You’re welcome.
Of course you are correct. Her sample size and mine are way to small to have any significance. I have encountered maybe fifteen or twenty Jehovah’s Witnesses, only one of whom I know well. I have also been to one of their church services (that may not be what they call it) and was made to feel extremely welcome without any pressure to join the group. So my overall experience is quite positive as far as friendliness and politeness are concerned.
I should have said something about this earlier, the raindog, but this is out of line. If you want to argue with Annie X-Mas about the truth of her stories, do it in the Pit, not MPSIMS.
That’s okay, Marley–Attacking the person instead of the message is a common practice of people who don’t like the message.
One question for raindog–Is there any aspect of JW’s that you don’t like and/or agree with? Or do you see the religion absolutely perfect in every way
Marley23 I apologize and won’t do it again.
I have no interest in a Pit thread and the stuff that comes with it. It is/was important to me that people know that there exists the possibility that some of the things that are posted here (by anyone, not just Annie-Xmas) may simply not be true. I know that is a basic elementary thing about the internet, but I thought it important to be noted in thread, given the vitriol that is often posted as fact.
In any event, I can’t apologize for the sentiments, but I apologize (to Annie-Xmas as well) for the nature of the words.
I have to run for now. Work calls.
I will try and answer your question later, ok?
If I may… the story sounded familiar to me, so I had to go look it up. From http://paulblizard.org/:
"The hospital officials contacted the Texas Child Welfare Dept. and a suit was filed against us for child abuse and neglect. A court order was issued to ensure that Jenny would receive the blood she needed to save her life. The Sheriff’s Department of Bexar County issued us citations and warned the hospital staff not to allow us to remove Jenny from the hospital. They knew full well that Jehovah’s Witnesses have a long history of sneaking patients out of hospitals to avoid blood transfusions at all costs.
My wife and I were secretly relieved that Jenny would get the care she needed to save her life. We felt we had done all we could in trying to stop them from giving her the blood. We never thought the courts would intervene.
In the meantime, friends contacted the local elders, who promptly came to visit us. They were relieved to find out that there was still time to plan a way to kidnap Jenny out of the hospital before blood could be administered.
I explained to them that the matter was out of my hands and that I was under court order not to remove Jenny. That did not matter to them. Their main concern was to get her out.
I knew that Jenny would shortly die if I removed her from the machines that were keeping her alive, and I would be charged with murder. I explained this to the elders. They replied, “That’s the chance you have to take! You cannot allow them to give your child blood!”
Without further discussion, I asked them to leave, stating that we could not allow our child to die in this way. “If this is the God I serve, I am through with Him.”
The elders left the hospital angry that we would not submit to their demands “I hope,” one elder even said, “she gets hepatitis from that blood, just to prove that it’s bad!”
When we finally returned home with Jenny, the Witnesses had received word that even though we had protested the transfusion, We “allowed” her to take it. This made us outcasts in their eyes. They did not excommunicate us because their law calling for expulsion would have applied only if we had freely given permission for the transfusion."
I know I don’t really need to clear this up, but “drop it” means “drop it,” not “apologize while getting your last licks in.” So this is a formal warning.
A point that I’d already advised you to stop making. Everybody here can evaluate posts on their own.
By the same token, when I told the raindog to stop calling you a liar, I was not inviting you to give criticism of your own.
Again: any more of this stuff should go in the Pit.
Thanks for that link Juliana. I hadn’t seen that before, but apparently some JW’s do hope that blood transfusions cause harm in order to prove their point.
Didn’t you already know that? Your story sure makes it seem that way.
Quoth the raindog:
That would probably qualify as witnessing, and as such is not appropriate for this forum. If you ask in Great Debates, I’ll answer you there.
And that is just a demonstration of the range of humans in any religion, you can have many who are the sweetest, most honest and nicest people you would ever want to know, and you have others that are the biggest biggoted jackasses in the world who would best benefit the world by dropping dead.
I try to enjoy encountering the nice people in the world and avoiding the jackasses whenever possible.
But of course most of us do not enjoy encountering them on our front porches early on a weekend morning or worse yet trying to interfere with the health of a love one.
Catholics convert door to door? You certainly live in a pretty interesting country.
In Argentina JW are not a problem, mormons are. Strangely they are all americans, blondes and pretty stupids.
Have you ever been inside a catholic church? Unless they are pretty different in America this would almost certainly never happen. I’ve been inside hundreds in different countries and they are usually pretty quiet. If there isn’t a service people just worship by themselves.
I am not religious but I love catholic churches just because of this. In the middle of a city they are usually the only place you can find quiet.
Bonus points if one of them squeaked, “…not ‘raptor’…‘Rapture’!” 
They are not so different in large American cities, but I bet in small towns, they might be. I know that our local Catholic church tends to be locked unless it’s mass time (but that might be because it’s attached to a school?).
I, too, love the beauty and silence to be found in almost any Catholic church. I have found the same peace in many Anglican churches as well. Frankly, those are the only 2 churches that seem to welcome all comers, at any time (in large cities that is).
Just MO, but I deeply dislike proselytizers of any religion. You will not convert me; I don’t care if your religion says you have to do in order for you to get to heaven–in that case, it sucks to be you. Go away; leave me alone and stop shoving your religion in my face.
That felt good. (all that said, I do try to be polite to JWs[never had Mormons at the door, thank god]. Being rude just makes them smug.)
I shuffle to the door, say ‘hi’ and tell them I’m tired but I’ll have a look over anything they want to leave. If they’re bothered enough, they’ll come back, but I haven’t had one do so yet. Mostly the JWs and the Mormons seem happy enough just to hand me their literature and tell me to have a nice day, sorry for waking me up.
I object to some of the things they practice- but the same goes for nearly every religion I can think of, including my own.
A friend of ours, a Mormom born turned pagan, greets JW’s warmly at his door and welcomes them in, then explains to them that he is a practicing nudist and starts to undress.
I have had several JW’s come to my door in years past. Once I just made the sign of the cross over them and they almost fell off my porch steps. Then the last one’s to come started reading the Bible to me and I told them to come back when they could prove it wasn’t written by humans, called the word of God by humans and believed to be inspired by God by humans. They said,what about the encyclopedia? I said," That is my point the encylopedia is more accurate and because it is written by humans you are taking the authors word that it is the truth. No different then the bible". They haven’t been back in about 7 or 8 years.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are also vehementally anti-abortion (they use the term pro-abortion, so I’ll use its opposite). They do not allow abortion even to save the life of the mother, but if at childbirth only one can be saved, it should be the mother.
So if a woman has a unwanted pregnancy that threatens her life, too bad. But if she has a child she wants that needs a blood transfusion to live, again too bad.