Well just go on with your life then is what she said to me.

Two young girls, ages I would say around 19 or 20 were out in the neighborhood just now peddling Jesus and when I said I wasn't interested for prolly a good 4 or 5 times to the same question basically, of course worded differently each time then is when the young lady who was doing the talking made here statement. I can just imagine what it would be like if mit the shit was to get the presidency, we would have these crawling out of the woodwork. they are strolling back past the house again and going over by a neighbor who has two big dogs so I better keep an eye out for their safety. Jesus Christ of ladder day saints they were.

Or, in this case, salesgirls.

Or, protection, or the never ending need for funds.

Perhaps *HE* is indulging in false advertising?

persuade others to your viewpoint. I don't like salespeople of most sorts, but I can see part of what this is all about. You need to understand enough to be able to persuade others.

and YOU have the right to say "NO" you're NOT interested and close the door.

And when you get spiritually high off of mass murder on the other side of the world, you're going to be able to deny or grant coverage/care "in the name of Jesus". Believe me, I've met them; they're out there getting degrees in Social Work and starting businesses such as hospice care. Not all of them are psychological vampires, but some definitely are.

I do the annoying, door-to-door proselytizing thing, but it's political rather than religious-- not that it makes any difference... :P

Evangelization is spiritual assault.

P.S. I love door-knocking; it feels very neighborly, especially since Dr. Dean said we should be working our own neighborhoods.

To me, any type of proselytizing is a type of "in-your-face, I-know-what's-good-for-you" assault, regarldess of whether one is in my face about politics and telling me I'm wring, or in my face about religion telling me I'm wrong.

You wrote, "Politics is essentially education and empowerment on the Issues." Many people feel that precise same way regarding religion. And as it's really nothing more than different perspectives, I can't see one as being essentially a good thing and not the other...

Not that either one of us is absolutely right or wrong-- I imagine the assault is in the eye of the beholder.

(Are we in a minority-- wishing Dean were in the race this time around...? Hard to tell these days...)

:hi:

I am a spiritual, but not a religious, person, a fallen Catholic.

Christianity had a huge fight about the theological appropriateness of evangelization, not long after its inception. It's obvious who won. Paul was the leader of the proselytizers.

Evangelization feels like rape to me. And, yes, I do feel that same way when approached by certain types of candidate spokespersons.

I hope you didn't think I was criticizing you--- not at all, by any means. I was simply offering an additional perspective that I was given a few years back.

"Evangelization feels like rape to me." I'm sorry... I don't really know what to say to that. I'd like to offer an off-the-cuff, harmless, somewhat relevant joke to lighten the mood and maybe put a smile on your face, but nothing comes to mind.

How about I just say, "I hope you have a really great evening!" before I inevitably say the wrong thing.

(No, really-- have a great evening! :) )

on our street corner, holding various anti-War signs, where people have come up and offered to pray for one or the other of us. It happened to me once; I said okay, because I was trying to create dialogue. It was horrible; this guy and his family stood there and started "praying" for me and he basically said a whole bunch of negative things about me and the other anti-War folks there, and asked "God" to show us the error of our ways. It was so degrading I was shocked into wordlessness, partially because I took the notion of prayer seriously and didn't want to profane it by arguing with him.

that always seems to work - one way or another.

and try to sell them something but I don't think that would go over too good any more

girls from the church doing door to door. It's always been the young men who do missionary work. Girls, women and blacks aren't worthy (although I may be wrong about blacks being able to do missionary work). I know none in this group can hold high office.

maybe I can con 'em in to bring me my afternoon paper thats laying out in the drive. All I know is if these were my daughters I wouldn't let them do this for love nor money and damn sure wouldn't for religion.

I'll tell them all about the joys and freedom of atheism.

and my dad invited them in to talk - Dad is a Christian, but not in-your-face about it, and he's open to other viewpoints. Anyway, he started meeting with these young men on a semi-regular basis for about a year I guess - when the first two went back to BYU, he continued the discussion with the next pair, and so on. Eventually he stopped meeting with them, partly because he felt they had covered about all the ground they could cover without converting each other, and partly because having visitors sometimes drop by at random hours annoyed my mom. ;) (I actually didn't mind them coming by that much, but that's probably because I was in high school at the time and thought they were really good-looking - which, by the way, the majority of them were.) :shrug: