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And how did it make you feel and think about your own beliefs?
Did having the opposition clarify your beliefs for you?
Did it resolve you to a firm, hard stance?
Did it make you angry or act out of character?

I'm interested to hear your take, and also who you consider to be zealot. Smile

Here's my story and it is a fresh one. Please note: this is intended to be respectful. Hope it can be that way.

I was taking a walk and shopping in my neighborhood. Early morning.
There is a nicely dressed older lady who is across the street from me. So, we see each other and I smile hello.
She crosses the street, walks right up to me, and then I notice she is carrying pamphlets.
Yeah, you guessed it: Watchtower.

She's quick, this one, and while my eyes as adjusting to the sun and the fact that she is RIGHT IN MY PERSONAL AREA (I feel easily crowded out and on bad days it makes me very anxious),
she launches into her spiel and tries to hand me a pamphlet.
I listen long enough to calm down (I can smell her breath!), and say "Oh, no thank you, not interested."

"Well, you should be interested! Did you know.....blahblahblah"

She gabbing away with an intensity I hadnt' seen in a while. I interrupt her rather politely, I thought, and say "Yes, I understand that these are your personal beliefs. But I do not believe it, and I am not interested."

To my surprise, she asks "So what do you believe in?"

"I just believe in being a good person. "

...........here is where it got wacky.........

"THAT IS NOT ENOUGH! NOT ENOUGH! " she shakes her head and gets her tea breath all in my face.

Shocked

I make a shocked face, honestly a little taken aback.
And say "You don't think it is enough if you are a good person?"

"NO. That is exactly what Satan wants you to believe. Did you know...blahblah blah. "

At this point, she spiels and attempts to tear me a new one, all this crap about how I am listening to Satan and all this ....yeah, I stopped listening.

I interrupted her again and wished her a nice day. She could only get out "Yeah, yeah, nice day".

This here just got me good. Thanks, lady, for summing up in the exact words the message that others tried to point into my head as a kid.

I just felt sorry for her. Also, she needs to be kept away from children I think.

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The local Jehovah's Witnesses have a positive genius for coming up my driveway on hectic Sunday mornings. Of course when anyone: personal friend, legitimate business person or fanatic knocks on the door, the dogs go wild. There are days I don't want to hear my dogs loudly defending my virtue.

Last summer a guy in his 40's drove up the driveway with two young teenage boys. I happened to be at the door as he and his disciples were crawling out of their car and called, "No thank you."

I retreated. He came up and pounded on the door anyway.

I returned and repeated, "No thank you."

He started arguing--with asides to his young disciples that they must forge onward despite opposition.

I told him to leave immediately or I would call 911.

He started telling the kids how wonderful it was to be persecuted for one's faith.

I dialled 911 and told the dispatcher that I hoped action by the State Police wouldn't be necessary but I had three males defiantly trespassing on my property and if he would hold on, I'd give him their license number.

Mr. Persecuted For the Faith left in a hurry.

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Quote:

He started telling the kids how wonderful it was to be persecuted for one's faith.

This almost made my stomach turn.

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oh man.

my husbands mom was a JW.

She and another woman were the only 2 JW's in that really small town.
When someone would see her and her friend walking down the street together, they'd phone the neighbors and say "Clara and Edna are goin' around" and then no one would come to the door.

There's been times when either my husband or myself would come in the house and announce to the other. "There's a JW walkin' down the street", so we don't go to the door. Personally, I don't care if they stand there and knock for an hour, I don't have to answer. Doesn't bother me.

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I had an aunt that joined a cult when she was about twenty years old or so, and had to then later be rescued/kidnapped from said cult by my dad and a couple uncles.

She was pretty emotionally unstable for a long time after that, and still had that one-track, hallelujah-praise-jesus-all-the-time mindset. Anyway, this one time we were playing some stupid card game--something like password, where you had to guess a word after getting clues from a partner. So we're all having fun--me my aunt, and my brother and two cousins. We're all somewhere between the ages of four and seven years old at this time, I believe.

My aunt picks a new card and looks at the word. Her face lights up in terror, and she starts freaking out, shrieking and saying all kinds of weird prayers and trying to ask jesus to forgive her and who knows what else--I was only about seven so I don't remember all the details.

And that's how I learned the definition of the word "backslide."

Ah, the good old days.

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Lot's of strange people in the world, as if we didn't already know that Smile

Who I consider to be a zealot...

The people voting for Bush certainly come close...

But politics aside, I once met a Jehova's witness. An elderly lady who fixed me in a steady gaze from the moment she laid eyes on me. She smiled as warmly as she could, full of anticipation and trying to ooze of kindness and confidence.

Then she spoke. Very politely she asked me if she could have a few minutes of my time. I saw the brochure in her hands, I could even see the zeal in her eyes, and still I stopped. Don't know what got into me. Perhaps it was the polite asking...

Anyway, the woman started showing me pictures of war and suffering. Dramatic drawings made to emphasize the suffering flashed before me while she explained how her god would make all that go away and we'd have....

She turned the page, and blissful children in lush gardens replaced tanks and dying soldiers. This was what her god would bring if we'd only believe in him, and nobody would ever suffer again.

I let it all wash over me, and she could obviously hold her own against the wackiest of them. She was spurred on by my attentive behaviour, and in the end, as she finally ran down I asked her a simple question.

How do you know what is good if you don't know what's bad?

She said that I was probably wrong, because god would surely not allow this suffering.

You can probably imagine the turn the conversation took. The point is that for some strange reason the woman really listened to me. Maybe because I'd done so for her. When she walked away in the end she no longer had that happy face on her.

The incident made me realize that if you manage to 'cure' someone of their delusions you may also take away their happiness. I don't know if I'm good with that.

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I once had two Jehova's Witnesses come to my door, and as I usually do, I attempted to convert them to my beliefs. (They always beg to leave long before I've grown weary of the argument.)

On this occasion, the younger of the two went a bit pale and tried to escape....but the older one told her to listen and try to understand what I was saying. It was really quite interesting to see the older, wiser Witness coaching the younger one out of the pure zealotry of youth towards a more mature understanding of others points of view.

Now, my wife's family are kinda JW, so I don't get to have those discussions much anymore.

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Wow, I like that technique of turning it around and start promoting something of your own.

Not that I'd bring up different religious beliefs, I'd ask them in, sit them down, and then pull out a big cart of Amway or Herbal Life.

Or, I could pull out the big guns and start in about Mary Kay. "I only have to sell $100.00 more product to get that pink VW! Feel how smooth this papaya lotion makes your skin feel!"

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I would never attempt to argue with these folks. They have a one track mind, and are on a MISSION. If one should stop me, I firmly say "Not interested", and move on quickly. To me, they are invading my privacy, and I will not allow that to happen.

I have a "No Solicitors" sign prominantly displayed on my front door. Once in awhile, I will get a pamphlet stuck in the door, but in my town, where I believe there is an ordinance against solicitors, no one rings my bell.

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Don't get JWs around here much, thank you very much. But, they were rife in georgia. My young Boo was barking up a storm as two JWs came to the door. They were a pair of women, one younger and one older. I couldn't see out at them - no peephole, no widow. So, I opened the door and they paused, looking at the dog I was blocking with my leg. The older one visibly changed tacts (shuffled pamphlets) and said, do you live in fear? I closed the door. A moment later they slipped some pamphlets under my door.

I don't bother being polite or arguing, I just shut the door.

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Zealotry isn't confined to religion. A young lady of my acquaintance was an ardent vegetarian - to the point she wouldn't wear leather or or other animal fibers. She fancied herself a photographer - to the point of passion. She carried her animal concerns to the extent she was careful even to not use photo equipment which used leather as trim or functional components - a hassle, but she managed to be consistent to her principles. Though she had no formal trainining, she actually was pretty good. Anyhow, one day she did something that irritated helloutta me - so I took it upon myself to explain to her, with appropriate reference materials, that, how, and why the silver halide which is the primary light-sensitive component of conventional photographic chemistry is suspended in a non-reactive, transparent, flexible, cold-water-soluble colloid for deposition on paper or filmstock; this colloid is and always has been made only and exclusively from the only substance known to have the required properties; beef gelatin.

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you know timber, I've asked myself this question about the drug heparin.

Usually it's derived from pig, although for those with an allergy, there's a type that's derived from beef. It's a lot more expensive. Now, they have stopped making beef heparin altogether.

Reading another forum Link to Nursing Forum I see where one Jewish person said, "we live by the Torah, not die by it" in that if this drug is necessary to save a live, it should be taken. It seems muslims have a trickier time with this.

Now, a zealot would refuse the drug, and perhaps die. Would a vegetarian do the same?

Interesting.

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