On 18-Jan-09 21:43, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> Ah, 'teach' may be the important word here. Most people I have met are 
>> not from churches that teach missionary actions. Apart from the 
>> Jehovah witnesses that come to the door (must be 9 years since I saw 
>> the last one). Catholics here tend to not take serious anybody from 
>> the ranks of bishop up. I have yet to meet a Muslim that has taken 
>> it's faith serious enough to even know how to explain his faith to an 
>> infidel. In short, all religious persons I know personally that are 
>> serious about their faith and every church they are in are not of the 
>> missionary type. Remember, I live in the Netherlands.
> 
> And that, my friend, is likely precisely why it harder to take people at 
> face value for me than it is for you. The ones like you talk about, even 
> if they may be a slim majority in the US, and I am not that certain of 
> that, are most definitely "not" the sort you ***see*** doing most 
> charity work, or seeking to help people, etc. There is a bias, even 
> among many liberal church goers in the US, that when someone opens a 
> soup kitchen, one of the first questions isn't, "How many people did it 
> feed?", but, "Do they preach to them before they let them eat it?" At 
> best, the ones like those you are used to, try real hard to avoid 
> thinking about that question, but if asked, can't honestly reply that it 
> didn't occur to them. Remember I live in the good old US of A-hole here.

There are a few soup kitchens and that sort of thing in this country, 
but hardly visible. You have to be homeless to know where they are, I 
guess. Is there one in the town (140000 inhabitants) where I live? I 
don't know. Do we have homeless people here? Sometimes I see one or two 
in the summer, I think they have now migrated to the warmer Amsterdam. 
Indeed our difference in experience with religious people could be 
influenced by the difference in social system.

I have never been in a soup kitchen, but I assume I will be in something 
similar in the near future (my sister is involved in one for (mainly) 
illegal immigrants). When I am there I'll check the level of preaching. 
It is related to a church. I am not sure which one, could be a born 
again-ish type.

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