Religious aid groups try to convert victims

Muslim clerics object as Western Christian groups hand out food and Bibles, reports Jason Burke in Banda Aceh

Sunday January 16, 2005
The Observer

Dozens of religious groups have moved in to Aceh, looking to help tsunami victims - and convert them and others, creating tensions in the disaster area.

The arrival of Western Christian groups with records of aggressive preaching risks confrontation with local Muslim leaders which could jeopardise the provision of aid to the 600,000 local people made homeless by the disaster. The death toll in Aceh stands at around 110,000 and is expected to rise.

Reacting to the attempts of one American group to fly hundreds of local children to a Christian orphanage, Din Syamsuddin, head of the Indonesian Council of Clerics, said any attempt to spread religion under the cover of aid was wrong.

'The Muslim community will not remain quiet. This a clear statement, and it is serious,' he said.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1391459,00.html

Gather round, ye little children and hapless adults, let me tell you about my god, who is so great he destroyed over 150,000 souls in one fell swoop, but that is because my god works in strange and mysterious ways. Truly, though, he loves you so much he knows the count of all the hairs on your head. This is a great and loving god. Worship him and the kingdom of heaven is yours.

Like someone would want to worship a god which just destroyed his life?

-- failure to respect the tenets of others' faiths.

Evangelists are authoritarian assholes, by and large. If they want to help tsunami victims, let them help. If they want to preach to people, I think imprisonment would be approrpriate until they sign a legal paper promising to get the fuck out of that country and to never return.