Door to Door Atheists bother Mormons

[CNA]

Here's a reversal for ya.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV-a1vmZ6y8

[Jody Gomez]

Heh! Great find.

[Chris Grieb]

It is funny. I have also been accosted on buses and subway by people trying to convert me so this is a nice turn around.

[Barbara Branden]

It's hilarious!

Barbara

[Greybird]

Well-turned, indeed, Angie, and very funny. Even if non-theists don't "believe in Darwin."

I've met a couple dozen of the 18-to-21-year-old LDS missionaries over the years. Especially memorable were two apple-cheeked, charming, lovely girls from Alberta, who came to our home in Iowa when I was 13 ... ahhh, Sister Jensen, if only ... but {ahem!} {grin} anyway ...

In that visit they thought they had a live wire, and they came back. We weren't really stringing them along — my folks were disillusioned with "our" Lutheran congregation, and had always been enamored of the Tabernacle Choir and the Mormons' big slice of American history.

We even, out of sheer curiosity, went the next Sunday to their local place of worship, a "stake house" (not their famous temple, that's Members Only). Afterwards, about a dozen of these missionary folk came by our house.

They were so charmed by my mother serving them lemonade and Norwegian kringla nutmeg cookies, on a hot late-May weekend, that when they heard we had two heavy air conditioners needing seasonal installation, the men volunteered to help "Brother Reed" and his sons get them into the windows.

I read much of their material and was enamored of it for a while. Why wouldn't Christ have come to the Western Hemisphere as he did the Eastern? If, that is, all his children are important? The theology went past me, with all its holes, though my folks saw 'em.

(This being long before my observing Arthur Godfrey Day, or its counterpart, or seeing a particular 1949 movie.)

I even thought enough of the Word of Wisdom — Joseph Smith's received "revelation" to forswear liquor, tobacco, and "hot drinks" — that I wrote on stickers, attached to the lids of the ground coffee and instant iced tea, "Do you really need this?"

Well, I got more words of wisdom later, about looking twice and thrice at one's enthusiasms, and the feelings passed. I've never been able, though, in the decades since, to brush off the always fresh-scrubbed, cheerful, and under-fed LDSers who come to the front door.

I tell them, politely, that I'd like to save them time, won't be buying what they're "selling," already have a Book of Mormon (somewhere in storage, yes, from 1971), and then always ask where on the planet they're from. The latest two girls, just last week: Houston and Mexico City.

If I have any leftover Oreos or some lemonade — not iced tea! — I share those with them, in memory of my mother. And I send them on their way, with best wishes for returning to their homes safely after their two-year adventure.

Edited June 15, 2007 by Greybird

[James Heaps-Nelson]

I stick with the old standard : save up your Jehovah's Witness literature and give it to the Mormons and vice-versa .

Jim

[BaalChatzaf]

I read much of their material and was enamored of it for a while. Why wouldn't Christ have come to the Western Hemisphere as he did the Eastern? If, that is, all his children are important? The theology went past me, with all its holes, though my folks saw 'em.

Jesus was a Jew and he could not get a decent hot pastrami in the western hemisphere until the end of the 19th century. He could not find a decent dill pickle until then. So why would Jesus come to the West?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Angie,

Thanks for posting that. Payback time! It was very funny.

Remembering my years of alcohol and drug abuse, I can really empathize with the complaint about answering the door on Saturday morning.

One thing I noticed was that none of these people tried to save the souls of the atheist missionaries. Maybe those were not presented. Still, there were many people who were abrupt and rude on being approached.

That's not very Christian. Even atheists are supposed to be God's children.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

The above comments were all delightful. I thought Objectivists weren't supposed to have senses of humor.

[Wrighty]

I stick with the old standard : save up your Jehovah's Witness literature and give it to the Mormons and vice-versa .

Jim

Jim - that's brilliant. Almost the ultimate in re-cycling!

[studiodekadent]

The comedian in question here is John Safran, from his series "John Safran Versus God." Rather good series actually.

My usual policy in dealing with Mormons and Door To Door religious freaks:

1) Greet them in full goth outfit and makeup.

2) Useful music to have on at the same time: "Heresy" by Nine Inch Nails, "Christfuck" by :wumpscut:, "Untold Blasphemies" by Hocico, "Crucify" by Grendel, or the song Im currently writing myself, "Blasphemy Symphony." The content of each song is reasonably easily to infer via the titles.

3) If there is any occasion to unleash the full ferocity of Objectivist moral condemnation, its now! The minute they start using words like 'morals' and 'values,' beat them at their own game, and show them how we can make Fred Phelps look like a Postmodernist!

4) Try to reverse the feed and give them a copy of Atlas Shrugged before they leave.

Its more fun, albiet less convenient, than just telling them to "go **** yourself."

[John Dailey]

~ LOL! These 'reversal' ideas are great! I don't know which is best: JHN's idea of 'recycling' lit to these AVON impersonators, or preparing a 'Goth' ambience suggested by 'studio' (plus, maybe, offering a tape copy of this thread's YouTUBE lecture?)

Baal:

~ Jesus clearly intended his msg for the whole globe; after all, wasn't it he who 1st said "Go West, young man" (or, something like that)?

LLAP

J:D