“A (Christians prosletyzing) + B (Afghanistan) = C (death). It’s a pretty simple equation, well-known to anyone paying attention. If there’s no A, then there’s no C. Stay out of B and you don’t have to worry about C”

I also feel sorry that such logic is completely lost on the vast majority of Korean society and causes the kind of sadness that is happening now.

Finally, the Korean government SHOULD HAVE NEVER LET THEM GO!
The Canadian government has travel ban to both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Do you not feel a tad bit sorry for them, after all?

The answer to your question is in your own post. The general lack of sympathy for the hostages goes back to the causal relationship between this: “I mean, YES, sure these people acted in a wacked manner by going to Afghanistan with the intention to proselytise and this: “but now they are on the verge of getting murdered…”.

A (Christians prosletyzing) + B (Afghanistan) = C (death). It’s a pretty simple equation, well-known to anyone paying attention. If there’s no A, then there’s no C. Stay out of B and you don’t have to worry about C.

Where as many would sympathize with a guy who goes to the zoo and gets attacked by a lion that escapes its cage, not many would feel sorry for a guy that gets drunk, jumps in the cage, starts teasing the lion, and then gets attacked by said lion. No one wants to see the drunk get attacked, but not many people will feel sorry for the guy when he does.

Since they have not committed an offense punishable by way of execution they do not IMHO deserve death.

You seem to think they’re in Korea, protected by Korean laws. News Flash: They’re not. They went into the den of the Taliban and are subject to their perverted codes of justice, which include execution for Christian prosletyzing.

Aren’t all of these things patently obvious?

All these negative comments are certainly spot on - but, now that two of the twenty-three hostages have already been killed, what about honouring the dead by a little more reticence ?

Sure, this is a tragedy, but in tragic situations like this, where the tragedy was not only entirely foreseeable but also utterly preventable, it’s fairly natural to examine the reasons why it still happened. If for nothing else, maybe learning from this situation will end up saving some lives by dissuading other groups from following down the ill-advised path these poor souls embarked upon.

Since they have not committed an offense punishable by way of execution they do not IMHO deserve death.

Do you not feel a tad bit sorry for them, after all ?

Korean churchie goers tend to be nutty, but absolutely crazy things happen in Korea all the time. Nowhere else in the world to people chop their middle fingers off and toss them over embassy gates. I cannot recall anyone else disembowelling himself over a speck of rock in the Sea. I cannot think of thousands of people trying to get the name of said sea changed simply because it is to the East of them. People routinely attack cops with iron bars and then go home for rice and kimchi.

So 23 non-thinking churchie lunatics head to about the most dangerous place on earth, where conversion is a capital offense and get kidnapped by a bunch of heroine dealing gangters who also hide behind religion. I don’t see any Mormons in Afghanistan and they are about as active as missionaries get.

Just a normal day in Korea, me thinks.

WJK, #51:

Yes, WJK, you are indeed right that in Germany, and possibly in some other European countries (Austria and Italy are strong contenders here, but I am not entirely sure) there is a mandatory religuous tax in the amount of 4 to 5 pc of a taxpayers gross income. For the purpose of the collection of this tax the authorities keep membership lists of the various denominations.

Although it is possible to evade this tax for this purpose, in the case of taxpayers of whom the authorities know that they have ever been baptised (such as has the case with myself as a baby in an orphanage in 1960s Romania, a fact of which the German authorities have been informed by their Romanian counterparts) a sworn statement on oath, confirmed by a notary public, is required. The latter charges a fee in the amount of several hundred US$ - thus leaving church is possible but quite a costly and burdensome enterprise, even for non-believers. I myself have taken this route - my wife was relieved that she had never been baptised, thus had never become a member of a church and therefore cannot be burdened with the afore-mentioned tax.

Having said this I also want to make clear that there are very few genuine believers in Europe - most Christians here regard church membership primarily as a kind of insurance policy against the hardships of growing old, as the churches do indeed provide some assistance in the process (such as admittance to their daycare facilities).

Levicitus 20:13 is interesting too:

13 ” ‘If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

I have nothing against homosexuality, of course, but passages like the above inclines me to feel particularly critical of all those confused gays who believe it’s ok to be actively gay and Christian at the same time. Just give up the cake, dudes! I think I dislike these “liberal Christians” more than the fundamentalists.

–

Harod,

You’ll be relieved to know that hell has no ambiguous meaning in Islam. When the Koran talks about the losers that we unbelievers are, it does so over and over again in terms of fire, chastisement, and pain. There’s no room in Islam for the sort of Care-Bears interpretation of Hell permitted in Christianity.