I know the title of this hub is going to spark some flames but I would just like to share my perspective on the impact of religious fundamentalists missionaries on one particular culture that I witnessed firsthand.

In 1999 I left the United States on an around the world sailing voyage. I did not complete my circumnavigation but did discover one of the most beautiful corners of the world, the San Blas Islands of Panama and the wonderful Kuna people that inhabit them.

In late 2001 I arrived in the San Blas aboard my 31' sailboat. I ended up staying almost a year and making friends with many of the Kuna Indians that inhabit this paradise. My first contact was a wonderful gentleman named Mr. Robinson on the island of Tiadup in the Hollandes Cays. I became a good friend of his and routinely brought the tribe medical supplies from faraway Colon Panama when I left the islands to resupply.

Mr. Robinson, who was a Kuna chief and elder and the son of a chief that started the first schools in the islands, taught me much about the culture and their traditions. I was able to go on several trips up into the jungles that they also own on the island to collect bananas and invited on many dugout canoe fishing trips on the reefs surrounding the islands.

Our conversations were mostly in Spanish although he did speak some English.

One thing that Chief Robinson told me about was how the missionaries from fundamentalist churches were creating rifts between families in the ancient culture. Often one part of a tribe or family would join up with one church, whose beliefs were radically different from another church that another family group had joined. Because the belief structures were so different and the church required the family life to begin to revolve around its activities the family would split, often feud and even move to opposite ends of the island.

The rate of new converts, according to Mr. Robinson was directly related to how much free stuff, including eyeglasses, fabric for the women to make crafts with or medical care the churches would give their new converts. Often church members would change religions if another missionary group was giving out better benefits.

He also told me that the Kuna people have long worshiped one god, a "Great Spirit" and that their original faith involves a deep respect for nature. This is one of the reasons the San Blas are still forested and the reefs are still in fairly good condition. Now that new religions are taking over the old faith with one foot deeply rooted in nature may spell doom for the islands.

I don't believe there are any "bad" religions but I do believe that your own religion may not be the best choice for an ancient culture that has thousands of years of traditions and culture. When relatively new fundamentalist religions ask their indigenous members to give up all they have know before it rarely leads to an improvement in their condition. Just look at the case of Native American tribes across North America after conversion to Catholicism and virtual enslavement in mission towns to farm and work for the Spanish.

While making my supply runs to Panama City I have seen planeloads of young missionaries from places like Utah, singing in unison and practicing Kuna words, headed out to the villages to get new converts. I think that coming from their own little North American lives they can have no concept of what these people's souls need.

If anything at all the learning should be done by them since there are hundreds more years of experience among the "heathens" they are sent off to convert.