Jehovah’s Witness

[ShackledNoMore]

I had an experience last week, and I thought of you guys, and that I’d pop back in. I hope everyone is doing well!

 

This is the first time this relatively common thing has ever happened to me. First I was a christian many years ago, then I was in some situations where it was less likely to meet a door to door JW, then I worked a lot for a few decades and never seemed to be home when they called. Then one did come, but just offered me a Watchtower without trying to talk to me, so I didn’t engage him. Then there was Covid. Well, last week, they were canvassing my neighborhood, and the guy started talking to me right in front of my house as I was coming back from a walk. We talked for about half an hour or 45 minutes. My wife and one of my (now adult) children were watching from the window. The man I talked to was 80 years old, but he was very astute. We talked about the bible, we talked about epistemology, and he even brought up Constantine in the course of our conversation. I was a consummate gentleman, and I listened more than I talked. He asked me what denomination I belonged to, and I said, “none,” which he found surprising. I could see he did not expect to talk to an atheist from his opening gambit, where he set out to establish that the New World Translation was the most accurate translation of the bible (I’d go with something in the RSV family, but I’ve heard at least one scholar opine that there was merit to the NWT, so I didn’t see any point of going into a tangent on that). Before he could get too far into why JW was the One True Religion (as opposed to other flavors of christianity) I asked him why I should be convinced that Jehovah, or Yahweh, Elohim, El, Allah, or whatever the believer du jour wanted to call him is the true god they claim he is, and why the bible (New World Translation or otherwise) is the true word of this deity imparted to humanity. He cited fulfilled prophecy, but that turned out to be really untenable under scrutiny. I could see that he was really sweating bullets as I explored his claims with him. He even asked me if I was a professor! I told him I was just interesting in learning things. Eventually, he left me with a variation of Pascal’s Wager. I didn’t push him too much. I think he had to think a lot more that way than he would have if I had made him feel persecuted. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when he got back to the car with the other JWs.

 

When I got inside, my wife and kid told me how much he looked like he was really sweating it out just from their vantage from the window. As soon as I saw my other kid who wasn’t watching from the window, he told me that he heard I had destroyed an old man. They all think we won’t be seeing any more JWs at our house. I’m not so sure. I didn’t say anything that should terrify them like claiming to be a JW apostate or something.

 

I have to say how eminently satisfying this experience was. I had thought about this in the past, and was a little worried about being prepared and well spoken enough to handle such a situation well. The reality turned out to be that I didn’t need to be a Bart Ehrman to be massively more knowledgeable than the average person, and you can only barely scratch the surface in a half hour conversation. It was somehow much more satisfying than any interactions with proselytizing christians on the forum that I barely jumped into. The in person interaction seemed a lot less like banging your head against the wall than an online back and forth with someone obstinately making bad arguments full of fallacies that were often poorly articulated (not that there were any better arguments in an in-person interaction, but it was still overall a much better experience than an on-line battle would be).

[TheRedneckProfessor]

They came to my door well nigh a decade ago now.  I gave them the same treatment--cordial but probing--and had a similar response.  They sent in some heavy hitters a couple weeks later; but they left just as dejected as the first set.  I'd be inclined to agree with you; you've likely not seen the last of them yet.

 

Good to see you again.