The Missionary Who Was Converted Into Atheism

The evolution of religion, i.e. the concept of God, is very interesting as it tells us something about the development of society. However, it's much more intricate than just stating what seems to be the general rule: God started out as female, but had a kind of sex-transformation with the new Patriarchal pattern that was instituted when farming became the "normal way to live". This goddess was the Supreme Deity and she covered all aspects of life, although she often is described as a god of fruition. To really dig deep into this area of history and ideologies would take some serious precautions as it's obvious that science sees these early deities through the tainted glasses of Patriarchy, thus misrepresenting an important ideological development.

The Abrahamic religions find status and authority in what is considered genuine messages from "God" in writing, like e.g. The Bible: Yahweh - who started out as one of the "toyboys" of the supreme God, namely the goddess Asherah - ended up claiming to be the only true deity of the entire world. One may feel about that as one chose to, but no matter what, it's obvious that this belief has not been without its implications. However, I agree with Napoleon when he stated the importance of keeping the religion of the then post-Revolution-society survive because it stabilized the social institutions, like e.g. the class system of "rich" and "poor". 

That should turn religion into the main gluing system in any society, and one must admit that it seems to play an important role in most societies - and for the same reason: It's the what keeps it all together. That said it becomes even more interesting to learn that there actually are a few societies in which religions - namely institutionalized faith systems - are of no interest whatsoever. Religious systems are seen as superstition and that makes it quite difficult for Western missionairies to do what they came for when visiting these societies. Actually, it may be impossible, and the missonairies could end up as Atheists like e.g. Daniel Everett, who went to the Piraha-tribe in the Amazonas to study and convert them.

To me it seems that he had a rather naive idea of the power of The Biblical scriptures: He thought that "The Bible should be able to speak for itself. So my daily activities among the Pirahãs were mainly linguistic, trying to figure out the language well enough to do a good translation of the New Testament." Also, he "would often talk to people about my faith and why it was important to me". The Pirahas must have been very polite as well as gentle people not to walk out on him, but he ended up realizing that he was toiling in vain as a missionary when one of the men said to him: "The Pirahãs know that you left your family and your own land to come here and live with us. We know that you do this to tell us about Jesus. You want us to live like Americans. But the Pirahãs do not want to live like Americans. We like to drink. We like more than one woman. We don’t want Jesus. But we like you. You can stay with us. But we don’t want to hear any more about Jesus. OK?" Then, referring to the previous American missionaries among them, he added, “Arlo told us about Jesus. Steve told us about Jesus. But we don’t want Jesus.” The other men present seemed to agree with him."

Little by little Daniel Everett came to question his own faith, and if he isn't a fullfledged Atheist by now, he sure is bordering on this modern kind of religious disbelief .... 

Or as he put it himself: "All the doctrines and faith I had held dear were a glaring irrelevancy in this culture. They were superstition to the Pirahãs. And they began to seem more and more like superstition to me."

 

https://www.bentley.edu/news/9-fascinating-facts-about-dan-everett 

 

Wikipedia