Must be a Canadian thing. I've lived all across the US and had my door knocked on...what...thirty or forty times a year on average, for forty years I can remember...
Never has anyone shoved something in my face, or been anything other than reasonably courteous.
Of course I don't go off the handle at the mere mention of religion either, so your mileage may vary.
Is that before or after you ceased to own any doors? (just going by your statement in the tax thread that you are homeless) It's hard for people to knock on what you no longer have, unless you're also counting times when they knock on your girlfriend's door or walk up to you on the street and start in.
I don't "go off the handle at the mere mention of religion." I do get annoyed at your insistence on equating science with religion, when you have been told repeatedly that science is not a religion.
It might surprise you to know that I own several bibles and a copy of the Book of Mormon (yeah, got it from a couple of guys who came to the door one day). And yes, I've read most of the Old Testament and part of the New Testament. The Book of Mormon has remained unread, yet for some reason it's been dragged around with me for several moves. I also have a couple of really old books in Swedish - one is a bible and the other looks like a book of prayers - not sure, as I don't read Swedish very well. But they belonged to my great-grandmother and are over 100 years old, so I keep them.
All of the cultural anthropology papers I wrote in college were on various religion-based topics, as well as a cultural geography paper. So don't mistake my annoyance at some of your posting habits and some of the negative interactions I've had with religious people in my life for flipping out at the "mere mention" of religion.
I will never find people who go door to door to spread their faith as normal. To me it's weird and/or crazy, no offense to resident Mormons and other people who did such things. I just can't relate to it.
"Hi, have I told you yet what I believe?" - Dude, like, send me an email instead or something, then at least you won't be bugging me when I'm trying to watch my English Premier League or trying to sleep in. I don't really care what you believe either, thanks. I mean, I do, but you don't need to really tell me, it's not that interesting really.
Mind you the only time this happened to me was on a Saturday morning and I got woken up by these weirdos, so I might be slightly biased.
The internet is really handy for people to tell other people what they believe. We're all doing this right now.
Just try to think of that the next time some little kid is at your door offering you a "Watchtower" magazine, with a parent nodding in the background.
I have never blamed the kids. I am quite sure they'd rather be doing a lot of other things than getting dressed up in clothes that most people would only wear at a wedding or other church service, and slogging around a neighborhood getting doors shut in their faces. Kids should be allowed to have fun on Saturdays, not getting dressed up as a live prop for adults with inappropriate social boundaries.
Well, it only happened to me once, and it wasn't a huge deal - so I wasn't holding back really - I wrote down exactly how I feel about it pretty much.
It's also hard to get upset at proper looking dudes wearing such gentleman-like attire, speaking in soft and very agreeable tones. The people who show up at my door trying to sell stuff are usually a lot more annoying. One guy put his foot in the door when I was trying to close it - I had to get out there, find his supervisor walking up and down my street, and yelled at him. That would never happen with one of these "C'mon let me tell you about all the things that I believe" people.
At that point they are trespassing.
I tend to not get mad at them. In the end, they're honestly trying to make the world a better place. I reserve my anger for those who intentionally make the world a worse place, for their own benefit.
Now, I'm not interested in conversion, but I'm interested in conversation. And, I like making the world a better place too. If they come at me with the Ten Commandments, I come back at them with Jesus's two laws as being vastly superior. If they're Mormons, I happily say 'hi' to them since I can suspect they're on mission.
Now, I'd rather they work towards different charity efforts, but I won't begrudge them their intent. There are too many anti-altruistism people out there, too many purely selfish people as well
Thing is, how does doorknocking make the world a better place? I know where the local church is, plus most of the other dozens we have here. If I want to know more, I can just call them and ask or attend a service.
It just seems rather comical, if not a bit smug. Again, no offense to anyone who does/did this, I'm just trying to be honest.
Some people do come across as smug, but the whole practice itself is more arrogant than smug. The "I'm going to invade your personal space to tell you that you're risking your soul if you don't believe the same things I believe" attitude and then actually standing there and arguing after being told "not interested" and "please leave" is
very arrogant.
I can answer that. Its more straightforward than you might think. Witnesses go out in an "assigned territory" that corresponds to their assigned "congregation" (or church if you will). Similar to how you have a local public school that you must attend based on where you live, they have a local branch where they must attend services. And where you go out knocking on doors is similar or identical to that area, with occasional overlap.
So if you get a lot of people coming to your house it is probably because there is a large (or multiple) "Kingdom Hall(s)" near you. If you never see anyone, then you probably live in "unassigned territory" meaning there is no Kingdom Hall anywhere near you, or the one in your area has such a huge amount of ground to cover (or so few members) that they never make it to you.
Do they maintain a "do not call/ring this address' doorbell" list? They should, if they're sincere about being considerate of other people. It's crazy, what some people have done to get off the list. One person I know told them she's a witch. In my case, they didn't bother me for two years after I told them I was studying the Navajo religion (true; that was my then-current anthropology paper I was working on, and it's not my problem if they took it more seriously than I intended).
I don't know about the finding converts aspect, but I will say that I would be much more easily induced into going door to door in southern California than in southwestern Ontario myself. In summers I go door to door selling garage door maintenance, which I would probably not do in most other places I've lived either.
Well, at least fixing garage doors is doing something useful, and hopefully your sales pitch and material doesn't include anything about faith and "science believers."
In some scenarios, the objective truth is discernible (or at least predictable). It may be smug for my friends to express concern before I inject heroin for the first time, but it likely isn't. Their position and concerns are warranted. And honestly, if the JWs are correct, then their position isn't smug. It depends on how reality actually is.
Thing is, we have verifiable evidence that injecting heroin is at least harmful, and could be fatal. There is no evidence whatsoever that anyone has ever gone to hell for not believing in some particular brand of religion.
I'm amused that some see my discussion of my Christian faith as disallowed in a topic on altruism. I've shown it's a core belief within Christianity. Not only that, but do we put such restrictions on atheists? Are they not allowed to discuss their faith in atheism within any topic?
Unless a moderator PM'd you, it wasn't disallowed. But I do find it annoying to have bible verses thrown in my face in bold blue text. It comes across as preaching.
Are nonbelievers prepared to take up the slack if Christians stop doing works of altruism?
Are Christians the only religious people who volunteer? That's what you appear to be saying.
I've been volunteering in some capacity for ~40 years, whether on behalf of one of those "feed the kids" charities, or something local. And whatever my motives, none of them have involved racking up brownie points to get into the afterlife of my choice.
Finally I'm bewildered that people who believe that GOD is only a human construct (a god) would then be afraid of an imaginary being. If GOD and Christianity doesn't matter, then why bothering complaining about literally nothing? Isn't that supremely weird? Why not be like the irreligious who shrug their shoulders and work along side us in altruism albeit a secular way. Bridges have been built between the irreligious and believers of several faiths. Together we can do more altruistic acts through synergy.
You just don't get it. It's not fear of an imaginary being. That's for the people who proudly proclaim themselves as "God-fearing." It's when this stuff is allowed into government and schools and medicine and social programs and dictates women's rights and whether or not kids will be punished or shamed for not wanting to pray in school, is what is disturbing.
There are some organizations in your country actively working to dumb down the science curriculum in your schools, to eliminate such basics as evolution because it clashes with what they're taught in church. There's even some bizarre organization called "Christians Against Dinosaurs" ranting about paleontologists making fake fossils, burying them, and then digging them up to get "millions of dollars" in grant money, and they want dinosaurs out of the science curriculum. I have no idea if these people are sincere or just trolling the rest of the internet, but considering some of the other weird things I've read and heard, it wouldn't surprise me if some of them
aren't sincere believers in some "dinosaur conspiracy."
In fact, I've found many people are much more willing to donate time than money. Now, this is excellent if the skills they have are of good value. It's even okay in that it's better-than-nothing. I sometimes wonder if proselytizing fits into this category.
I can't afford to donate money. I need that money to pay the rent, utilities, food for myself and my cats, and other things. But my time? Sure, I've got lots of time, and if what is needed is something I can do, I'm willing to do it. If Kerry Wood Nature Centre had had to pay me to work in the bookstore there and give after hours astronomy talks to kids' groups and to the public, it would have been a heck of a lot more money than I'd have been able to donate to the place and not volunteered there. So yeah, I think my efforts there were good value and of help to the community. I enjoyed my time there, learned a lot, gained some job skills, and gave back to the community.
Just a thought.
