” for the Thais?
I think the main issue with mainstream Buddhism is that it has become the same flexible something we see everywhere in Thailand, be it law enforcement, the judiciary, politics, work ethics …
One can read into it and transform it as it pleases. And done something not too good? Just go to the temple and you’ll be fine.
It’s beautiful to see how Thai people give alms to monks in the mornings – that’s the one side.
The other: religious commandments are no easy walk. They involve pain, abstinence, composure.
Hardly virtues commonly seen over here.
To feel sabai and have sanuk are the dominants mainstream Buddhism is subjected to.
Like the working girls here: a wai, some flowers and food offerings before work exonerate from doing something not too Buddhist.
BangkokDan
Dan,
My reply didn’t go through, so trying again.
All well and good to go to a temple and offer food or whatever, but that doesn’t wipe the slate clean entirely.
A Buddhist society such as Thailand vehemently believe in karma and karmic retribution. Surely they do not believe going to a temple obliterates their future karma for any sins they are contemplating?
That is just like the belief in the West (catholicism etc.) that confessing one’s sins to a priest and repeating hail mary’s etc. obliterates any untoward aftereffects, and one can go out and “sin” some more.
Girlie, while the Buddhist “real thing” is as you describe, superstition plays a massive role in Thai life, far more so than in the West. There’s a kind of cohabitation between the two. Thai Buddhism is far more “flexible,” as Dan describes it, than the purist version that has been imported into the likes of the U.K. – eg. the Forest tradition. Thai people are a long way from giving up their superstitious practices, and education has little effect. I watched and blogged about a foundation stone laying ceremony for a block of flats a few months back, it lasted hours – the entire family investing in the project were there and took it very seriously indeed.