To any Jehovah's witnesses out there, would you PLEASE.............

[lucyellensmum]

just leave me alone!!!!!!!!!!

I am very comfortable with my religeon thankyou very much (cathoic). I do not wish to discuss it, end of story.

Just after christmas, a lovely looking young girl with what i presume was her husband (i mean, she was really beautiful!!) Stood with her foot in my door and pushed a leaflet about death into my handsm telling me i shouldnt worry as death isnt the end. I suffer with depression, i know all about death thankyou very much, i lost my father to cancer and ever since i have had a pathological fear of dying for which i am receiving medical treatment. So, thanks for that!! That reminded me of the time i had a leaflet forced on me in the sreet, i was too polite to decline - this one was about when a child dies, i was pushing my buggy at the time - fucking great!

This morning, just over a week later, I am running late, so i am already stressed. I am TRYING to brush my little girls hair, and this is the only thing in the world that she HATES. The door knocks, im expecting my mother, so i plonk DD (who has just let out a blood curdling scream as i hit a tangle) wailing, on the floor. Answer the door, thinking it was my mum, i didnt bother to restrain my dog, who promptly runs past the two smartly dressed old dears standing at my door, making a bee line for the road (they have left the gate open). I have to barge past them to retrieve him. They then say, have we come at a bad time dear???

We are jehovahs witnesses, they say, should we come back another time . No, please don't, please dont ever come back, please just leave me alone. I have no desire to discuss my damnation with you, as i am not a good catholic, i dont go to church and i am not married to my daughters father, so i am bound surely to burn in hell anyway!

Im sorry, i know these people genuinely mean well, but surely they could put their energy to better use. I imagine some lonely and vulnerable old lady, desperate for some company may well invite these parasites into her home, only to have her head filled with hellfire damnation and will spend the rest of the day sitting fretting.

If you want to do God's work, and i really think that is admirable, i really do, then DO something, go and volunteer at the local homeless shelter, go and join the local hospital legue of friends, do ANYTHING but knock on my door - i am running out of polite ways to say i am not interested

I thought limbo was a dance!

Could be purgatory. The catholics admit they made this up, no evidence in the Bible to support it, it's just what they "think" happens to us mere mortals who die, since they reckon we have to go somewhere, they call this state purgatory.

Lucy I got flamed on here a couple of years ago for a very similar thread. I was being hounded, there was obviously a turf war going as I had two different sets on the go. I too had problems with an escaping dog and the final straw [which was when i started my thread] was when my dd escaped. Sometimes politeness just doesn't work. In my case they just got bored and eventually stopped coming round, took about 6 months.

i would happily have taken leaflets from them, it was what i usually did. But seeing that the last two leaflets upset me deeply, just by looking at the covers, i wont be taking them again. I think that reflects more on my emotional state just now though, more than anything else.

I do take great offence, if that is the right word, that it seems that most people think it is OK to be rude to JWs, i certainly dont, as i do respect their motives. It is just that i do not want to be reminded of the shit that goes on in the world, there is enough on the news, which i actively avoid. I have head in sand syndrome to the nth degree

Rhubarb, i remember the nuns at my school going on about purgatory, fecking scared the living daylights out of me. I was about 7 at the time!! Its where we go to get rid of all our sins if we are not bad enough to go to hell but not pure enough for heaven. We might have to stay there till judgement day if we are really really bad - well thats how i remember it anyway. I also remember them hammering on about original sin and how our souls were born with black marks, i had a mental image of a kidney shaped white thing floating around with a little black square on it - strange child i was.

I did go to church for a bit after DD was born, but to be honest, i sat there every sunday thinking to myself, when is he (the local priest) ever going to shut up!! Thats terrible isnt it, but really, he is sooo dull and boring and gets himself terribly worked up about the fact im not married! Im a bit scared of him too as he was priest when i was at primary school and very strict, he does seem to have mellowed with age though. Hes quite sweet really, barking mad - but then you would have to be wouldnt you! So, none the wiser to the workings of the big man

lol @ hell as a Catholic thing Am most amused at the thought of my street-preaching friend being mistaken for a Catholic.

For me this isn't even about religion (being an aethiest, I don't care what other people want to believe in) but about good, old-fashioned, manners.

Let's face it ..... it's cold calling whether it's a JW, someone trying to convert your gas company, or someone else on the phone about double glazing or "seeking your opinions on insurance".

I'm never rude (I think) but I am assertive with anyone who intrudes into my time uninvited (friends and family usually excepted) and whilst a firm "no thanks" gets rid of them IME, it still irks me that I have been interrupted like that. Frankly, if I wanted more info about JW, or guttering, or wanted to buy a duster, I wouldn't flipping well sit around twiddling my thumbs on the offchance that someone would be along in due course knocking on my door to tell me all about it, I'd bloody well go out and there and get these things for myself.

As I said ..... I'm not rude to these people .... but there's a bit of me that does wonder whether people who are rude are entirely in the wrong ? After all, IMO, I think it's very rude and inconsiderate to - for example - persistently ring someone's doorbell several times (maybe waking up a baby, or interrupting a bath) or have the same company call you 5 times in a week (as happened to me recently) despite being very firmly told I had no interest and did not appreciate being called uninvited. Really ....... in the case of JW's specifically, I think how they operate is passive-aggressive ...... many people who object to them are made to feel awful because they turn up seemingly polite, and probably genuinely friendly, but besides all that, completely fail to appreciate that the vast majority of people do NOT welcome interruptions and that it is actually rude to do that.

cm, that's a jolly interesting question. I utterly hate door-knocking, whoever it be that knocketh.

Religiously speaking, it's a fairly effective practice in terms of getting the message out, but when you factor in how irritating it is, that does somewhat blunt the edge.

Actually, what do people think of religious folk on the street - not accosting you like market-researchers, but street preachers? Is it different to door-knocking? I always thought it was because it wasn't intruding on personal space, it was just part and parcel of the 'marketplace'. What do others think?

Lucyellensmum - I had a Catholic education too and it wasn't the original sin business that upset me. It was the mealy mouthed way they had with the truth. The class were sitting on the mat hearing from the teacher that Jesus's real father wasn't Joseph, but was God the Father. So I said "does that mean my father isn't really my father?" and the teacher got all cross with me. I was 6. They hide the facts of life from you as though it were a dirty secret, and then are angry that you don't understand about paternity!

Perhaps things have changed in the few decades since that happened but I still have no time for the Roman Catholic church. They failed to convince me in 13 years of Catholic education and I feel no guilt about it at all.

I'm sure you are the nice person that you say you are, Lucyellensmum, so why do you give the time of day to a patriarchal religion that would cast you into the fires of hell?

I agree with you Sue re: the street preaching thing. That doesn't interrupt you, nor force you to interact, in the same way as someone knocking on your door does.

I suppose they might be particularly irritating to any shopworkers unfortuante enough to be in the shop the preacher's chosen to stand outside, but I don't think they register on most people's radar .... you simply walk past, or stop and listen if you want to. You have a choice to engage - or not.

With a door-knocker, you have the whole thing of answering (in case it's a parcel, or the meter man), or, if you can see who it is hiding behind your sofa or whatever while they (often) ring several times, or answering to shut them up if you have a child asleep ..... and then having to do the assertive, but polite thing to get rid.

My JW lady knocked when I was about 7 months pregnant, we had a little chat.
The same lady still knocks now and dd is six, but she leaves her colleague out on the road and we have a little chat about the kids and the dog. She gives me a Watchtower, I don't read it, she comes back after six months and we do the same again.

The only difference between a religion and a cult is the number of members. [runs and hides.]

Quite right UQD, Christianity was called a cult in the early days when it was full of the devout, forward thinking and sincere.

I say 'No thanks' and shut the door. Any persistance after that gets 'Fuck off, shitheads.' Anyone who actually stuck a foot in my door would get kicked smartly in the shins till they removed it. This applies to crap peddlers of any description, whether they want to sell me superstitions, double glazing or a new energy supplier.

Although my point was not to defend JWs at all but rather to have a pop at all religions.

UQD, a nice trappist monk like you? I'm surprised.

[zip] !

I love this thread. It is "Boss" as we say in Liverpool. Heated, funny and thoughful at the same time. Plus, great insults!! Brilliant. Nighty Night

I love this thread. It is "Boss" as we say in Liverpool. Heated, funny and thoughful at the same time. Plus, great insults!! Brilliant. Nighty Night

LEM - was trick or treating at a friend's house one halloween four years ago

My DD and her friend knocked on the door of a JW house. She found it very very hard to get away.

My family were fortunate when I was 10 years old in that we didn't get any calls for 5 years. The Reason? Local JW family called to our house just 1 hour after my father was buried and still tried to push Watchtower on my mother. Only left after the priest came to the door. And my rather large uncle plus our social worker. Whenever they tried calling after that we'd hide underneath the windows and not answer the door, or deliberately turn the volume up on the music if we would see them coming round the corner so we could pretend that we hadn't heard the door. Mean weren't we? I think they got the message.

I am surprised it took until page 4 for someone to admit they say "fuck off, shitheads". You're all far too polite! I used to live near a Mormon mission and was forever being bailed up in the street by smug young men in polyester shirts. There are only so many "no thanks" my patience extends to before I get to the "fuck off" stage (about two, actually).

I mean, really, what can anyone who wears synthetic fibres possibly teach me about life?

lmao nine dragons about the polyester, next time i shall have them show me their washing labels before they even get to open their mouths.

One small question? What WERE you doing here at 4 am?????

I've had my fair share of JW knocking and I always politely tell them that I am not interested. I had a bit of a shock at work one day though whilst talking to a student who had been allocated to my dept. She was from another country and we were chatting about my upcoming wedding plans. My DH (DB at the time) were planning to get married in Las Vegas (v cool, v cheap and excellent if you have a large family, most of whom you don't want to invite). The student picked up on the fact that we were living together and said "doesn't it bother you that you are going to go to hell?". I said no, as I am not religious and don't believe in the judeo-christian idea of heaven and hell. I didn't push it as I respect other people's rights to believe in whatever they see fit - but then she carried on. I was quizzed on why I didn't go to church, why I didn't believe and why I was going against God's will by living in sin. She told me that I was damned and that I should go to church immediately and change my wedding plans. When I said that this was unlikely to happen she just sat back in her chair, smiled smugly and said - "you will eventually". I was gobsmacked. I couldn't really answer back as we were surrounded by children - but it was a little surprising to say the least!

i think i might have been called on by the exact same JWs as the OP! this was a year or so ago and i remember being blown away by how gorgeous the female JW was. Perhaps it's a conversion tactic - stun them with the gorgeous girl then go in for the kill??