# I just had a few LDS "missionaries" visit my house. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 24, 2006, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749 "2006-03-24T18:21:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/161 "2006-03-29T17:57:56Z")
> [@YaWanna](#): > > Why not just say, if they come to your door, “No thanks, I’m not interested and I don’t want you to come here ever again.” And shut the door. I resent even having to do that. If I’m eating dinner, and the doorbell rings, I have to get up to answer it – it could be a tenant, it could be my sister, it could be Publishers Clearinghouse with a check the size of a bedsheet. In other words, it could be _important_. When I discover that it’s nothing but the LDS, and their 20-year-old “elders” trying to sell me on their moonshine, then I’m ticked. Maybe disproportionately, but I’m ticked all the same. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/162 "2006-03-29T18:27:35Z")
> [@YaWanna](#): > > Did you just call me “dude”? > > Listen, I don’t have **my** knickers in a twist (except that I’m not a dude). I just thought you were accusing theists of saying they are “better” than you because their god ignores you. Again, this is absurd. No god has personally appeared to them, either, so don’t be such a martyr! Everyone on this planet who believes in a God learned about that God from another person, not from a personal visit from said God! Jeebus! Unh-unh. Most believers say they have a personal relationship with god. People on these very boards claim to have seen signs that convinced them they were in the presence of The Big Guy. > [@](#): > > And - you don’t have to give a flying fuck what other people believe, and you can find any of their tenets of faith as obnoxious as you choose (though I have no idea what you’re personally getting out of it, other than **un** righteous indignation), but _news flash_ **no amount of that takes away their right to do it!** You can complain until you’re blue in the face. Won’t change a damn thing. I never said they didn’t have a right or even that they shouldn’t have that right. I merely said they’re obnoxious, self-righteous assholes if they think it isn’t offensive to knock on strangers’ doors to offer unsolicited religious blather. That’s what makes this country so great. You’re allowed to BE an obnoxious, self-righteous, blathering asshole. And I’m allowed to tell you that you’re doing a fine job of it. And if I did, it would be no more rude an action than theirs. > [@](#): > > So, I’m sayin’ - _why bother?_ Why get yourself riled up over other peoples’ religious practices that you have _no say in whatsover?_ Why not just say, if they come to your door, “No thanks, I’m not interested and I don’t want you to come here ever again.” And shut the door. Not slam. Not yell. Not get your blood pressure into the danger zone. Just act like an adult. > > What, I am asking you again, is so difficult about that? And again, I’ll respond by saying NOTHING is difficult about saying “no thank you”. But it’s not nearly as easy as just refraining from being a self-righteous, blathering asshole on the doorsteps of strangers. By the way…I had no idea whether or not you were a dude. It was in response to “Ace.” I thought we were doing nicknames. ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/163 "2006-03-29T18:46:12Z")
> [@Aangelica](#): > > _shrug_ Believe me or don’t - it’s your decision. I’m inclined to chalk her up to an excess of desire to spread the Good Word. She certainly seemed to have a grim, but perky, determination to tell me the Word whether or not I was interested. > > I also think she was the sort of person who doesn’t hear anything she doesn’t want to - which has nothing to do with her religious affiliation. Some people just have amazingly selective hearing and she struck me as one of those people. She couldn’t _believe_ I wasn’t interested in the fact that There’s Not Enough Love In The World (a phrase she used with great frequency - I think it had something to do with this month’s topic in the Watchtower or something), so she assumed I was just as eager to hear about it as she was to tell me about it. A kind of willful blindness, if you see what I mean. It’s a common trait in fanatics of all stripes. You’ll never get my husband to understand that not everyone cares deeply and passionately about baseball in general and his team in particular. > > She may also be the type of person who confuses “polite” with “interested” - also a common enough trait in people in general that crops up a lot when people are discussing topics nearest and dearest to their heart. In terms of your story, it has little to do with you really. I’ve sat through hundreds of entirely dubious threads (and dubious is being entirely kind) so I am admittedly jaded. What has me puzzled, other than the 8:03 a.m. time frame, is 1) You had to, more than once, tell her she couldn’t come in the house. I’ve never seen a JW ask to come in someone’s house without a **basis; a reason** —what I mean by that is that JWs are quite content to witness to you right at the front door, and if there is interest than it is natural (and common) _to be invited in_ to continue a discussion _that the homeowner welcomes._ I’ve never seen a JW start the conversation by assuming that they would come in someone’s house—especially since from the very outset you were giving indications they were not welcome. It leaves me puzzled. 2) The “foot in the door as you were closing it” leaves me that much more leery… My point is not to question the veracity of every posters experience. My guess is that theres something just north of a half million JWs in the Eastern Time Zone, USA. (where you live) I can’t vouch for all of them. Maybe some rogues are calling on SDMB members between 6:15 a.m. and 8:03 a.m. 😉 But it remains true, the rogues notwithstanding, that JWs meet every moring at 9 or 9:30 for their public ministry. Given that they continue that ministry all day—and during the summer in the early evenings as well—most people who are called on by JWs are called on later than 10:00 a.m. _The vast majority of them._ (Of course many people are sleeping on Saturday mornings at 10:00 a.m. or later, which is frustrating no matter what time it is) So this common experience that has JWs-as-6 a.m.-storm-troopers is great theater but not accurate. (even if they someone did try to force themselves into your house at 8:03 a.m.) ---
**Author:** ![YaWanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/bbce88/32.png) [@YaWanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YaWanna)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/164 "2006-03-29T19:06:34Z")
I give up. You seem to be using your emotions to guide you, and that’s your prerogative. Enjoy your bitterness (again, the only thing you appear to be getting out of the situation). ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/165 "2006-03-29T19:18:42Z")
> [@YaWanna](#): > > I give up. You seem to be using your emotions to guide you, and that’s your prerogative. Enjoy your bitterness (again, the only thing you appear to be getting out of the situation). I’m not bitter in the least. I simply don’t feel the need to be warm and welcoming to people who are rude to me. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/166 "2006-03-29T19:40:28Z")
> [@the raindog](#): > > I can’t vouch for all of them. Try as you might. When you start suggesting that everyone with an anecdote that violates your hard and fast parameters is making it up for theater, you start to look like the one with blinders, and like a jerk. As apocryphal as these early morning visitations, or the fools who are blown away in a religious debate\*, may seem to you, you and your cohort’s descriptions of the kind and polite people who respond appropriately to “No thanks” and who would never be pushy strike me as equally dubious. Sure, there may be such, but by and large, these folks seem, at best, more likely to stand there through several polite rebuffs before leaving. I have no problem believing that they’d put a foot in the door. You already said that it is standard practice for them to block you into a seat on the subway and try to talk to you about their lord. - And I find these anecdotes to be somewhat unlikely, myself, but for likely different reasons. I think that zealots are zealots in large part because they aren’t able to hear or comprehend contradictory information, so I don’t think a debate would have any meaningful impact on them. ---
**Author:** ![vibrotronica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@vibrotronica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vibrotronica)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/167 "2006-03-29T20:35:12Z")
I am a weak atheist/strong agnostic. I grew up in fundamentalist household in a community where I was surrounded by Christian fundamentalists of all stripes. When I was younger, I went out of my way to argue with the churchies and tell them, in no uncertain terms, how wrong they were and how stupid they were for buying the pathetic lies that constitute religion. Now, I am older, and I recognize that was hypocracy on my part and merely a reflection of the things I hated about religion. I do not do that any more. In fact, I actively avoid discussions of religion. Live and let live, I say. Believe what you want, just keep it out of my face and don’t fly any airplanes into any large buildings. But I draw the line at my front door. If someone comes to my house, rings my bell, and wants to try and push his delusions on me, he is met with the full force of the rage I pent up during 19 years of Church of Christ Sunday school. Meeting me on the street or in a social situation is one thing. My house is quite another. ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/168 "2006-03-29T22:30:13Z")
I used to be polite to prosletyzing freaks until my last year of lawschool (I was smack in the middle of the Bible Belt). Frankly I think the very act is arrogant and rude but I respect their right to do it. Anyway, every day I used to come home to piles of tracts shoved in my screen door-fine by me, I was never home when they would come around and I could just throw them out. Until the day my parents sent me a lovely paper Ganesh that I stuck on my door and one of the groups of zealots that visited that day ripped it up and left me the shreds in a bag with a pamphlet from their church about why I was going to hell as an idol-worshipping heathen. In retrospect, I should have probably have called the church up but I’m sure that they would have privately have high-fived the freak that destroyed the evil evil idol. Now I actively screw with their heads although I don’t have as much of a chance since I live in a gated apartment complex in the type of neighbourhood where they’re liable to end up as target practice. ---
**Author:** ![raindog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@raindog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raindog)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/169 "2006-03-29T22:36:37Z")
> [@anu-la1979](#): > > I used to be polite to prosletyzing freaks until my last year of lawschool (I was smack in the middle of the Bible Belt). Frankly I think the very act is arrogant and rude but I respect their right to do it. Anyway, every day I used to come home to piles of tracts shoved in my screen door-fine by me, I was never home when they would come around and I could just throw them out. Until the day my parents sent me a lovely paper Ganesh that I stuck on my door and one of the groups of zealots that visited that day ripped it up and left me the shreds in a bag with a pamphlet from their church about why I was going to hell as an idol-worshipping heathen. In retrospect, I should have probably have called the church up but I’m sure that they would have privately have high-fived the freak that destroyed the evil evil idol. Now I actively screw with their heads although I don’t have as much of a chance since I live in a gated apartment complex in the type of neighbourhood where they’re liable to end up as target practice. What church was this? ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/170 "2006-03-29T23:20:43Z")
Some non-denom hellfire and brimstone basement operation, I believe. Church of the Quivering Brethren or Church of the Smiting Fiery Hand o’ the Lord etc. etc… I asked around and it was the type of place where everyone stamps and claps and talks in forked tongues or whatever. I swear sometimes I felt like I was living in the Midwest version of some Flannery O’Connor novel. ---
**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/171 "2006-03-30T01:40:28Z")
Strange about LDS missionaries not being pushy. Maybe most of the time they aren’t, but there are exceptions. I met two of them. I was having a chat with my friend at the train station when two of them approached me. I knew who they are straight away (For gosh sake, they got big black badges pinned on their shirt proclaiming that they are LDS missionaries for the whole world to see). They asked for a few miniutes of our time. I said, “No, my friend and I are having a discussion here.” “Oh, why not involve us in the discussion?” one of them said. Both are foreginers, so I guess they are travelling missionaries. Now that’s incredibile pushy, by Asians’ standard. “Actually, no. It’s a private matter.” It’s all right. Maybe we want to listen to them first? “Sorry, we don’t have the time.” Come on, you are being incrediblly _rude_ to us (Rude, did he say RUDE? Oh man, pot and kettles). You haven’t even give us a chance to speak to you yet. This drag on and on until it escalated into a shouting match. I hope this is just a case of zeal and frevour overcoming common senses and cultural sensibilities. ---
**Author:** ![Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4da419/32.png) [@Gala\_Matrix\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gala_Matrix_Fire)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/172 "2006-03-30T11:24:41Z")
I met a neo-Nazi who used the same methods to proselytize. It was rude when he did it, and it’s rude when anybody does it, love God or not. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749/173 "2006-03-30T14:37:20Z")
> [@dangermom](#): > > And the question of Lamanite coloring still has nothing to do with the question of Cain’s lineage (which was simply part of history and science back in the 1840’s–nothing to do with our actual scriptures but a cultural assumption that all Americans shared.) Two different topics. As an ex-Mormon growing up in Salt Lake City in the 60s, and a former missionary, I have to disagree with you here. The idea that Blacks descendants of Cain, and were so because they were fence-sitters in the Great War in the Preexistence between Satin and his third of God’s children was linked to the idea that the Lamanite were darkened because of their rebelliousness against God. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-had-a-few-lds-missionaries-visit-my-house/349749.md?page=8)