Do Not Convert List

Remember the Do Not Call list? Just put your name on it and no more telemarketers. Well... who thinks we should have a Do Not Convert list? Just put your name on it and no more Jehovah's Witnesses, Evangelicals, Mormons, etc. showing up at your door.Place your vote here today!J0N1CU5

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

so you have this list. What good would it do?
I think a Rottweiler would be more effective

I do not want to stop anyone from trying to convert me - bring on your tired philosophies, huddled inconsistencies and bronze age ideals.Hey maybe someone really has the truth and I would like to here it. Let's hear the reasons, evidence and discuss the issues for whatever faith.No Rob sorry this is not invitation to preach.Joke.....

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Did you hear the one about the Evangelical Agnostic?

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He went door to door exclaiming enthusiastically "I Haven't Got a Clue!!!"

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i invited a jehovah's witness over once, and tried to convert him. (into pronouncing the name of his god correctly. for some reason, hebrew lessons REALLY bug them...)

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Heh. Back when I lived in the States (before I started living in places where the presence of armed residentially security guards made being bothered by door-thumping evangelicals an unlikely event), I used to meet them at the door and ask them what religion they represented. Then (regardless of flavor), I'd look them up and down with a faint sneer and calmly say, "Don't even start. I hope you realize that to me you represent an invidious heretical sect whose members are all doomed to burn in Hell for eternity? You better repent and turn to the True Faith before it's too late." And then while they were trying to figure out what "invidious" meant: *slam* After awhile I stopped being bothered. Of course, a rottweiler would work, too.

Yes, I would like a no call list for prostelysers. Is there any way it could be extended to charities and politicians?Back whan the Jehovah's Witnesses were at their height of pestering in the 60s my dad's friend chased them off with a pump shotgun and told them if they ever set foot on his property again he would shoot them. This would be unremarkable except it happened in downtown Long Beach, CA. needless to say, the strategy worked, they never bothered him again.I used to have fun with them and the Mormons, usually by telling the truth that I was a Panthiest. The explanation left them confused enough to flee at the first opportunity.Unfortunately such an explanation doesn't usually work in West Texas. Once they hear my beliefs came from a Portugese Jew who was thrown out of the synagogue for his beliefs they look at my roman nose and thick eyebrows and go "oh, you're Jewish." Further elaboration rarely works in this part of the country, so I have learned to just let it ride.As a librarian, I must consider their cataloging skills deficient.

I guess I'm scary enough in person. I listen politely to the Jehovah's Witnesses and when I tell them I'm not interested, they seem only too willing to leave.I can see the local Pentecostal church from my living room. The only form of proselytizing they do is a "neighbourhood supper" every few months. I prefer to crack open a can of sardines.There are also Mormon missionaries living nearby, so I bump into them on the street every once in a while. Any plans for a Do-not-bump-into-me-on-the-street List? I have a big stack of their cards.We also have a Sikh temple (the kids play cricket in the street) and a Muslim school which used to be a Christian school and before that a Catholic school.All in all, I'd say cultural diversity is a good thing. Edited by Ringo, : Missing word.

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We already have that. Most jurisdictions allow you to put a sign on your door saying, "No solicitors." You may not like having an ugly sign on your door, but I suspect that a "no conversion" list would be far more cumbersome and wouldn't be very workable. Since, unlike telephone solicitors, door-to-door visitations aren't computerized it would probably effectively ban door-to-door solicitation completely and so might raise Constitutionality issues.

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This world can take my money and time/ But it sure can't take my soul. -- Joe Ely

We see Mormon missionaries here. Straight from Utah, only a year or so removed from having their parents set their curfew. But the tags say elder.The nice thing is that they can't sneak up on you. Nothing in Taiwan is more conspicuous than two zit-faced Caucasians wearing Mayberry haircuts and thin black ties riding your way on bicycles. They might as well sound a siren.The bad news for me is that it's always a referral. The missionaries say 'We introduced ourselves to some neighbors of yours who gave us your name. They said we should talk to you because your English is better than theirs.'I love my neighbors. I really do.The missionaries say they want to talk. I ask what it's about. They tell me. I ask how old they are. They tell me.Then I say I will be happy to talk to them for X dollars an hour.They express surprise. I tell them an hour of my time spent talking with college underclassmen about religion, literature and philosophy is time I am normally compensated for. I say how delighted I will be to talk with them and ask how many hours they'd like to reserve.So far, not one.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

As much as I see it as a good thing to talk about Jesus in accordance to the Great Commission, I see effective witnessing as an art form that one has to master. And that requires great attentiveness and an understanding of human nature. There is something incredibly intrusive and annoying about street corner evangelism. In my opinion there just is no substitute for befriending someone-- anyone-- and simply talking to them about life without immediately bombarding them with an uncomfortable subject, like dealing with our sin. Nothing is sure to kill a conversation than the immediate introduction of trying to force people to introspect their own lives in relation to the morals Jesus gave us. That seems to make people want to put a wall of defense and the witness is not going to get very far. In fact, they run the risk of further stigmatizing Christians as typifying "fundies."The way I see it, if you talk to people long enough, human nature will compel them to begin to speak about the deep things of the soul. And before long, you're chatting it up about Jesus and debating the intricacies of this or that-- but its a mutually accepted topic at that point. And so long as it is done in a civil and respectful manner, they will take that to heart and appreciate that you haven't bashed them over the head with the Bible.Besides, isn't that how Jesus would have handled it?It took years of whittling me down with tremendous apologetics for me to even begin to let my guard down. No single person gets the credit. Only God gets the credit. The way I see it is everyone is searching for Truth®. Knocking on their door, waking them up, and telling them about Jesus is far from effective in my opinion. I mean, as brothers and sisters I appreciate the effort. But it gives the impression of arrogance, even if that was the last thing they were trying to convey.

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"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." -C.S. Lewis

Waste of time, Arach. I slugged it out for twelve months with assorted Elders, new converts, etc. Every time you convinced them they were on the wrong path, they would pop back the next week with the same old. (sigh)

If you really want to be nasty, ask the door-calling JWs if they have any literature on the Catholic priest pedophiles. While they are excitedly looking through their Watchtowers and Awakes, slyly add' Got anything on the 25,000 sexual abuse claims inside the Watchtower Society?'

The only ones I've ever had were the JW's. I remember growing up, whenever they went into the speech about creating images of God (which was usually right away given the 3 foot statues in our lving room) my mother started walking around the house ripping up and flinging photos of family.

I don't mind when anyone shows up on my door wanting to convert me. I quite like it.But, I'm rarely at home to talk to them. So, perhaps I should leave some brochures for them. "If Mormon, please take one" and "If JW, please take one".

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

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"Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they have few followers now." - Arthur C. Clarke