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Posted by on Jan 9, 2013 in Jehovah's Witnesses | 21 comments

Jehovah’s Witnesses: Atheist Delivery

My doorbell just rang a few minutes ago and to my delight it was Jehovah’s Witnesses. I bet I am the only one who is delighted to see them and yet they always seem to want to end our conversations.

Two ladies, one older and one younger came to the door. The younger one hung back as the older one asked me about the presence of God in my life. I told her that I didn’t believe any gods existed and that the evidence for deities was not just absent, but that the evidence stands against the possibility.

She then asked if I had always “felt that way,” so I told her that I did not. I told her that I grew up believing in God and that I was indoctrinated into that belief for a long time. Then I asked her what convinced her that there was a God. She responded and said that she grew up in the church and always believed. So I pointed out that she had been indoctrinated and that she should question that belief. I made sure to turn to the younger college-aged girl as I made that point.

This is when they first attempted to leave. They politely said that they didn’t want to keep me, but I told them that I didn’t mind at all. Somehow we got into the Bible when I was told that the Bible was the oldest book we have. I think I laughed at that since there are tons of books older than the Bible. I pointed out that the Bible has changed so much that we don’t even have the original Bible. Bart Ehrman comes in handy at this point.

Again they try to leave politely, but I keep on asking questions. The older “witness” then talks about how she is perfectly content in her life even if she turned out to be wrong. I was looked shocked and said, “Really? How could you be, knowing that you wasted your entire life and that you have been impeding human progress and have had a skewed sense of morality?” I know that sounds harsh, but I said it nicely.

I talked about how when I was religious I thought I was content in my life too, but that leaving religion has made me much happier and a much better person. We had some more small talk after that and they plugged their website a few times. I plugged mine too just for fun. I actually directed the plug toward the younger “witness” because I thought she would be more likely to actually check it out. I didn’t spend as much time as I wanted pushing critical thinking and overall skepticism but I think it was still a pretty positive exchange. I told them to come back any time and they said they would, but I’m skeptical.

I do love Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s like ordering from an atheist takeout with free delivery. They bring their craziness right to my door. Less than 30 minutes guaranteed. I get to have fun trying out my de-conversion material guilt free too. They came to me after all.

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  • ChuckV

    I like this one. I think the humor in it is refreshing.

  • SmilodonsRetreat

    Humor nothing, it’s absolutely true. Done it a few times myself.

    • ChuckV

      I didn’t intend to say it isn’t true, but the way he kind of held them there while telling them their beliefs aren’t true is funny.

  • http://msmith13.wordpress.com/ Mark

    Yet another demonstration of Dave Barry’s maxim: “People who want to share their religious beliefs with you almost never want you to share yours with them.”

  • Ingemar Oseth

    I keep a hardbound English translation of a collection of Nichiren Buddhist thought near the front door. When their religious fervor leads people to knock on my door to “testify” and “proselytize” I greet them, book in hand. My reply to the question: “Do you have Jesus in your life?,” is “No, I follow the great teacher Nichiren, here are his words,” as I extend the book for them to grasp. The gyrations they go through to avoid touching the book when I try to hand it to them are priceless. First rate fanatic repellent it is …..everyone should have one so they don’t have to listen to religious pap and crap. For those who do not have the Nichiren book, Bertrand Russell’s “Why I Am Not A Christian” works equally well.

    There is no sound more pleasing that the pitter patter of fanatical feet beating a hasty retreat from my front door.

    PS The effect is all the greater if you treat the book with deference and reverence as if you are handing someone the Bible.

    • http://www.skepticink.com/dangeroustalk Dangerous Talk

      No, no, no. That isn’t my goal at all. I don’t want them to leave. i want them to stay! I want to de-convert them. I want them to learn that their religion is make-believe. If I merely wanted them to leave, I would have just shut the door in their face like everyone else. But that’s boring and doesn’t address the problem.

      • Ingemar Oseth

        Yes, yes, yes….. my goal is to get them to leave me alone while making the point that not everyone sees the world as they do… And it works beautifully.

        You have your way of dealing with the problem of door knocking fanatics, and I have mine. Good luck converting religious nuts to a life guided by reason instead of superstition and mysticism. Please let me know it goes.

        • http://disnotblog.blogspot.com/ Eugen

          religious nuts…..

          Really Ingeborg…. how about I call you atheist nut?

  • xhitmanx

    I think you could be a great ficticious writer.

    • http://www.skepticink.com/dangeroustalk Dangerous Talk

      It wasn’t a fictitious story. I actually wrote the post a few minutes after they left.

  • Zachery d Taylor

    I’m not as familiar with Jehovah’s Witnesses; there don’t seem to be many in my area but the ones I would welcome if they came around would be Mormons. I have found that to be a fascinating religion and there is an enomrous amount of evidence documenting the development of it since they wrote things down as they went. This creates an enormous problem for both skeptics and believers. The records have the usual amount of contradictions and changes; but they don’t explain how they managed to atract so much attention so fast in the nineteenth century.
    It would be hard to explain without going into a lot more detail but I can’t understand how Joseph Smith and Brigham Young managed to learn how to develop indoctrination methods without much educational background and several other unsolved mysteries surrounding the religion.
    Some of the most informed on this subject are the ex-Mormons or moderate Mormons who don’t accept the msot irrational beliefs yet tehy have taken the time to look into the records and found some of the problems that believers and skeptics often deny.

    • http://www.skepticink.com/dangeroustalk Dangerous Talk

      Joseph Smith was a convicted con-artist. What do you mean that it is a mystery that he was able to fool so many people? That’s what he did for a living!

      • Zachery d Taylor

        I can’t give you a quick answer; in fact without a much closer look you are fully justified to remain skeptical. However after taking a closer look I couldn’t understand how he atracted so much attention while the religion was being developed and why the people who were outraged by him and left didn’t deny what they percieved as revelations that tehy had or that they still believed that Smith was a prphet. There was also a problem with the Anthon letters that wasn’t properly explained.

        No doubt that he was a con-artist though but I can’t understand how he could possibly be that good. Nor do I understand how it managed to survive when all the other religions in the Burned-over district collapsed. They were more traditional beliefs that followed a different pattern.

        I took a much closer look with “A Brief History of the Mormon Church” if you’re interested.

        http://open.salon.com/blog/zacherydtaylor/2012/01/20/a_brief_history_of_the_mormon_church
        I do agree that it is a cult though but can’t understand how they learned how to devolop tactics that turned out to be so effective.

        • http://www.skepticink.com/dangeroustalk Dangerous Talk

          I read Under the Banner of Heaven (http://astore.amazon.com/dangtalk-20/detail/1400032806) and that gave a pretty good overview of the origins of Mormonism. I guess I am not really seeing the big mystery. He was a con-man and you seem surprised that he actually conned people. In fact, you seem to be more than just surprised. You make it sound like it is some huge mystery that no one can solve.

          As for Mormonism being a cult. I don’t agree… at least in the sense that I see it as no different than any other religion. If you are claiming that Mormonism is a cult just like any other religion, then I would agree. But to claim that it is a cult and mainstream religions aren’t; that I can’t agree with.

          • Zachery d Taylor

            I haven’t read Under the Banner of Heaven but a relatively quick look at the Google excerpts gives me the impression that it might not cover the history of the Church too extensively and may focus on one of many of the Mormon Murders. There are more where that came from including Jeffery Lundgren and Mark Hoffman and many others.
            It is what I would consider an authoritian cult, as indicated. This creates a situation where this is much more likely than people that are not raised in an authoritarian manner through strict disliplinarian manners.
            As for whether I think it is a cult differnet from other religions, I don’t; the way I define cults are beliefs systems that dictate the truth to their followers without scrutiny. So by that definition the other religions would be cults as well. I went into both of this in the post cited, and more.
            There is an enormous amount of documentation about this subject which takes a lot of time to cover so if you remain skeptical that is of course apropiate; but if you find the time you might find that this isn’t a simple thing that can be adressed quickly.

  • rblevy

    This is great. I wish that I had the patience to use sweet reason this way.

  • http://www.facebook.com/haszard Danny Haszard

    Their Watchtower society message,in 180 languages, is the same: God is soon going to execute every living person on the planet, except Jehovah’s Witnesses. They also actively encourage people to reject life-saving medical treatment involving some common blood products such as plasma and red cells.
    The origin of all Watchtower teachings that makes them unique over all other religions is their creed of Jesus second coming ‘invisibly’ in the year 1914.

    For background critical information on Jehovah’s Witnesses beliefs and practices browse my blog.
    Danny Haszard FMI dannyhaszard(dot)com

  • grngrl

    I have been waiting for more than a year for the JW to show back up at my door. I have a copy of their Awake magazine just waiting on them. The November 2010 edition’s cover story is “Atheism on the Rise”. The article discusses how atheists are working to convert believers. The gall of people who actively knock on strangers doors to convert them putting out an article about how others are proselytizing their beliefs. Unfortunately, my last few conversations with the JW must have been logged, because I still see them in my neighborhood, but they never knock on my door. I keep the article right by my front door in hopes that one will drop by. http://download.jw.org/files/media_magazines/g_E_201011.pdf

    • http://www.skepticink.com/dangeroustalk Dangerous Talk

      That’s awesome. I’ll check it out.

  • http://profiles.google.com/mattharris73 george harris

    There are copies of BIble books that are 2300 years old. I think they are called the Dead Sea Scrolls. They do not differ in content from has been handed down to us today so how is it that people believe the Bible has changed?

    • http://skepticink.com/dangeroustalk Dangerous Talk

      I’m not an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, but it is my understanding that they comprised nearly 1000 different writings from various time periods. Only some of which even come close to duplicating the writings we call the Bible. Most are writings that are not in the Bible. The ones that are in the Bible do have noticable differences. Bart Ehrman’s book “Misquoting Jesus” details how the Bible has changed over the years. Also, I should point out that the oldest Bible we have is called the Codex Sinaiticus and it is currently online. So you can match that up with what you’ve got and see if they are the same: http://www.examiner.com/article/oldest-bible-goes-online