Who bears the responsibility for John Chau's death?

I call it suicide.
And I am sure the conservatives on this site will agree, that he was an INVADER who DESERVED to be killed

He himself. Charu deliberately went where he was not wanted, and he knew it. I really have no sympathy for the guy.

And all in the name of religion. Feh,

I don’t know that he deserved to be killed, but he WAS warned, in more than one way, but he just ignored everyone.
Some people want to make a big deal over the fact that his Bible “saved” him the first day. Well, the Indians are sharp shooters. They didn’t “accidentally” shoot the Bible.

Chau was a dangerous asshole, and he deserved to be killed. Let’s hope he didn’t infect the island with any diseases.

He went with the intention of killing their culture, and knew his presence could end in the death of everyone on the island.

The death of someone with genocidal ambitions should be celebrated.

No idea about Chau’s story until now, but responsibility of his death belonged to him and him alone imo.

Some people might think otherwise. Blame his parents or his religion and Jesus himself?

A grown-ass adult behaves stupidly and dies. The grown-ass adult is responsible.

The parents? Really? You yourself have referred to your children as “assholes”. Do you accept responsibility for them being “assholes”?

Your first paragraph confused me. I was thinking of biblical times and couldn’t remember a story where someone “took Jesus to an island.”
You may have been more exact in saying “the words of Jesus.”
Anyway, he was a grown ass adult and responsible for his own actions.

LOL! It’s all good, @chyna. :)
I agree. It’s his full responsibility. Not the 7 fishermen, not the “friend” who paid them, not even the Indians who shot him. They warned him.

I’m not going to say he deserved to be killed, but he apparently knew what might happen and pushed on anyway. Those who believed in what he was doing will see him as a martyr for his religion. Others will see him as an arrogant idiot who got what he had coming. When your religion says you need to spread it at all costs, you’re going to have problems when you run into people who are equally as dedicated to their way of life.

GA @Demosthenes. I don’t think he “deserved” to be killed, either, but that’s just my American way of thinking.

Nobody should be blamed. He did it of his own free will, and the fishermen should be set free.

Here’s a short review of a book about a group of missionaries who died at the hands of the people they tried to reach. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/638165.End_of_the_Spear I found many books of missionaries who lost their lives in a similar manner, but this one is rather recent, and is well known.

“When I was a boy, I cried. But now I see it well.

Steve Saint was only five years old when his father was brutally killed by Waodani warriors, men from the most savage culture ever known. But in a story almost too amazing to be true, Steve eventually comes to know—and even love—the very ones who drove the spears into his father’s body.

Decades after their lives were changed by learning to walk God’s trail, the Waodani asked Steve to return to the jungle with his family to live among them again and teach them how to interact with the encroaching outside world. Striving to mesh his two very different worlds, Steve must face the tragic events of his past and learn to fully trust God through terrible danger, great loss, and remarkable joy.”

This bottom (bolded) half of this quote from a news article struck a chord with me:

“He loved Jesus more than life. John was a courageous martyr for Jesus. John’s life and his love for Jesus, to the point of giving his own life to bring the gospel to others, will be remembered and will echo throughout eternity. I know that God will bring good out this loss.”
Obnoxious praise for a criminal who put his own interests above the interests of the Sentinelese people.”

Sounds like he loved Jesus even more than the lives of the very people he was trying to convert out of “love.”

The whole situation is completely messed up.

@Dutchess_III I agree with you that it’s completely messed up, but for different reasons.

I’m not sure who is obligated to retrieve his body, or why they feel it necessary. I also couldn’t find any reference to a “crime” that he had committed, but that’s the news media for you!

Instead, the Indian authorities invented something to charge the fishermen with. “Pathak said the seven fishermen were charged with endangering the life of the American by taking him to a prohibited area on his “misplaced adventure.” What a lot of baloney!

His crime was trespassing. It was against Indian law to go to that island. To quote you above, it was a “prohibited area.” The American was endangering the lives and culture of the natives, and the fishermen knew that and took him any way. I bet they charge them with endangering the lives of the natives. They are guilty of that.

I don’t know if they’ve even gone as far as trying to retrieve the body. I haven’t read anything about that.

Here is a excerpt from this article

NEW DELHI — The young American, paddling his kayak toward a remote Indian island whose people have resisted the outside world for thousands of years, believed God was helping him dodge the authorities.

“God sheltered me and camouflaged me against the coast guard and the navy,” John Allen Chau wrote before he was killed last week on North Sentinel Island.
Indian ships monitor the waters around the island, trying to ensure outsiders do not go near the Sentinelese, who have repeatedly made clear they want to be left alone.”

He KNEW he wasn’t supposed to be there.

Bottom line, he took his life in his hands for what he believed. Whether that makes him a martyr or a fool depends on your thoughts about the mission of spreading Christianity. But certainly he was responsible for his own death.

I just don’t think Jesus would want his followers to put other people’s lives on the line to spread his message, which is probably no better or worse than what ever superstition they practice.

Prosecute god.

Okay, I say that tongue in cheek, but if god was his motivator, real or imagined, there is your guilty party. If god is not going to face prosecution, neither should anyone else.

Over and over people have encroached “primitive” cultures and converted, or attempted to convert the people.
Who is the real primitive. On the one hand you have people who have been happy with their lives for hundreds even thousands of years. They didn’t remain with their ways out of inability to change, but lack of desire. On the other hand, you have modernized people who are discontented all the time, never happy with the status quo.
After obliterating cultures, then there is mourning for the lost, desires to dig the earth in search of clues to what is no more.

If people want to be left alone, leave them the hell alone.

@PattyMelt Agreed. God is all about choice.

The reason he is dead is because someone killed him, and that individual is the most culpable and bears the most responsibility. Everything else is just degrees of separation.

Chau’s hubris led him to that place, where he used the greed of others to buy his way around the laws of India, and put the lives of a whole tribe of people at risk. He then proceeded to ignore the very merciful warning he received and returned to be confronted by angry people trying to protect themselves. I can’t decide if this is a waste or poetic justice.

This story reminds me of the Grizzly Man, I feel the same way I did about that story, it was lunacy to go and responsibility for his death lies with him alone.

I like the OP, so don’t misunderstand.
But why is this a question.
Is moral confusion this severe?
Or is the question strictly about the people who gave him a ride? They may or may not have violated law, but the people who killed this idiot (he apparently violated law) are responsible for his death.

It’s a question @josie, because the news reports seem to be scrambling on who to “blame” other than the young man himself. I, personally, don’t think there is anyone else to blame, but, apparently, others see it otherwise. Hence the 7 fishermen in jail. Hence some Christian group demanding that the American judicial system go after the indiginous people for “murder.”

In order of most responsible to least responsible:

Chau is responsible, and conveniently dead.

The 7 fishermen should know about the law and deserve the penalty for doing what they did, which presumably takes into account the fact that it’ll get people killed to go there.

The Church group and other people who want to punish the islanders ought to be re-educated, and/or cited for spreading dangerous misinformation. It points to the need for more public re-education about the island and that people ought to respect their space and their ways and only have themselves to blame if they go there and get themselves killed.

Chau’s friend is guilty of being a fool and/or bad friend, and if what he did was illegal he should be cited, but all he did is fail to talk his friend out of it, and enable a transaction that was illegal and fatally foolish.

Whoever educated Chau to think trying to convert them was a good idea ought to be re-educated.

The Senitnel Islanders did what they do, and are not to blame at all.

You go rafting on class V waters you do so at your own risk.

It was all the bows. If we outlawed bows he would still be alive today. <snark>

The Sentinelese made it very clear they didn’t want anyone there. There are rules about going to the island that were ignored. The fishermen knew of this restriction but went anyway. And Chau, himself, went knowing of the restirictions and was warned away and then went back again. I guess I would say it was Chau that was the responsible party. I sort of reminds me of the story from 30 years ago of a boy that was eaten by polar bears at the Bronx zoo. The family blamed the zoo for the event, yet the boy, 11 years old, had to scale a 10 foot fence, climb down into and back out of a deep moat around the bears’ enclosure to be eaten. I had a hard time blaming the bears or the zoo. The kid had to work at violating all the rules to be eaten.

As a Christian, I was amazed to hear that a Christian group (not associated with his family) wanted to charge his attackers with murder! I couldn’t believe it until I looked it up!
“But groups such as the International Christian Concern,” ... want to charge his killers with murder. Remember his family begs forgiveness for all involved!” (sorry, the link wouldn’t let me copy and paste the appropriate section)

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/66776223.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Sorry, those folks are not thinking straight!

@snowberry It’s part of missions though, I know many who risk danger for missions. I dont blame either side tbh.

@Zaku, really good answer.

@KNOWITALL I could agree if the only danger was to the missionaries, but it’s not. Chau put the Indian’s lives in danger. He was also prepared to destroy their culture. He broke a bunch of legal and moral laws doing it. I don’t think that’s OK, no matter how lofty the bearer thinks their mission is.

@KNOWITALL It’s part of missions, yes, but the Christians (natives of India) who would charge those guys with murder still aren’t thinking straight.

I don’t think it’s called murder when you kill when you’re being threatened. No one was charged with murder at Pearl Harbor, for example.
Besides, we have to go with their culture, their moral beliefs, not ours.

Yup

@snowberry Agreed. Is it normal to give remote tribes exemption?

@KNOWITALL normal under whose laws? America’s? Or their own laws?

It’s obviously the dumb guy’s fault. I personally love it ,when missionaries die like this. It’s natural selection, at it’s best. Spreading religion is an evil endeavor. This is a success story.

I like @seawulf575 ‘s analogy. The dumbass crawled into a bear pit. I heard of this island years ago. Everyone who has ever gone there gets shot at with giant arrows.

The idiot also could have killed all of the tribesmen. They would not have antibodies against modern diseases.

It was reckless, and stupid, to go there. I’m fine with one less Christian missionary. I hope more try… God luck;)

@Dutchess Other indigenous tribes. I didnt know they got to opt out.

Opt out of what?

Laws of the land, I suppose. Are there whole protected tribes I’m unaware of? Reservation law is different but still present. Just curious how many tribes like this are out there.

It depends on the laws of the land that they are a part of, in this case India. Not everyone’s laws are the same.

I once read that in times of famine, when an Eskimo woman gave birth, she’d leave the newborn out to die. That goes against every thing in my body, but you have to remember we humans make up our own rules. Other male mammals fight to the death during mating season. It’s illegal for human males to do the same thing.

As far as how many, this article says 70 to 100.
In the case of the Amazon tribes, who is going to go in there and enforce whatever man made rules people made up for the different countries it is part of?

@Dutchess_III – to say nothing of the utter immorality of trying to “civilize” a societal group that chooses not to be “civilized”.

This intervention / invasion on the people of Sentinel is wrong – utterly immoral – in a dozen ways.

Agreed @elbanditoroso. Just leave them be.

You know, I’m trying to wrap my brain around the arrogance it would take to go to a community and say “Your laws and religion suck. Mine are way better and you will conform to my laws and my religion or you will burn in Christian hell forever.” It is very immoral and I don’t understand it.

Well, @Dutchess_III , some people just figure they’re always right and everyone else looks at things the wrong way. It is sad.

Yes it is. And for many of those who “witness,” they don’t even realize it simply goes back to the greedy and power hungry Romans. ”...the love of money is the root of all evil.”

@Dutchess_III I bet the native Americans would have appreciated the same concerns. Maybe we are evolving.

Yes. The fact that we are showing support for other cultures and allowing them to be different from us is an evolution. Of course, it’s a bit hollow because we utterly displaced Native Americans, as we sit here typing. And,as we speak, we are hypocritically telling another group of Native Americans that they can’t come back into land that was theirs to begin with.