By GI Korea on December 24th, 2011 at 1:01 pm

Picture of the Day: Christian Converts

French Sister and converts, Korea between ca. 1910 and ca. 1915

• Leon LaPorte
  4:10 pm on December 24th, 2011 1

  Yeah, little kids. It’s easy to lie and brainwash little kids, right sister? I don’t know. I look at this and think crimes against humanity…

  Peace on earth to all on this Christmas day.

• Thomas Lee
  5:20 pm on December 24th, 2011 2

  Leon, why do you try to bash something you don’t agree with every chance you get? Your schtick gets old.

• Leon LaPorte
  5:56 pm on December 24th, 2011 3

  Because I consider it ultimate evil. It’s not a disagreement. If I were bashing communism, pedophilia etc. you probably wouldn’t have taken notice or objected.

  “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
  - Albert Einstein

• Thomas Lee
  6:02 pm on December 24th, 2011 4

  No, but you seem to go out of your way to “bash” Christianity more than the others. A matter-of-fact, as often as you can, you seem to try to relate anything YOU DON’T LIKE to Christianity.

  Organized religion is EVIL. I agree. But belief in the ONE HE SENT is not. I despise organized religion myself, but I find the gift of God’s Grace something to cherish.

• Leon LaPorte
  6:19 pm on December 24th, 2011 5

  I didn’t have to go out of my way Thomas. The name of the thread is “Christian Converts”. Don’t worry, other religions are fair game, it’s just that Christianity affects our world more, so that’s the primary target. Islam sucks and Allah doesn’t exist. There, feel better?

  Organized religion is EVIL. I agree. But belief in the ONE HE SENT is not. I despise organized religion myself, but I find the gift of God’s Grace something to cherish.

  Where does the belief in the One He Sent come from if not organized religion, who created the book from which you learn about the One? The organization is evil but the message and founder of it isn’t? Some hellacious mental gymnastics there.

  Anywho, relax. Get off the interwebtubes and enjoy your holiday. Merry Christmas!

  “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
  – Thomas Jefferson

• scott
  6:40 pm on December 24th, 2011 6

  Leon’s right. Imagine if the picture had been a prominent atheist with three child ‘converts’. Or how about Scientologists combing the orphanages for the young and gullible? Would Christians respect the decisions of the children, or (rightly) cry foul? Imprinting any sort of ideology on children is simply brainwashing.

• charlie marlow
  6:48 pm on December 24th, 2011 7

  Sorry you feel this way. What would Einstein do?
  Probably not post nasty blog comments about a nun and some little girls from 100 years ago. But maybe he would – I don’t know.

• Leon LaPorte
  7:01 pm on December 24th, 2011 8

  Sorry Charlie, the comments are simply a reflection of the reality of the picture. Why are the converts not 20, 30 or 40 year olds? You know as well as I do. Most adults wouldn’t fall for it. In the past most adult converts were at the point of a sword, or worse.

  Children cannot sign a contract, get married, drink, join the army or even work but they can freely encumber their soul for all eternity. (by “freely” I mean as long as they are doing what they are told) You don’t find that odd? Out of place? Abnormal?

  There’s no telling what Einstein might do on a blog but I bet he could recognize the evil that seemingly innocuous picture of a nun and some children represents.

  I’ll always make this wager. Don’t brainwash teach children about your religion until they are 18. According to the dogma they are protected in some way anyway right? On their 18th birthday hand them the Book and explain the message to them, but make them read the actual book, the whole thing. At that point, with no pressure either way, let them choose. We all know that would be the end of any of these vile religions. That’s why it will never happen and why we have madras’s and Jesus camp.

• john in CA
  7:50 pm on December 24th, 2011 9

  #8
  There were ADULT converts to Christianity in Korea from the beginning. Leon, seriously?

• Jack
  8:45 pm on December 24th, 2011 10

  Yes, it’s a stretch to call a group of kids converts, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that the pic is evil either. I’m not a big fan of religion, but there are plenty of really good people involved in all different kinds of religions who truly believe in what they’re doing, and who are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts with the absolute best of intentions, as this nun was probably doing.

  I think if Einstein was alive today and posting on this blog he’d say something along the lines of “why stop at religion; all of life is a big brainwash.”

• Leon LaPorte
  10:20 pm on December 24th, 2011 11

  Filter pwned again. Bummer! Don’t feel like retyping the response to 9 & 10. Sorry guys.

• JoeC
  11:07 pm on December 24th, 2011 12

  Being religiously agnostic, I can hold both views. When I look at that picture, I can imagine Mother Teresa type schools which served as refuges for abandoned and or abused kids and I can imagine the type of institutions that native American kids were forcibly sent off to for assimilation justifications in the early 20th century. One good, one bad.

  It’s probably not possible to know the details about the place in that picture. It could have been a safe haven or maybe not. However, I have met a number of Koreans, even girls working in bars, who were raised in such places. Mostly they say, compared to the conditions they were in before, they appreciated being there.

• kangaji
  11:34 pm on December 24th, 2011 13

  Surprised you guys didn’t bring up North Korean Christian converts as evidence to counter Leon’s argument about only children being converts. We could then argue that the other culture is a child race with a parent leader…

• Denny
  11:39 pm on December 24th, 2011 14

  Better converting to Christianity than to Islam.

• Leon LaPorte
  12:14 am on December 25th, 2011 15

  14. There’s a better choice than both. Non e of the above. Hint: You’re born that way.

  10. Let’s try this exercise:

  I’m not a big fan of National Sociialism, but there are plenty of really good people involved in all different kinds of political systems who truly believe in what they’re doing, and who are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts with the absolute best of intentions…

  12. Oh man, don’t trot out Mother Theresa of all people.
  [Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.

  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2003/10/mommie_dearest.html

• Cal
  1:41 pm on December 25th, 2011 16

  Thinking is work. Believing is easy.

• Thomas Lee
  2:29 pm on December 25th, 2011 17

  #15, ONLY believing is easy… but the sign of a true believer is that they provide works because THEY WANT TO, not because they HAVE TO. Faith without works is dead.

• Teadrinker
  5:31 pm on December 25th, 2011 18

  #17,

  Suspended disbelief doesn’t make something true, does it?

• MD in MA
  7:56 pm on December 25th, 2011 19

  Wow–the absolute bitterness expressed in some of the posts is pretty amazing, all from a simple picture. Take a chill pill and enjoy a holiday beverage…

• Teadrinker
  11:15 pm on December 25th, 2011 20

  #19,

  Patronizing much?

• lirelou
  10:22 pm on December 26th, 2011 21

  Well, I had some experience with Franco-American nuns in an orphanage when I was that age. I’m no longer a catholic, but I remember the nuns, brothers and priests who helped to educate me with great respect and fondness.

  Korea was so much better before the missionaries came. Life expectancy in the 30s, traditional medicine only, slavery for a large part of the population, zero socio-economic mobility. Yes, Korea would have really done well without the Clarkes, Underwoods, Lintons, and all the rest who laid the western foundations of modern Korea. Why, they too could have opted for Juche. After all, the Donghak option was closed.

• charlie marlow
  2:00 pm on December 27th, 2011 22

  I recall reading in a scholarly, secular history of the country (by a US writer) that Koreans were unusual in the world in that they had first converted themselves to Catholicism. They converted based on what people returned from China told them about the religion. Jesuits and then Catholic nuns came afterward.

• John in CA
  2:58 pm on December 27th, 2011 23

  #22
  Yes a Korean visiting China converted to Catholicism, returned to Korea and converted others. Pretty unusual. And I’d like to remind folks that currently S Korean ranks second in the # of missionaries sent abroad, after US.

  Btw, before the Korean War, northern part of Korea had a much stronger presence of Christianity than south. During the Korean war entire churches that used to be based in northern part of Korea fled as a group to South and settled.

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