livius drusus

Your sarcasm is as puerile as your accusations. You have made no argument whatsoever beyond your assessment of the OP dialogue as similar to that of a porn script, so no, there is no discernible foundation to your accusations. If they were based on something other than your personal distaste, I presume by now you would have been able to make that clear.

As for the point of this thread, it was to tell a story and ask for suggestions on possible approaches. Many people on this site have posted about their encounters with missionaries, some have provided a play-by-play over a period of weeks or months.

Some people have congratulated him. More people have provided him with information. Can't we do both?

The way I see it, worst case scenario and PG has gone through all this trouble to fool us all into tossing some cheap compliments his way, then quite frankly he's the sucker.

Ronin

originally stated by Primordial Groove ~

~ Seems a reasonable request to me, Rousseau_CHN...the congratulatory reactions were only secondary.

As is obvious, I am by no means as astute as Mr. Moderator, however, I did feel like offering just a bit of common ground for you to consider during the birthing of your calf.

The_Unknown_Banana

Rousseau_CHN = trolling.

Me = amused at this thread Wish I had the ability/know-how so I could have a bit of fun with door to door theists too

Writer@Large

Rousseau, knock it off. Now.

--W@L, IIDB Administrator

diana

I do love it when posters get snippy with a moderator, assuming she's a man. It's a compliment, I think, that you're willing to deal with her as an equal. Not to mention somewhat teasingly homoerotic, what with that assumed masculine facing off and all.

Rousseau, if you don't come forward with anything more than, "If it sounds too good to be true, it is," you might expect to be called on your baseless assumption--at least on this board. To post in a thread for the express purpose of calling someone a liar strikes me as combative and unnecessarily aggressive. But that's just me.

I did, for the record, very much enjoy PG's OP. I have been through similar exchanges myself, and I thought his idea of passing out his own literature to door-to-door Christian salesmen is a good one. I never really thought about it before now.

d

Rational BAC

Get a lot of JW's here.

I don't try to unconvert any of them. I just take their silly magazines, thank them, say I will read them sometime--------but that I am an Episcopalian with no present plans of changing-- and say goodbye. --- To each his own.

I could get into a long discussion with them trying to convert them to liberal cherry picking Christianity. But that is "against my religion".---or if technically not that, then against my idea of what is or isn't a serious waste of my time and theirs.

I am not an evangelist in any way. And do not plan to start being one. If the original poster on this thread wants to evangelize atheism, that is his bag. It is certainly not mine.

But he should realize that by trying to do that, he is no different than those who try to evangelize him.

Hey---It takes just a few seconds to politely say thanks but no thanks and leave it at that.

I have found that the JW's are not really that pushy---just a job they have to do, required by their church, that most of them I think don't even like to do.

diana

If he were knocking on their doors and passing out literature, I'd agree with you. As it was, he was minding his own business and they knocked on his door and struck up a conversation with him. I don't see his responding with his own views as "evangelizing."

Having said that, I tend to hand the literature back so they don't waste it on me, thank the people kindly and say "No thank you. I'm not interested. Have a nice day" and leave it at that. I figure they're doing what they believe to be right, however misguided I may think it is, and I can't fault them for following their beliefs. However, if they decide at that point to be pushy, then I'll "engage."

But I don't fault those atheists who have been interrupted and wish to take the time to discuss their beliefs. I tend to think there should be more of them. It just doesn't seem to be in my nature to do it.

d

Arken

Since I haven't seen it mentioned yet, another bit of literature I would highly recommend is Farewell to God: My Reasons for Rejecting the Christian Faith by the late Charles Templeton.

Templeton helped Billy Graham found the modern evangelism movement in the 1950s, but slowly lost his faith and wrote the wonderful book above talking about what prompted it. It includes him going through the bible almost verse by verse and deconstructing it. It's a resource I recommend to anyone in this area.


Edited to point link to SecWeb bookstore

fried beef sandwich

Well, hell-OOO!!! If anyone has bothered to read Harry-Frickin' Potter it should be obvious that this is extra-biblical proof that people can have conversations with snakes.

I know this is true because Harry Potter was written J.K. Rowling, who's alive today (TODAY!) and that England is a real place, and trains are real things in England today, and that the only reason why we don't know of Hogwarts' existence is because everything is rendered invisible to muggles like us.

bocajeff

Well you can never go wrong with Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit

And also hand out some of these tracts