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Thread: I guess I'm a Jehova's Witness now.

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    iustitia's Avatar Senior Member
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    I guess I'm a Jehova's Witness now.

    Tongue in cheek title, kind of. For the first time in my life I was met by proselytizers, well second (some nice Mormon girls) but I was watching someone's house the first time. Anyway I saw them going door to door but wasn't sure if they were selling something or what. My neighborhood doesn't allow soliciting so I figured it wasn't that. I overheard them talking about God so I figured that narrowed it down to either Mormons or Jehova's Witnesses.

    Turns out it was the latter. Which I thought was funny because people always $#@! about them showing up at their door and bothering them, and here I am never once having had one at my door. Hell they didn't even go to my door; I was outside gardening and they politely came up to me. Nice married couple, guy in a vest, woman in a dress. Guy reminded me of Christopher Walken.

    Anyway they were very nice people. The guy talked about tragedy in news and hypocrisy in religion, and he offered me two magazines. One was Watchtower of course and the other was called Awake! which I wasn't familiar with. I think he did a good job of communicating the message of God to me without getting preachy. It was just like, hey man if you think about these 3 questions here the Bible has the answers for you. He tried to connect with me seeing I had a military school shirt on, pointed out a story of a guy in uniform who questioned suffering in the world.

    He was pointing out the verses in scripture and asked if I had a Bible to look them up. I told him I had 12, they laughed. Heh. Which is great, actually. Because even knowing I was a believer they continued to talk to me. They weren't trying to sell their religion to me. They were trying to help me, answer questions I might have had about God and the world. They weren't meeting quotas, they were taking time out of their day to talk with their neighbors and brothers in Christ. I admire that.

    I also admire their determination to get the word out in spite of the overall attitudes I witnessed towards them. Everyone else they went up to immediately said they weren't interested. Which is kind of crap. Don't get me wrong, you shouldn't have to listen to anyone at your door, especially people preaching alternate belief systems. And frankly it's better to say "I'm not interested but have a nice day" than "$#@! off".

    But even if I reject parts of their teachings or was in the middle of something, I have time to talk about God. Some just don't I guess. I mean, I read both booklets/magazines they gave me. It's pretty standard stuff. God feels pain when we do, He respects our free will, etc. The thing I found interesting was that one of the books rejects macroevolution because it conflicts with the scripture, but also supports the Big Bang because God didn't literally make the universe in 6 days. I think that's kinda funny but hey at least they don't reject science entirely.

    It's also interesting because I'm not a traditional Christian/Trinitarian. I'm a biblical Unitarian and don't believe in the trinity. And from what I can gather, neither do Jehova's Witnesses. Anyway, nice folks, good message, dubious scientific claims, but ultimately nobody else has ever come to my house to talk about God or their religion with me. Nobody, and there are two churches within walking distance of me. All it took to get my half-support was showing up to chat for five minutes.
    Last edited by iustitia; 10-10-2015 at 12:09 PM.
    "Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing." -Herodotus



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    Green Arrow (10-10-2015)

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    We LDS don't normally trot door to door to give you information. I know a lot about the JW since i was married for a few years to a very devout, very hot, JW woman. She ended up divorcing me because i as a Mormon refused to convert to her faith. She attended her church faithfully and i went 2 times to find out what it all about. I felt very uncomfortable at her church.

    It is vastly different from the LDS since we don't pull the stunts in church pulled by the JW. If you like to sit in church with some dude with a mike on a boom getting you to preach their religion, fine. But we don't do that to our members.

    Don't get me wrong. I believe the devout JW won't cheat you nor harm you.

    Normally the LDS contacts you with a recommendation. The missionaries do this full time and may indeed put in some time at doors where nobody expects them. I can ask some of them what they do.

    The JW expect every man and woman member to go knock on doors. We don't ask our members to do any of that. My former wife put in a lot of time knocking on doors.

    When we dated, she was a hell of a lot of fun. She ended up confessing to her elders at church and that upset me a lot. I felt like she was ashamed of us.

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    They are a non-trinitarian sect.

    I've long said that my greatest failing as a Christian is that I don't like fellowship all that much. I would be pretty uncomfortable in that situation and not because I have more important things to do.
    Whoever criticizes capitalism, while approving immigration, whose working class is its first victim, had better shut up. Whoever criticizes immigration, while remaining silent about capitalism, should do the same.


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    Green Arrow (10-10-2015)

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    Greetings and good morning iustutia. I too think the JW are nice people. They are not however, speaking as a Sargarvark of the Orthodox Church, Christians in that they deny the Divinity of Christ.
    I have a friend, I worked with years ago, that comes by to talk about god, not God. He, this friend, is a nice man, a good man but is not Christian, in they eyes of Orthodox Christianity, He does think, The Christ was a good guy, but has no understanding of The Christ.

    The Mormons are good clean, nice people also.
    I have studied them also knowing many. They believe Jesus The Christ, to be in their words the Lord of the planet Earth, that if they are true to the faith, will be the Lord of Their Own Planet. This is far from Christianity, from the view of Orthodox Christians.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    They, JW, print a version, their version of the Holy books to suit themselves, what they from the outside think it all must mean. They have been a publishing company from their start, and have grown quite large.
    They and the Mormons had their start here in the States and have well as to numbers of followeres.

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    I don't enjoy having people dropping by at their convenience to: Tell me about Our God, I in fact have come to resent it and take it as an impertinence. I may have been a little rough with this fellow last time he came by, wifey thinks so, he's not been back.

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    Good Near Noon Mister D, I and I think you do enjoy Fellowship: Being, laughing, talking, eating, hunting and working with our fellows.
    Listening to preaching, teaching a yaughing about and idea or almost understanding of someone and their maybe belief, is not fellowship.

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    I always enjoy when any sort of missionary/proselytizer comes to my door. Even when I followed Christianity, I took the literature they offered and gave them some literature of my own. I don't care if we disagree on theology, I always make time to talk about G-d. I even spent my break last week at work talking to two pastors in my community that came down for lunch.

    My wife is Catholic, she meets weekly with some Mormon sister missionaries, I think is what they are called. She's not going to convert to Mormonism, isn't even considering it, but she still meets with them every week to talk about religion and life in general, because why not?
    "Those who produce should have, but we know that those who produce the most — that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and most menial tasks, have the least."
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    I used to work with a couple JW's, father and son. They were actually pretty cool people.

    What I got out of it is that JW is basically the same as Christianity except without the magic parts.


    As far as the door to door stuff yea ... I used to take the time to listen but these days it's just easier for all parties involved to simply give them a shake of the head and point back to the road. They were turning into the fraternal order of police of religion. The more time I gave them, the more they came back asking for more.

    I live in the sticks now though so I never see them out here.

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    We have a family of Witnesses living about two doors down - really nice folks. Neither they nor any other Witnesses pioneer on this street. Perhaps there's a rule about pioneering where Witnesses live.
    In quoting my post, you affirm and agree that you have not been goaded, provoked, emotionally manipulated or otherwise coerced into responding.



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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Who View Post
    We have a family of Witnesses living about two doors down - really nice folks. Neither they nor any other Witnesses pioneer on this street. Perhaps there's a rule about pioneering where Witnesses live.
    Whether it is a rule or not, it is wise.
    ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ


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