Religion Comes Knocking

[Seshat]

My mom invites “Jesus salesmen” to convert to her religion.

Now that's a great idea!

When she recovered, she changed churches and denominations to the local chapel, because their pastor followed the eight beatitudes (“Visit the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked…”).

Excellent reason to switch.

I think if more denominations and more religions worked together we would all be much happier.
<snip>
They honestly didn’t care which congregation the youngsters chose to attend, they just wanted to inspire them. It made me feel warm and fuzzy, even if I won’t be getting fired up.

Totally agreed.

[Jadedcarguy]

I'm atheist, so I usually just tell them that and grin when they recoil as if presented with the devil himself. Most religious folks don't really understand what atheist means.

[MadMike]

Back when I was still living with my ex, some mormons showed up. I was tired and was trying to politely get rid of them, but she invited them in.

To their credit, they were nice enough, but they just went on and on and on...

Some JWs showed up here a few years ago, around Christmas time. It was a Saturday morning, so I was still in bed, but my wife was up. She wanted to get rid of them, so without thinking, she told them we were jewish. Not sure if they believed that one, with the multicolored lights strung all over the outside of the house, the two wooden reindeer in the front yard, the wreath on the door, and the 7-foot tree in the living room.

[DexX]

For many years, my wife and I shared a house with a friend of ours. He's a lovely guy, but a bit of a pushover. One day i got home from work a bit later than usual and found him and my wife sitting in the living room with a couple of religious doorknockers. When we finally got rid of them, our housemate apologised - he'd felt sorry for them.

The problem was that they kept coming back. Over the next two months, they knocked on the door no less than four more times, two of those in the first week. They kept asking for our housemate to come to the door, asking why he hadn't gone to church the past weekend. They started to get amazingly pushy and rude. One time they turned up in a group of four. FOUR OF THEM!

The longer it went on, the less and less polite I got. I told them our friend wasn't interested, but they seemed to want to hear it from him. I finally got him to tell them to go away, and they stayed away.

They are like regular scam artists - once they find an easy mark, they won't let up until they are chased away.

[CancelMyService]

Sadly, I have to agree with the above. When I was living at home, some Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door, two nice old ladies who reminded me of my gramma. I talked to them for a couple of minutes since even my hellbound non believing soul had the heart to slam the door in their faces, and didn't give them any indication I was buying what they were selling. I thought I gave them a polite dismissal, but I had them knocking on my door every weekend for like a month until I had to resort to the old "dive behind the couch until they go away" routine.

I guess it was a pretty ironic twist, usually older people are preyed upon by scammers, this time the old folks were coming after me.

[Jadedcarguy]

Sadly, I have to agree with the above. When I was living at home, some Jehovah's Witnesses came to the door, two nice old ladies who reminded me of my gramma. I talked to them for a couple of minutes since even my hellbound non believing soul had the heart to slam the door in their faces, and didn't give them any indication I was buying what they were selling. I thought I gave them a polite dismissal, but I had them knocking on my door every weekend for like a month until I had to resort to the old "dive behind the couch until they go away" routine.

I guess it was a pretty ironic twist, usually older people are preyed upon by scammers, this time the old folks were coming after me.

Pentagram. Nail. Front Door. Nuf said.

[DesignFox]

Back when I was still living with my parents, we had the JW's come around a couple of times. They were never pushy, though. Always pretty polite...usually just handed me a pamphlet and walked away when I said no thank you.

I did know a child in elementary school who was a JW. I always felt bad for him that he had to leave the classroom during holiday celebrations or when other children were celebrating their birthdays (and that our teacher always set aside time to celebrate on everyone's birthday- but we couldn't for him). Even during Halloween, he could not dress in costume or participate in the Halloween parade...it made me sort of sad to see him get left out like that...

Sometimes, I wonder what he's doing now, and if he kept the faith of his parents. I remember him being very sweet as a kid, too...he seemed to take it all in stride...

[chops]

I saw a bit of a twist today....JWs canvassing a local laundromat. I could see what they were up to when I saw them parked in front.

Now, this was one of the rare times when there were actually any number of people in the laundromat. I'm actually glad they weren't very pushy...one of them was the chitchatty kind of person, the other was the one who approached me. I quickly dismissed him with a "not interested"...yes, I know I could've handled it better, but I could've handled it worse, too. I just don't like the idea of being preached to, and it gets me on edge.

[tropicsgoddess]

Only once since I've lived in my current neighborhood have I had a Jehovah's Witness or LDS person come up to pass around literature. When I see them at the bus stop I'm nice to them, I'll take their literature and have a small light conversation with them unless I'm in a rush or something.

[DesignFox]

This whole talk of JW's reminded me of something funny that happened to myself and my co-worker.

A family had just moved here from somewhere in the midwest. They needed to switch their phone numbers to local numbers, but we couldn't do that in store for them. So, we provided them with the information they needed, and while the father was on the phone with customer service, the rest of us chatted it up.

They were very sweet people, and we chatted for a bit after the dad was off the phone since we had no other customers at the time.

Then, as they were leaving, they said they had a "gift" for us.

And we both got pamphlets about how to save our souls.

We very politely wished them a nice day, etc.

But we had a good laugh when they walked out of the store.

Apparently, we're in need of salvation...hehe.

[lordlundar]

With a meat cleaver and bloody hands.

This is actually one incident my dad was guilty of with a door to door salesman. He hunts deer for food, and he was cutting the meat up, which naturally results in bloody hands. Guess who comes knocking?

Yup. The poor salesman. My dad opened the door and the guy greeted himand held out his hand to shake. My dad had his bloody hand behind his back (right hand) and he says "you don't want me to do that" and the guy replies "sure I do! come on!". So, out comes the hand.

The bloody hand. He told me he never saw a guy clear out so fast in his life.

[Rapscallion]

Damn - that's a repeat of what my grandfather did many decades past to JWs. He'd been cutting up some meat with a large butcher's knife and came to the door with it still in his hands - dripping. I inherited some of his sense of humour (you may have seen elements of it), but I can't keep a straight face like he could when giving me fifty pence and telling me to go and buy him some skyhooks. Apparently he didn't have to wait long for them to leave.

Rapscallion

[Shangri-laschild]

We've had Mormons bring babies along, too, so they're not entirely without guilt in that regard.
These were usually really young couples who hadn't figured out the whole baby thing yet, though. The last time it was very cold out and they hadn't dressed the baby appropriately, much less themselves so Mom let them in to warm up and evangelized them right back.

*raises eyebrow* I have a feeling those weren't actual missionaries and just members of the congregation. Missionaries (unless you are past retirement and on a couples mission which I don't remember how it works) are either two guys or two girls. They aren't allowed to be alone with members of the oposite sex on their mission.

To those of you who are nice to them you have no idea how much you make their day even if you don't give a damn about what they have to say. They get so many rude people or even people who threaten them and try to hurt them which is really sad because a lot of them are some of the most respectful polite guys I've ever met.

[LadyMage]

I have two stories in this vain, one from my mother and one from me.

The first one is my mom's story, she had this sweet dog named cinnimon, who would "smile" on command. The smile looked like a snarl, even though she was very gentle. Well one day, some JW's came knocking at mom's door, the dog comes running as she answers the door and she sees who they are. She walks away for a moment and whispers "smile" to the dog. We never had any witnesses since then.

The second happened in a Russian orthadox church at my uncle's wedding. It was my second or third year in college and the priest approched me. The guy looked like Rasputian, which both freaked me out and made me laugh internally. He asked if I had a faith at the time, I said I was agnostic and had been since highschool. He tried to convert me and convince me of intelligent design, well I pointed out the dinosaurs and had a lovely, friendly debate, it was kind of cool.

[Amethyst Hunter]

My dad had his bloody hand behind his back (right hand) and he says "you don't want me to do that" and the guy replies "sure I do! come on!". So, out comes the hand.

The bloody hand. He told me he never saw a guy clear out so fast in his life.

That is awesome.

It used to piss me off when we still lived in our old Illinois house - which was situated well out of town and into the farmland/woodland areas - and we'd get solicitors all the way out there (spring and autumn were the most popular times for them to 'visit'). A whole frigging town not even 5 miles away for them to annoy, and they had to come out THERE?!

I won't openly be rude to them, but I'm not inclined to encourage them to stick around either. I hate soliciting, especially religion-based, and unless I know you or I'm expecting a serviceperson to show up my general feeling on unannounced visitors is "GTFO of my 'territory'."