To be annoyed with those selling religion door to door

[Ilovemyself]

Yesterday morning, whilst getting the children ready to go out there was a knock at the door. 2 women of pensioner age stood there when I answered, and asked me if I had thought of god.

I told then that I didn't want to waste their time or mine as I had my own particular views and was rather busy.

They did ask what my religion was which I told them and hoped they would go away.

At this point, they pulled out their leaflets and asked if I had ever wondered if god was cruel. I was polite, took their leaflets, and said I was busy ( again).

They thanked me and said they would come back to discuss what they had left.

I was polite to them throughout. Would I be unreasonable to either ignore their knocks or answer and tell them to go away. I really think your religion ( or lack of) is your personal business and going door to door does pray on the vulnerable and elderly

I like talking to the Mormons, but not the JW. In my first job in the UK, we had a JW girl working with us - she developed leukaemia. No blood transfusions, no bone marrow donation, she died at age 16. We went to her funeral. They spent all of 5 minutes talking about her, the rest of the service was all about how great the JW religion was, how everyone else was going to burn etc. All this in front of the girl's father who was not a JW, he was so, so distressed. I didn't walk out, but only because it would have been disrespectful to this lovely girl.

The Mormons are fun to argue with - I don't talk to them at the door, but if they are around in our local shopping centre and I have time, I'm happy to sit down and talk to them. I know my Bible fairly well, and am a feminist with pagan sympathies (though atheist) and most of them seem to enjoy a good ding-dong argument even if I don't take any of their leaflets.

I do find them funny though - their 'elders' are all young men who look about 15.

I came across this picture the other day about JW's and found it funny:

here

Pointy I would be really surprised if you went to a jw funeral where they said everyone else was going to burn, especially as they don't believe in hell.

YWNBU to be annoyed or to tell them, politely, that you weren't interested.

I'm a Christian but I'm against cold calling, it's not on to disturb people in their homes.

I live in a rural area so I've never had any call round. I would probably chat with them if I did though (unless I was busy).

When I was at university JWs were always outside the student's union on Friday mornings. Most of them were easy to brush off but there was one lady who was about 4ft 5, at least 80 with snow white hair and rosy cheeks. She would just appear at your elbow with a small 'excuse me dear' and you just wouldn't have the heart not to turn and listen. She was the best marketing ploy the JWs could possible have thought of. Everybody at the university knew and feared her and her adorable 'granny-ness'.

OK, Rhonda that may not have been the exact terminology - but the funeral was 95% about how wonderful the JW faith was, and how much better and truer it was than anyone else's, and only 5% was actually dedicated to the person being cremated. That just struck me as completely wrong, as if the dead person were less important than the faith. Compared to other funerals I have attended - my gran's humanist one, several C of E ones - the JW funeral struck me as a shameless piece of self promotion and not a celebration and remembrance of the deceased's life. To my mind that says a lot about this particular faith, and none of it is pleasant.

Catholic funerals barely mention the deceased at all. I went. To my first this year and was truly surprised at how little mention there was about the person who had passed compared to the rest of the proceedings. I won't be getting judgemental about how another faith choose to mark the passing of a loved one though.

To many truly religious people, they are indeed less important as a person than their faith is.

a lot of religious funerals dont mention the deceased person a lot they will if the family organise it but usually the minister vicar or rabbi will conduct it in a religious going to heaven sort of way , I was at a church of scotland funeral a few months back and the family said their bits and the minister did the religious god bit

Another readon why I'm an atheist. I want my funeral to be about the family getting together to say goodbye to a loved one, not about propping up a faith. All the funerals I have been to, with the exception of the JW one have been about the people involved and their family. Anything else seems uncaring to me.

I've only had a couple of religious knockers over the years and I'm pretty sure they were both Christian. They both started with something along the lines of "Have you got a minute to talk about Jesus?". Do the Mormons and JWs just not tend to bother with London or does it take so long for them to cover everywhere that you're likely to miss them if you move every year or two?

Oh and YANBU. I hate anyone intruding on my day be they charity collectors or people trying to convert me. I live in a town center so most days I have to run the chugger gauntlet just going to the supermarket. I've discovered that growling at them about how they should be more than 3m from a shop door or shouldn't follow me for more than 3 steps tends to get rid of them even if they aren't breaking any rules. At least the religious people we get occasionally just stand there trying to hand out leaflets.