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Posted by on Feb 23, 2013 in Random | 17 comments

When the Jehovah’s Witnesses came over…

So there I was, stark bollock naked, having just had a shower. Not probably what you were expecting from this post, for sure. The door bell rang, and my partner answered. I kept half an ear open, intrigued as to who it might be. I heard words like “…my partner upstairs…” and “…you might want to talk to him…” from my partner, as well as things like “…creation…God…” from a couple of voices.

“Holy mother of God! I’d better get my ass downstairs! The J-Dubs are in town!” I thought to myself. And charged downstairs, looking like an ineptly-dressed shambles.

I was excited, genuinely excited. My blood pressure and heart beat were through the roof. I could barely contain myself.

Most men get like this in the throes of sexual unison, or on seeing a beautiful woman. Not me. Geek to the bone. I was hankering, not for hot sex (though my clothing may have stated otherwise), but for a hot debate. About God.

So I was confronted with a middle-aged man and a younger guy holding out their issues of the Watchtower – that beacon of rational enlightenment.

“Hi there, we’re-”

“I’ve been wanting to speak to you guys for AGES. You see, I’m an atheist philosopher and author and…”

Cue a rather protracted rant about, well, everything. Evolution was pretty fun. They had nothing to answer for every single one of my points (yes, including endogenous retroviruses) apart from deferring to an article on Creation in their beloved magazine. They were nice enough people. The older guy wasn’t quite as sharp or knowledgeable on anything as the younger guy, but it was still clear that they weren’t really justified in holding to their beliefs, and certainly not in knocking on people’s doors and trying to convince them that THEY were erring in their beliefs.

So we chatted for some time. I showed them my books, and gave them a business card, and treated the whole thing like a reverse conversion attempt, an atheistic proselytism. It certainly wasn’t what they were expecting. On literally every point that they had, I had a counterpoint.

So, readers, let me know of YOUR Jehovah’s Witness stories. Tell me of what you talked about, and what effect it had on them.

[Random reminder - I'm on twitter - please follow me - @ATipplingPhilo]

 

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

    LOL, what a turnaround event.

    Years ago JWs were coming to my buddy’s house quite frequently. One day he had enough and answered door politely but completely naked. Needless to say JWs quickly ran away and never came back.

  • http://www.www.skepticink.com/tippling/ Jonathan MS Pearce

    I’ve heard use of that ploy. I almost did that by mistake…

  • http://www.neonbubble.com/ Mark Hooper

    We had a period about 6-7 years ago where the JWs attacked our street – one pair on one side, one pair on the other – about once a month (or every other) for well over a year. The first time I answered it was a polite “no, thanks” from me, but thereafter I started to engage them in conversation and, thanks to the frequency of their visits, started to hone my discussion technique. I should point out that it was always a different pair of witnesses (always, of course, an elder and a younger one).

    On the last couple of times I had a long talk with them (usually > 20 minutes on the doorstep) I hit upon a very debilitating approach as far as they were concerned; I started directing all my eye contact and talk to the younger of the two and every time I’d make a remark such as “major discrepancy A in OT versus Jesus’ words B in NT” I’d also add a little phrase like “which really doesn’t make much sense, don’t you think?” accompanied by a deliberate nod (in fairness, I might have picked that up from watching Derren Brown); quite often this would get an automatic little nod and weak smile in response and, more importantly, noticeably started to irritate the older of the two JWs who would then try to get away as quickly as possible.

    Unfortunately, on the very last time that they made an appearance the younger of the two was a Downs Syndrome sufferer and I couldn’t bring myself to try the same thing (which is a failing to treat people equally on my part, I admit).

    The interesting point, as far as this comment goes, is what happened next: the JWs still did the door-to-door down our street for at least another six months. Every door, without fail… no, tell a lie, there was a fail: they bypassed our house every time. I got quite miffed when I saw them glance at the door number and then wander past.

  • PaulSJenkins

    I talk about my most recent JW encounter here:

    http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2013/02/skepticule-040-20130120_10.html

    (…coincidentally after a certain Jonathan M S Pearce’s contribution to the podcast.)

  • http://www.www.skepticink.com/tippling/ Jonathan MS Pearce

    Thanks Paul!

  • http://www.www.skepticink.com/tippling/ Jonathan MS Pearce

    That’s fascinating, Mark! Thanks so much for sharing. Do you think that they sent a DS child in as a ploy? Using the disabled for a particular gain?

  • An Ardent Skeptic

    My encounter with Jehovah’s witnesses is as follows:

    7 years ago I had to have a small patch of basal cell carcinoma surgically removed from my nose.  The wound did not close properly so the surgeon performed a second surgery to fix this problem.  After the surgery my face swelled and my eye turned black and blue, but because it was a relatively small incision on a spot which was difficult to bandage there was no bandage on the wound.  My blood doesn’t clot well, so I was wiping away blood, which was running out of the wound, for hours after the surgery.

    I went to bed that night but had great difficulty falling asleep because the surgery required that I sleep on my back.  I’m a stomach sleeper usually with my face mushed into my pillow.  I finally feel asleep about 5:30am.  

    At 10:30am the doorbell rang.  My husband was expecting a very important delivery of a piece of computer equipment to replace our computer backup system which had died.  The package needed a signature for delivery and I knew this. I hopped out of bed, threw a bathrobe on over my p.j.s, and rushed to the door so that I could sign for delivery.  (Our Postal, UPS, and FedEx delivery people are used to me opening the door in my p.j.s and a bathrobe because I worked the night shift for years.  They always apologize for waking me up, and I always thank them for waking me up and tell them that an apology is unnecessary.) 

    Unfortunately, it wasn’t UPS at the door, it was two Jehovah’s witnesses.  As soon as I opened the door, and before I could even say “Hello”, the older gentleman said, “Obviously, we have come to the right place at the right time.  You need what God can give to you, but first we need to tell you what God needs from you.”  I was flabbergasted and was thinking, “Just because it’s obvious that I just got out of bed, and I’m in my p.j.’s and a bathrobe at 10:30am doesn’t make me a bad person.”  I was furious and said, “I don’t give a damn what your God needs from me.  Your God can kiss my ass.”  I slammed the door in their face.

    Then I went to the bathroom and saw my face for the first time since I had gotten up.  My black and blue eye and the swelling had gotten worse while I slept, and my incision had been bleeding as well.  I had blood crusted on my cheek and clear down to my chin, and I was bleeding again but didn’t know it because the crusted blood prevented me from feeling the wet blood on my skin.  After seeing my face, I was even more angry.  If the UPS delivery person had seen me in that condition, she would have been very upset and would have wanted to know if there was anything she could do.  Our Postal and FedEx people would have reacted with concern as well.  Most people would, but not these Jehovah’s Witnesses twits.  They were on a mission, and nothing was going to prevent them from doing their duty to God.

    The Jehovah’s Witnesses have never been back to our house.  I have a feeling they have decided that I am the spawn of Satan, and that it isn’t in the least surprising that my husband beats me.  After all, nothing else could possibly explain the condition of the witch who answered the door.

  • Daydreamer1

    The thing that gets me is that they’re not doing it for you… An evangelical Christian would be on your doorstep trying to convert you, which I would far prefer than the JW. The JW’s are not on your doorstep for you, they are on your doorstep for themselves – to earn the points they need to be a good JW and get into heaven. Thats why they don’t care about your soul and move on so easily. All they need is to meet a door quota, but it is done for themselves and no one else. I am sure if they manage to make some vulnerable person think about God they will pat themselves on their back, but my point is that that isn’t really what they are doing.

    I think its an example of looking into another culture with our own values. If we knocked on doors it would be to de-convert people, not to tick boxes on our supernatural paperwork (must have 5000 houses ticked off by age 40 etc).

    The principle of knocking on doors and not really caring about the people behind them, just counting them off, to get a reward is what bugs me more than their theology (the last lot tried to impress upon me, a geologist, that JW’s believed in old earth creationism so it wasn’t against geology!).

  • http://www.www.skepticink.com/tippling/ Jonathan MS Pearce

    Thanks so much for sharing this quite amusing story! Really appreciated!

  • http://www.www.skepticink.com/tippling/ Jonathan MS Pearce

    I’ve never looked at it that way before. You are spot on – people are just numbers, and there is no personal paradigm to the whole process.

  • Daydreamer1

    I always liked to chat with them, but once I realised how different their motivation was from what mine would be I judged the JW more negatively. My source was the Reasonable Doubts podcast ‘View from the Watchtower’ (if you’re interested).

    If I remember correctly it doesn’t even matter if you open your door – they get to count your house towards their ‘points-win-prizes’ theology by just knocking on your door. If your an atheist then its likely that it will just be evidence to them that Satans power is active in the world. They don’t care outside the context of their bubble (actually I might remember that phrase since it seems to underlie the difference between rational and theological approaches to evidence based reality).

  • http://twitter.com/davejmurphy Dave Pleb Murphy

    I’m disapointed now, I was expecting “and then I realised that, in my excitement, I’d forgotten to get dressed and I was still bollock naked”

    My dad is a JW – used to drive me utterly insane until I gave up & stopped speaking to him.

  • Daydreamer1

    Ive just been arguing with myself about the nature of knowledge taking the theist position and my own. I’ve come to the conclusion that the main point underlying knowledge should be the ability to determine it from anything else we might make up. All this ‘science is just a belief nonsense’ and its ilk – upon which a good amount of theology rests today with the whole NOMA separation and factual equalities. I think that when I come up against epistemologies that play these games I will just ask ‘what is the point if your idea can’t differentiate from something we can make up on the spot?’.

  • http://www.www.skepticink.com/tippling/ Jonathan MS Pearce
  • http://www.www.skepticink.com/tippling/ Jonathan MS Pearce

    The scientific method is so good because it is a self-correcting consistent METHOD of deriving knowledge.

  • Daydreamer1

    Thanks for the link, I will give it a read.

  • Daydreamer1

    Indeed. I think the thing that bugs me most about theological ‘knowledge’ claims is that often as not you cannot tell the difference between them and a made up example without using some jiggery-pokery such as already accepting it as truth before looking at it. 

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