When Jehovah's Witnesses Attack

[Richard G]

It's always good to have the proper attire when meeting someone for the first time, so as to make a lasting impression.....
http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshots/MomentOfFame/l58810.jpg
(thats not me)

[Richard G]

This keeps them from knocking,
http://bissells.com/cindy/funstuff/funphotos/images/doorknocker.jpg

[DanishDynamite]

:D

I'm glad to see that, despite your many faults, you at least have a sense of humor.

[Yahweh]

:dl:

[bratok]

Who are this JWs and what do they want, btw? Didn't hear much of them here in Russia :) .

[Marc]

Originally posted by bratok
Who are this JWs and what do they want, btw? Didn't hear much of them here in Russia :) .

Jehova's Witnesses, also known as The Watchtower Society.

Weird christian sect that believes the end of the world is at hand. (have passed a half dozen predicted dates for it over the last century) They are young earth creationists, avoid any outside information, require frequent meetings in their Kingdom Halls, and have will refuse to recieve blood transfusions. Believe only 144,000 people will actually get into heaven. Also known for going door to door trying to recruit people.

[c4ts]

Originally posted by Richard G
This keeps them from knocking,
http://bissells.com/cindy/funstuff/funphotos/images/doorknocker.jpg

That's going to keep everybody from knocking, unless they're extremely gay or something.

[triadboy]

Originally posted by bratok
Who are this JWs and what do they want, btw? Didn't hear much of them here in Russia

The JWs that come to my house are a couple in their 70s. I answer the door and there are these old people - all dressed up - with smiles so wide, they actually go behind their heads!

I haven't had the heart to tell them I'm an atheist. I take their magazine - thumb through it - laugh - toss it in the trash.

[T'ai Chi]

Originally posted by Richard G
It's always good to have the proper attire when meeting someone for the first time, so as to make a lasting impression.....
http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshots/MomentOfFame/l58810.jpg
(thats not me)

It looks like the JW's aren't the ones doing the attacking there...

[neutrino_cannon]

Originally posted by Richard G
It's always good to have the proper attire when meeting someone for the first time, so as to make a lasting impression.....
http://www.momentoffame.com/snapshots/MomentOfFame/l58810.jpg
(thats not me)

Hm... Very Stylish, with plenty of .45 ammo, I'd like to have that set up.

Or maybe just the m-1, hopefully with selective fire.

That's going to keep everybody from knocking, unless they're extremely gay or something.

I dunno. From the picture, she looks vaugely aroused. What about pagans who take it as a prosperity charm of some sort? Keep an open mind.;)

I haven't had the heart to tell them I'm an atheist. I take their magazine - thumb through it - laugh - toss it in the trash.

How wasteful triadboy. You should have burned them to heat your house.

[espritch]

I just can't help thinking the Girl Scout on the other side of the door in that first picture isn't going to sell any cookies...ever again.

[Scoobmaster]

Hey - I have a funny JW story.

Back in 1986 when I was in high school, I was home alone on a Saturday afternoon when two JWs knocked on my door. I opened the door and before I could even speak they launched into their speech. I tried to think quickly as to what to do next, and came upon a devious idea. I put on the most puzzled face I could make and then started using some simple phrases I had learned in my German classes in school.

"Ich verstehen Sie nicht. Ich spreche keine English. Sprechen Sie Deutsch, bitte?"

I just stopped there and gave them a puzzled look. The stopped, looked at each other then finally one whispered to the other, "I don't think he speaks English" I was trying SOOOO hard to keep a straight face as the one said (in the LOUD and SLOW way that for some reason people think will magically make a foreigner understand them better), "Were very sorry for bothering you sir - may the lord bless you and have a good day". Then they left. I closed the door and burst out laughing - I could not believe it worked (my greatest fear was them calling my bluff with one of them speaking fluent German!)

The best part was going to German class on Monday and telling my teacher that I used my German skills in a practical way over the weekend. My teacher got all excited and asked me to share the experience with the class. I proudly told the whole story and got howls of laughter from my classmates (and a look of huge disappointment from my teacher).

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by neutrino_cannon
How wasteful triadboy. You should have burned them to heat your house. The magazines or the missionaries?

[LW]

Originally posted by Marc

They are young earth creationists

Actually, they are old earth creationists. Unless, of course, they have changed their official immutable dogma once again.

[El Greco]

Originally posted by Scoobmaster
I used my German skills in a practical way over the weekend

This is a great idea to avoid not only JWs but also dealers of any kind! It would also be great for phone marketing screening, as long as you remember to answer every call with "Pronto" or something like that.

Hmmm, I'd better learn some basic swahili (http://www.travlang.com/languages/cgi-bin/langchoice.cgi?lang1=english&lang2=swahili&page=main)...

Jambo.... Sifahamu!... Unaweza kusema kiswahili ?

[Marc]

Originally posted by LW


Actually, they are old earth creationists. Unless, of course, they have changed their official immutable dogma once again.

They changed to old earth? When did that happen? All their 'end of the world' dates were based on 6,000 years from creation of the world, switching to other events when the predicted date passed.

[LW]

Originally posted by Marc

They changed to old earth? When did that happen? All their 'end of the world' dates were based on 6,000 years from creation of the world, switching to other events when the predicted date passed.

At least their "Blue Book" ("Life, ...") supports old world creationism. Or, maybe I should qualify that a little more and say that the Finnish translation of the book does, though by my experience their translations are generally very accurate.

It contains the standard "thousand years is like a day" stuff and argues that the days of creation may have consisted of thousands of human years. They don't (IIRC) explicitly disallow the young earth model but the emphasis is on old earth side.

BTW, the section about creation contains one of the most amusing probability arguments I've ever seen. According to it, the probability that a writer puts the beginning at the start of a text is 1/10. (Or more precisely, 1/n if there are n parts in the text)

[Marc]

Originally posted by LW

It contains the standard "thousand years is like a day" stuff and argues that the days of creation may have consisted of thousands of human years. They don't (IIRC) explicitly disallow the young earth model but the emphasis is on old earth side.

The "thousand years is like a day" is used by YEC to translate the 'creation week' to (besides being a litteral event) symbolize the age of the earth. The earth will exist for one of god's weeks, which is 1000 years per day.

The problem they have had is predicting when that thousand year/day week is going to end. They based it on a couple different events, the latest is on the creation of eve.

The group is also a splinter group that broke away from Seventh Day Adventists, another biblical litteralist group.

doesn't sound like they are going old earth to me. Maybe they are downplaying it at first until they can get you in.

[bratok]

Originally posted by El Greco
Hmmm, I'd better learn some basic swahili (http://www.travlang.com/languages/cgi-bin/langchoice.cgi?lang1=english&lang2=swahili&page=main)...
Jambo.... Sifahamu!... Unaweza kusema kiswahili ?
Guess Farsi would also do great in scaring unwanted people off :D . "Allah Akbar!" or how was it...

[ingoa]

Never had problems with the JW's. I just say "I'm a physicist." That does it every time. Really. :D

And the good thing is they don't come back. As long as you don't move...

[Keneke]

I have an interesting JW story. I was really young at the time, maybe 11 or so. I was a latchkey kid, and usually went home to watch cartoons until Mom and Dad came home from their jobs. Jehovah's Witnesses knocked on our door aroud 4:30. They started talking about God and asking me to invite them in to talk about God. The two men were pretty old and slow, not to mention charismatic and harmless looking, so I let them in. Being raised in a Christian Church in a rural area 20 years ago, talk about God was pretty much a signifier of safety. Everyone had seen these two going door to door for weeks, so they were pretty much dismissed as exactly who they were supposed to be.

So they come in and start preaching by way of rhetorical questions. Wouldn't you like to be in heaven someday? Do you believe the way to heaven is stated in the Bible? I was so young that I just listened and answered. Nowadays I can hardly remember what they said way back when, just that they had the demenaor of a very good salesman who seems more concerned in putting you at ease than selling the product (but now I know that is just another trick).

Mom gets home around 5pm. She comes in and wonders who is in the house. At first she thought it was a church elder, they sometimes came over and visited our family. Then the JW's turned to her and started doing the same thing.

I swear I've never seen such a poker face on that woman. She said, "I think our faith is pretty secure where we are, thank you." But the context was actually, "Get the hell away from my kid and out of my house. 11 year olds don't have the authority to invite strangers in." So they kindly departed. Mom even put on a small Martha Stewart-esque smile for them as they left.

I still have that little red book they gave me, filled with pictures of polo-shirt wearing white people (with the occasional token black or oriental) hugging or listening to Jesus. It's interesting to compare it to the standard protestant interpretation of bible verses. And, of course, it's even better to go back and see what huge logical gaps they leap.

The scary part is that their visit wasn't scary. They were friendly, charismatic, not in teh least pushy, and the free book they gave had cute little pictures, was easy reading, and told you exactly what you wanted to hear. Even now I don't think those particular JWs were annoying or dangerous. Oh, NOW I would send them away, and be annoyed and everything, but things are different now.

[LW]

Originally posted by Marc

The "thousand years is like a day" is used by YEC to translate the 'creation week' to (besides being a litteral event) symbolize the age of the earth. The earth will exist for one of god's weeks, which is 1000 years per day.

Yes. But in the book "Life - How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation" published by Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society 1985, the anonymous authors state explicitly that the "days" in Genesis mean periods of thousands of years. This is repeated many times in the Chapter 3 that also contains an explicit denial for the claim that the "days" would have to be interpreted as having 24 hours.

For example, Chapter 3, paragraph 10 (JW's practice of numbering paragraphs is very convenient for references), my translation from the Finnish translation back to English:
(about the first day)
It seems that the light came gradually over a long period of time, and not instantly like when a light switch is pressed.

Same chapter, paragraph 19:

By the end of the third period of creation three large classes of land plants had been created.

Paragraph 30:

These facts help us to understand what Genesis tells us. And this highly realistic story show us that the creation did not last for only 144 hours (6 x 24 hours) but for thousands of years.


I took only three quotes, there are more.

doesn't sound like they are going old earth to me. Maybe they are downplaying it at first until they can get you in.

Well, given that the book was published by the Watchtower itself I'd take it as a rather good evidence for that JWs at least were old-earth creationists in the middle of 80s, or at least that was the official position of the church.. And, since I got my copy of the book in 1994 or 95, I'd quite comfortably say that they still held the same view then.

Of course, they may have changed their position since, as they did with the "generation of 1914" stuff that got chunked out in 1999, IIRC.

[Doorknob]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Marc


They are young earth creationists


That is not correct.

[Doorknob]

Originally posted by Marc


They changed to old earth? When did that happen? All their 'end of the world' dates were based on 6,000 years from creation of the world, switching to other events when the predicted date passed.
From the creation of man, not the creation of the earth.

[Candace]

I generally refer to their church as being 'small'. This will get a reply of how big they really are - all over the globe, every country (somehow, I suspect they don't really get that many converts in Antartica, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt...).

Then I ask them how many people are going to heaven, again?

144,000

And HOW MANY people are already IN your church?

Millions.

So a lot of you are working to make things nice for SOMEBODY ELSE...?
Somebody ELSE that's going to heaven...
Without YOU?

Then there's a lot of stammering and uh humming, and then I say, "Well, when your god decides to build on, give us a call," give them a card for my husband's construction company, and close the door.

I have never seen the same faces twice, and we live one block away from a JW church.

[Keneke]

Actually, the 144k thing is a bit oversimplified. That many people go to heaven to "work for God", but the rest who follow the techings live forever in heaven on Earth. Then the JW's pull up the "He shall make a new heaven and new earth" verse...forget where exactly it is from. You most likely will live on the new earth, if you're very good you willgo to heaven, and if you are bad you go to hell.

[Doorknob]

Originally posted by Candace

So a lot of you are working to make things nice for SOMEBODY ELSE...?
Somebody ELSE that's going to heaven...
Without YOU?

Then there's a lot of stammering and uh humming, and then I say, "Well, when your god decides to build on, give us a call," give them a card for my husband's construction company, and close the door.


I really don't believe you've had this conversation with an actual JW before because there is not a JW alive who would not know how to answer your question without missing a beat.
JW's believe that there will be billions ressurected (or survive through Armageddon) to an earth that's been brought to paradise conditions with all sin removed.

[Candace]

Well, thank you for your kind words.

As I said before, I think we get all the newbies, considering mother used to answer the door in various stages of undress and then set the dog on them, we must be the training ground.

And I have had this conversation, although why I take time to confirm my reality to an electronic signal such as yourself, I do not know.

Have a great day!

[bjornart]

I want more JW's please!

They came once to our house when I was a kid. My brother, two years younger and at the time more timid, opened the door while I was in the bathroom, and I could hear them asking him if we were interested in the Watch Tower. I figured he'd stutter and not know what to say, and I was busy following natures call, so I shouted "We ain't interested." They left immediately. :D

Then they came once to my dorm while I was in uni. I let them in but said I didn't think they'd have much luck in convincing me. I answered every question about whether I wasn't concerned about salvation, or my soul, or curious about god with a simple "no", and every statement about religion or the need for faith with "why?". They were fed up fairly soon.

I moved into this place two months ago, and I can almost look down upon the JW community house from my balcony, but they haven't come calling yet... Ooh, I just got a brilliant idea. I need to get me some pamphlets and go preach atheism to them! :D

[triadboy]

Once when I was a fervent biblical critic (as if I've changed :) ), the doorbell rang and my wife said, "Honey, it's for you."

There to greet me were two little, green witnesses! My mouth was watering as I invited them in. They started explaining things to me and I let them suck me in. Then I nailed them - hard! I quoted scripture refuting what they had said. They got noticeably nervous. I asked them questions they couldn't answer. ("But we'll get the answer and get back to you") I was offering them lemonade to try and keep them captive, but they escaped. Before they left, I winked at them and said, "That didn't go so well, did it?"

I feel you have to overpower people trying to convert you.

[bjornart]

I'm getting ready to start my reverse-JW cult, but I need to know something?
Are JW the prosecutor's or the defense's witnesses? Is JHWH the accuser or the accused?

If no-one knows the answer, maybe I can just testify as a friend of the court? Amicus Curiae is a neat name, but it isn't specific enough. Anyone have any ideas?

[LW]

Originally posted by Keneke
You most likely will live on the new earth, if you're very good you willgo to heaven, and if you are bad you go to hell.

Well, the JWs don't believe in hell either. They believe that all nasty sinners will be destroyed once and for all by throwing them into the lake of fire.

[bjornart]

For those still wondering whether JW's are young earth or old earth creationists: http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/1996/1/22/awesome_universe.htm
Man they are smooth talkers!

Basically they are 'scientists don't have all the answers, so you should read the bible'ists.

[volant]

What kind of crazy JW's do you guys meet? The ones I know of can't get past my moat, electric fence, or lined up row of evil robots. Wait, you guys have at least a moat, correct? RIGHT?!

[Chanileslie]

Originally posted by bjornart
I want more JW's please!

They came once to our house when I was a kid. My brother, two years younger and at the time more timid, opened the door while I was in the bathroom, and I could hear them asking him if we were interested in the Watch Tower. I figured he'd stutter and not know what to say, and I was busy following natures call, so I shouted "We ain't interested." They left immediately. :D

Then they came once to my dorm while I was in uni. I let them in but said I didn't think they'd have much luck in convincing me. I answered every question about whether I wasn't concerned about salvation, or my soul, or curious about god with a simple "no", and every statement about religion or the need for faith with "why?". They were fed up fairly soon.

I moved into this place two months ago, and I can almost look down upon the JW community house from my balcony, but they haven't come calling yet... Ooh, I just got a brilliant idea. I need to get me some pamphlets and go preach atheism to them! :D

Here try printing up some of the classic pamphlets from this site:

Kissing Hanks A$$ (http://www.jhuger.com/pamphlets.mv)

Very useful. :-)

[tamiO]

Originally posted by Chanileslie


Here try printing up some of the classic pamphlets from this site:

Kissing Hanks A$$ (http://www.jhuger.com/pamphlets.mv)

Very useful. :-)

:D

I enjoyed that!

[Keneke]

Originally posted by LW


Well, the JWs don't believe in hell either. They believe that all nasty sinners will be destroyed once and for all by throwing them into the lake of fire.

Yeah, that's right. I guess I just equated it to hell when I saw screaming people being thrown into the lake. Fun book for someone my age. :rolleyes:

[BillHoyt]

Originally posted by bjornart
For those still wondering whether JW's are young earth or old earth creationists: http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/1996/1/22/awesome_universe.htm
Man they are smooth talkers!

Basically they are 'scientists don't have all the answers, so you should read the bible'ists.

From the watchtower URL:

"In fact, it "implies a cosmic age as little as eight billion years," reported Scientific American magazine just last June. While eight billion years sounds like a very long time, it is only about half the currently estimated age of the universe. This creates a special problem, since, as the report goes on to note, "other data indicate that certain stars are at least 14 billion years old." If Freedman's numbers hold up, those elderly stars would turn out to be older than the big bang itself!"

I wonder if they'll ever see fit to update the article? It first appeared in 1996 and references SciAm from 1995. Since then, Wendy Freedman and team have resolved the apparent paradox. That was done some years ago.

[c4ts]

I've got some ideas for attire to answer the door with:

Dress as a hippie and say "want some brownies, man?"

Go naked if you're ugly.

Wear garlic around your neck, carry a large wooden cross, and thrust it at JWs when you open the door saying "oh my god, they can walk in the daylight!"

Wear your underpants outside your pants, and explain that Superman has no need for God to protect him.

Get a carving knife and fork, then ask them to come in and lie down in the center of the dinner table.

Wear a bathrobe, carry a sword, and pretend you don't speak english.

[Chanileslie]

Originally posted by tamiO


:D

I enjoyed that!

Glad I could help. :D

[calladus]

Originally posted by c4ts
Wear garlic around your neck, carry a large wooden cross, and thrust it at JWs when you open the door saying "oh my god, they can walk in the daylight!"

:dl:

You made me spill my soda!