Walk past or engage?

[palebluedot]

Whenever Jehovahs Witnesses come knocking on my door I always engage with them and try to keep them talking by battering down their position and faith.

The aim is to see if I can separate them from the others on the street.  I once managed 40 minutes by which time the others had come back looking for them !!! Ha Ha

I'm always impressed by how calm they are even when I accuse them of brainwashing the children that they always seems to have with them.  Other denominations I find get really angry and aggressive quite quickly.

But for some reason I never feel the right to have a go at them in the street.  Outside Stratford Tube Station in London there are always loads of them and they stand there all day with nobody taking any notice of them.   On the one hand, I feel that I should engage them so that they dont feel they are wasting their time but I don't because I dont feel they have warranted a good ticking off for being so deluded (unlike when they knock on my door)

Does anyone engage these people in the street?

[Tank]

I got nabbed by the cops in Leeds once because I started arguing with a street preacher. I just stood next to him and refuted what he was saying. Drew quite a crowd. The cops said that I was likly to cause a disturbence. To which I replied 'I didn't start it' but they were a pair of brainless plods so there was no point in arguing. I did note though that the street preacher, who had been a semi-regular feature for a couple of years, only came back once more the following week. I think he was asked to stop by the plods, so a sort of 'victory' although I would much rather have been able to argue with him.

[palebluedot]

Well thats something of a victory I guess.

Dispropotionate respect and defernence to the religious is probalby the main reason that most of us feel the push to be a bit more vocal about our lack of faith.

What do they call it?  Aggressive atheism?   I call it civic duty.

[Hidelight]

I engage politly and say "I am all hooked up thanks!"
I can not be angry at people who believe this stuff it is just too much energy

I only get pissed when folks who do this vote for people that get in the way of social justice

[xSilverPhinx]

I walk past, but not in the rushed looking down to the floor manner.

It's mostly pointless and not a viable solution.

[Medusa]

I guess in LA no one cares. Very rarely have I been asked to engage with poeple. Unless I am in Venice Beach. But mostly I just shoot the breeze with them. It's not really important to me.

[Stevil]

People have the right to knock on my door, if they come with a message of god, I tell them I am not interested and close the door.

People have the right to preach on the street, I just walk past, its not that I am intentionally ignoring them, I just genuinely am not interested, there are many people on the street, I walk past them all. I have no ill feelings towards the street preachers, they have been taught to evangalise, they know no better. I am yet to see someone stand close to them and actually listen to what they have to say. I'd say they are more likely to turn people away than to bring people inot the ilk

[ThinkAnarchy]

I never had a problem with them. They only knocked on my door once and my girlfriend was the only one home. She said she told them she didn't believe in god and wasn't interested and they did not push it. The same two were always riding their bikes in our area but never broached the subject with us again.

[Whitney]

I can't remember the last time I saw one and know I was a child the last time a JW knocked on my door.

[Medusa]

I rent the upstairs room and bathroom in a home full of JW. I've been here about 7 years. They are pretty nice people. They have church meetings here. Very involved in their church goings on. And have never once hassled me about their religion.

[The Magic Pudding]

I rent the upstairs room and bathroom in a home full of JW. I've been here about 7 years. They are pretty nice people. They have church meetings here. Very involved in their church goings on. And have never once hassled me about their religion.

Would it be too stereotypical to suggest the basement would be more appropriate? 
I imagine them steepling their hands, meaning to look to heaven but actually facing their resident Satanist.

[Jabbles]

I can't even remember the last opportunity I had to engage, not that I did. I would like to someday but I am lazy in such matters and end up walking past or just asking them to leave.

[Will]

I used to try and convert Jehovah's Witnesses to Islam or Judaism or Druidism or, most recently, the Klingon religion (if you're a real Trekker, this is a ton of fun), but honestly, the best way to deal with them is to invite them in, offer them something to drink, and just talk with them. Let them make their pitch, then have a nice conversation with strangers about religion and philosophy and politics and history. How often does that opportunity come up?

BTW, Klingon creationism involves the "old gods" creating Klingons, forged out of fire and steel, and then the Klingons immediately murdering their own gods. Badasses.

[Rizuidad]

One of my best friends was a Jehova's Witness.

[palebluedot]

Not sure what their pitch is local to you but when they call on me, they invariably try to suggest that their particular cult is more aligned with science than the others.

They always seem to cite the example that their text rejected the flat earth concept long before it was discovered to be round.  The text refers to something like "God looked upon the earth in it's round".

This, they proclaim, shows the accuracy and therefore validity of their version of truth.

But think for a minue....."round" does not mean "sphere".  It is a two-dimensional adjective.   "Round" can also be "flat"

A dinner plate is round but flat.    The mappa mundi (map of the world from c1290) shows a flat eath which is a (flat) circle

This claim is so patently absurd and so easily rejected but they always seem to try it.   I wonder how many have said "oh my God - you're right.  Take me to your leader"