{"id":832,"date":"2006-11-21T10:53:14","date_gmt":"2006-11-21T10:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2006\/11\/21\/the-secret-to-dealing-with-mis\/"},"modified":"2006-11-21T10:53:14","modified_gmt":"2006-11-21T10:53:14","slug":"the-secret-to-dealing-with-mis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2006\/11\/21\/the-secret-to-dealing-with-mis\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secret to Dealing with Missionaries"},"content":{"rendered":"

PZ links to a video<\/a> of a couple of guys dressing like missionaries and knocking on doors for atheism<\/a> in Salt Lake City. Like most ambush comedy, the concept is better than the execution– in particular, there’s an opening rant about Mormons that goes on way<\/strong> too long. There’s some moderately clever stuff, but it’s pretty typical of the genre.<\/p>\n

I’ve never quite understood the level of antipathy that the door-knockers draw. It’s not that I’ve never been visited by them, but rather that I’ve never had a problem with them. When I was in grad school, the Jehovah’s Witnesses used to come around at least a couple of times a year, and they were always very polite. They’d ask if they could talk to me about Jesus, I’d say “Not right now, thanks,” and they’d leave a pamphlet and go away.<\/p>\n

I’ve had more trouble getting rid of the earnest college kids that NYPIRG sends out to hit people up for money. I’ve never had a missionary be as pushy as the environmentalists we get around here.<\/p>\n

I’ve only dealt with them a half-dozen times, though, because it turns out there’s a foolproof method for getting rid of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I can testify that the method works, because one of my housemates used it, and we never got another visit while I was there (another 2-3 years). The trick is simple:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Tell them you’re a Mormon.<\/p>\n

One of the parade of different people who lived in my house was, in fact, a Mormon, and one day he was the guy who answered the door when the Jehovah’s Witnesses came calling. I didn’t hear the conversation, but it was short, and the missionaries stalked off without leaving a pamphlet behind. <\/p>\n

He explained that the two groups absolutely detest each other, and won’t visit members of the other church. So, if you tell the Jehovah’s Witnesses that you’re a Mormon, they’ll leave and won’t come back, and if you tell the Mormons you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, you won’t see them any more, either. (You probably want to use the correct names for the relevant churches, by the way…) You just need to make sure you correctly identify which sort of door-knocker you’re dealing with….<\/p>\n

So, if you deeply resent people knocking on your door in the morning and asking to talk about Jesus, now you know what to do. And knowing is half the battle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PZ links to a video of a couple of guys dressing like missionaries and knocking on doors for atheism in Salt Lake City. Like most ambush comedy, the concept is better than the execution– in particular, there’s an opening rant about Mormons that goes on way too long. There’s some moderately clever stuff, but it’s… Continue reading The Secret to Dealing with Missionaries<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-silliness","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}