Sentinelese silliness

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Sentinelese silliness

Postby Anglerphobe » Mon Nov 26, 2018 1:49 am

The reaction to the news of a Christian missionary getting killed by primitives (a news story that doesn't even seem to belong in the modern world) has been more interesting than the event itself. The actual event was exactly what you would expect it to be. A man approached a group of isolated people who are hostile to all outsiders and they killed him.
There is a strong white guilt narrative that has been developed by a lot of people commenting on the tragedy who have googled Maurice Vidal Portman (MVP) or seen the series of tweets posted by a user calling himself "Respectable Lawyer" about him and his work in the Andaman islands in the mid to late 19th century. Respectable Lawyer is far from neutral in his telling of it, calling MVP a "creep" at the top of the thread and explicitly blaming the tribe's strong isolationism on his actions. His tweets are mostly factual, but is still a presumptuous simplification. Naturally, people who don't know much about it (either the island and its population or the man who died, who was not white) but do have strong opinions about race take this and run with it. In some cases it is extended to bashing Christians too.

I did see a limerick I thought was funny, which I will put in spoilers because it is in truly awful taste:

Spoiler: show
There once was a man from the states.

With the sentinelese he tried to be mates.

He threw them a bible.
Got speared in the eyeball.

Now he’s standing at the pearly white gates.
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"Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive,
Thou, teaching thrift, thyselfe couldst never thrive.
So, like the whetstone, many men are wont
To sharpen others, when themselves are blunt."

Anyone who has any kind of opinion fucking disgusts me.
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Re: Sentinelese silliness

Postby JamishT » Mon Nov 26, 2018 3:57 am

I keep seeing people bashing Christians for supporting this guy...but I haven't seen any support for him among my Christian friends
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Re: Sentinelese silliness

Postby IamNotCreepy » Mon Nov 26, 2018 2:20 pm

JamishT wrote:I keep seeing people bashing Christians for supporting this guy...but I haven't seen any support for him among my Christian friends


Same here.

This is truly a sad situation no matter your perspective. I do see a lot of commentary bashing the guy and calling his attempts to proselytize "rape culture".

I think that's a little harsh. I mean, think about it from his perspective. Assume for a minute you buy into the Evangelical idea that you have to believe in Jesus as the son of God and have a "personal relationship" with Him in order to get in heaven. If you don't reach these people, they will burn for eternity in hell. As someone who tries to live a good life, isn't it your moral imperative to do everything possible to "save" them?

I feel sorry for this guy and his family. He was earnestly trying to do what he thought was right, and it got him killed.

One good point I saw in a post was a reference to this quote:

Matthew 10:14 -- "If any household or town refuses to welcome you or listen to your message, shake its dust from your feet as you leave."

He should have heeded the words of Jesus.
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Re: Sentinelese silliness

Postby Absentia » Mon Nov 26, 2018 4:13 pm

We have no idea what the Sentinelese think of us or Maurice Portman because we don't know anything about their language or culture. Given that they are surrounded by other inhabited islands, I doubt Portman was the first outsider to land there; they may have been defending that island from foreigners for centuries. The fact that he was white may or may not have been significant to them. It's pure speculation to suggest that he alone was responsible.
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Re: Sentinelese silliness

Postby Aquila89 » Mon Nov 26, 2018 5:25 pm

IamNotCreepy wrote:Assume for a minute you buy into the Evangelical idea that you have to believe in Jesus as the son of God and have a "personal relationship" with Him in order to get in heaven. If you don't reach these people, they will burn for eternity in hell.


It's a pretty cruel thing to believe though - that these tribespeople deserve to be tortured for all eternity because they don't belong to a religion they've never heard of. A for the moral imperative; there are plenty of people in Asia (and elsewhere), who aren't Christians but would be far more likely to convert than the Sentinelese.

Also, the Sentinelese probably don't have immunity to common diseases; they could be wiped out by something like influenza, as many Native Americans were. It could be that their hostile behavior actually serves their interests, even if they don't know why.
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As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
--Carl Jung
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Re: Sentinelese silliness

Postby Ladki96 » Mon Nov 26, 2018 5:36 pm

{{{Chau and his family}}} The guy had good intentions, and his contact attempts weren't rape culture, what? XD That's dumb. Still, it's kinda a crime to go close to them. Like legally >< The govt understands the tribe doesn't want anybody setting foot on their island - white or Indian (or anyone else) - so it's like, don't go to them for your sake, and theirs.

Missionary work is fine, it can be great, but... I don't know. Part of my terrible judgemental mind just thinks, out of all the places in the world where you can help, why would you go to the one whose people have proven time and again they want nothing to do with any of us :P

But otherwise, this whole "because of the white people/Christians!" thing and especially extending it to all of them is dumb imo
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Re: Sentinelese silliness

Postby Krashlia » Mon Nov 26, 2018 9:08 pm

Aquila89 wrote:
IamNotCreepy wrote:Assume for a minute you buy into the Evangelical idea that you have to believe in Jesus as the son of God and have a "personal relationship" with Him in order to get in heaven. If you don't reach these people, they will burn for eternity in hell.


It's a pretty cruel thing to believe though - that these tribespeople deserve to be tortured for all eternity because they don't belong to a religion they've never heard of. A for the moral imperative; there are plenty of people in Asia (and elsewhere), who aren't Christians but would be far more likely to convert than the Sentinelese.


There is the theological perspective that, no they won't. The standard for whether they go to heaven or not might be different, one way or another. At this, you might feel compelled to ask, "Why bother with the missionaries and gospel spreading then?"

Here's my argument/thought: Every people group on earth has needs and a way of trying to achieve its fulfillment or problems to solve. If you knew a better way, wouldn't it be wrong of you to not spread the news of it?

God is quiet literally a despot who will judge the acts of all humankind and maybe some will get through that process. In the meantime, he's promoting a form of nepotistic and easy immunity through his Son.

And, maybe a lot of people who've never gotten the word are going to hell, based on whatever standard tried for their judgement then. But, is that always unfair?
Theres certainly got to be a better way of life than that one odd part of Papua Guinea, where a totally uneccesary and culturally-instituted tradition of rape and pederasty exist.

Also, the Sentinelese probably don't have immunity to common diseases; they could be wiped out by something like influenza, as many Native Americans were. It could be that their hostile behavior actually serves their interests, even if they don't know why.


I'm wary of the negative attention and commentary this had gotten at this point in time, politically.
But That missionary was pretty ignorant, though.
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Re: Sentinelese silliness

Postby Anglerphobe » Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:46 pm

It should be noted that the Sentinelese have been no less hostile to the natives of the nearby islands, who resemble them physically, than they are to everyone else. People from nearby cultures thought to be related to them (the two known Ongan peoples, Jarawa and Ongee) were brought to the coast of Sentinel in the 20th century in an effort to see if any of the Sentinelese language is intelligible to them. Apparently it was not, and they weren't treated with any more welcome than anyone else.

On that subject, the Sentinelese language is an interesting mystery. As mentioned above, the speakers of the two extant languages thought to be related to it couldn't understand anything the Sentinelese were saying when they visited. The reasons for thinking they are related are partly geography and partly the technology and practices of the Sentinelese, according to MVP.
Intriguingly, there was one more possibly related language, native to nearby Rutland Island, which apparently was not intelligible to speakers of Jarawa and never tested against Ongee, but it was thought certainly related to them by the man so maligned in the last week, MVP. He gave no detail as to why he thought so, but he says it with confidence in his firsthand documentation of capturing a man from the tribe, which was extremely reclusive just like the Sentinelese and rejected all outside contact. Unlike the Sentinelese, these people didn't have their island all to themselves. Rutland Island historically had some visitation and occasional temporary settlement by other Andaman island peoples on the coasts, including the two groups thought to be related to them, but the Rutland people apparently avoided any contact.
Sadly, the Rutland people are gone. There are only four documented encounters between them and the outside world, one of which has no details at all. They are presumed to have been wiped out by disease introduced by the foreign settlers on Rutland Island around the turn of the twentieth century. They seem a very plausible link to Sentinel Island, but alas there's no way to know now. At the very least, they are evidence that the reclusive nature of the Sentinelese is more complex than "white people fucked with them in the past."
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"Tusser, they tell me, when thou wert alive,
Thou, teaching thrift, thyselfe couldst never thrive.
So, like the whetstone, many men are wont
To sharpen others, when themselves are blunt."

Anyone who has any kind of opinion fucking disgusts me.
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Re: Sentinelese silliness

Postby IamNotCreepy » Tue Nov 27, 2018 3:28 pm

Aquila89 wrote:It's a pretty cruel thing to believe though - that these tribespeople deserve to be tortured for all eternity because they don't belong to a religion they've never heard of. A for the moral imperative; there are plenty of people in Asia (and elsewhere), who aren't Christians but would be far more likely to convert than the Sentinelese.

Also, the Sentinelese probably don't have immunity to common diseases; they could be wiped out by something like influenza, as many Native Americans were. It could be that their hostile behavior actually serves their interests, even if they don't know why.


I'm not trying to justify his actions -- I'm trying to help people to understand his perspective and reasons for doing what he did.

Whether or not you think it's cruel, there is a legitimate case to be made for the argument, based on the scripture. The concept of exclusive salvation through the belief in Jesus is one that is fairly orthodox among Christians, especially Evangelicals.

There are a lot of Christian missionaries going out into Asia (and elsewhere) already, or have some basic concept of Christianity as a thing. I could see from his perspective the value of trying to reach a population that has never even heard of Jesus. How he could hope to do that without being able to speak their language, I have no idea.

There are plenty of criticisms to make about his methods, process, and plan, but there's an unnecessary amount of vitriol and mocking being thrown his way regarding his motives, which I think were based on an earnest attempt to try to benefit the North Sentinelese people.
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Re: Sentinelese silliness

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Tue Nov 27, 2018 6:49 pm

Aquila89 wrote:
IamNotCreepy wrote:Assume for a minute you buy into the Evangelical idea that you have to believe in Jesus as the son of God and have a "personal relationship" with Him in order to get in heaven. If you don't reach these people, they will burn for eternity in hell.


It's a pretty cruel thing to believe though - that these tribespeople deserve to be tortured for all eternity because they don't belong to a religion they've never heard of. A for the moral imperative; there are plenty of people in Asia (and elsewhere), who aren't Christians but would be far more likely to convert than the Sentinelese.


Not to mention the fact that there is about 17,000 forms of Protestantism in America alone. So, a lot of these missionary types from Christian exclusivist branches of the faith are sort of mired in the perspective of an offshoot of a schism of an offshoot of a schism of a sub-branch of a sub-branch of a charter of schism and so on and so forth until, like you're left with a sect founded only as recently as 1992 yet believes itself not only the only correct faith, but the correct church of the only correct branch of the the only correct interpretation of the Christian faith. It's basically condemning one's neighbor to hell for the sin of.... not really knowing them that well. This naive idiot just went and applied that way of thinking on a people who literally only reached their iron age during the last decade or so.
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