door to door recruitment..

[The Grand Nudger]

I like to try and see how many copies of the watchtower I can get out of them (I love those things, they make me feel like a kid again- just having them). I'll keep absentmindedly asking to see the literature, sometimes i keep putting it back behind the door, but when I want to be a dick I just hold the stack of it in my hands. Actually had a JW try to take my stack back once- and then it was on, stone face grip game ftw.

You can really separate the newbs from the seasoned pros that way. The new ones get so bubbly that if you just keep saying yes and shaking your head yes while asking questions we have a natural human urge to agree with whatever request others make (and obviously this helps to relive the tension we might feel in such a situation). You can even get a few earnest laughs that way if they realize they're being had after a sizeable number of pamphlets have changed hands.

[ManMachine]

what do you do with door to door recruitment?
I live in a city and about once a week someone comes to my door.
like Jehovah's Witnesses and so on...
I have a "no solicitors" Sign but they say "Oh i am not trying to sell you anything" and i say no thank you and they ask if they can come back later and i say no.

I also have a private property sign and one guy said "this is not your private property the earth is GOD'S private property!"


So how do you deal with them?
Because they will knock till someone opens the door.
If they hear you inside they will knock all day.

I had one guy come back like 3 times in one day.

Answer the door in a black robe with a pentangle drawn on your bare chest in something that looks like blood, and ask them in for a glass of something 'vital', see if they come back.

MM

[Clueless Morgan]

l.o.l... that video is cool

---

love how some of them tried to assault them...

My favorite part is when he starts reading the song lyrics to the guy working on his car.

[Lucanus]

I was given a pamphlet by a couple of JWs on the street the other day. They were two old women, so I didn't want to be the snarky bastard I usually am IRL with religious people.

Although, for the rest of the morning, I hoped that another one of them would try to stop me and give me a talk. It didn't happen

[KUSA]

I can tell you a sure fire way of having them move on and not come back but you probably won't like it.

Religion is like a virus because it wants to spread. But what if you are already infected?

Tell the religious person that you are saved and tell them what church you supposedly go to. They will leave you and go searching for someone else that is not infected.

That never made any difference to the Jehovah's witnesses that visited me back when I was still religious.

It works with xtians. You may have to bury the JW in the woods to keep them from coming back.

[Brakeman]

If you cut out "the having" I could totally do it

Or you could come to the door disheveled and apologize profusely to them, telling them that when you scream out for god it has nothing to do with religion.

[SteelCurtain]

I always invite them in for a conversation. (I say always, but I've never had JW knock on my door.) Get them a glass of water, and dig in. I offer them an out every couple of minutes ("I know you have other houses to visit...") Practice my debate skills, son.

For real. Why don't they come to my house? I guess that's a good thing, but I can't help but feel left out...

[Tonus]

You can really separate the newbs from the seasoned pros that way. The new ones get so bubbly that if you just keep saying yes and shaking your head yes while asking questions we have a natural human urge to agree with whatever request others make (and obviously this helps to relive the tension we might feel in such a situation). You can even get a few earnest laughs that way if they realize they're being had after a sizeable number of pamphlets have changed hands.

I think that many door-to-door evangelists accepted their particular religion without even considering that they'd be the ones knocking on doors at some point. Not everyone is cut out for it, but they're all pressured to do it. Some turn out to be natural at it. Others never really get comfortable with it, and if there is any deviation from their expected script, things can get pretty hairy. I was pretty good at it, but I'd been doing it since I was five or six and I understood that if the shit hit the fan, the best thing to do was beat a hasty retreat.

Two or three weeks ago I was waiting on someone to pick me up, and so I sat down on a bench in front of the building. A JW offered up the customary sales pitch, and for the first time I didn't identify myself as a JW (usually the easiest way to dissuade them politely) so I just followed along. It struck me just how empty the whole pitch really is. You mention a recent tragedy (in this case, the flight shot down over Ukraine), ask if the person thinks things will ever get better (with the proper setup, the best you usually get is "I don't know") and then BAM! Offer up Jehovah as the answer! It's really no more complicated than that. Make the person express some level of despair, then offer up Yahweh as the magic cure. Funny how shallow it seemed from the other side.

[Clueless Morgan]

You mention a recent tragedy (in this case, the flight shot down over Ukraine), ask if the person thinks things will ever get better (with the proper setup, the best you usually get is "I don't know") and then BAM! Offer up Jehovah as the answer! It's really no more complicated than that. Make the person express some level of despair, then offer up Yahweh as the magic cure. Funny how shallow it seemed from the other side.

Wait.

The whole sales pitch revolves around "A pretty rare tragedy just occurred which indicates that the entire world is completely falling apart. So, I can sigh you up for God, right?" Really?

"Will things ever get better than they were after [such and such tragedy]?" Um... yes. (Regression toward the mean springs to mind.) Those tragedies are outliers if you average out the shit that happens in the world. Bad shit happens, and good shit happens. Sometimes spectacularly bad shit happens, and sometimes spectacularly good shit happens. All they're doing is pointing at the spectacularly bad shit and trying to convince everyone that that is the norm.

[Tonus]

Wait.

The whole sales pitch revolves around "A pretty rare tragedy just occurred which indicates that the entire world is completely falling apart. So, I can sigh you up for God, right?" Really?

Yep. Keep in mind that what they are looking for is people who are feeling down in some way. Lots of people will overreact to the seeming constant barrage of bad news that the media covers, as well as whatever current problems are going on in their own lives. It's not uncommon to find a lot of people who --at least temporarily-- feel as if they're at the end of their rope. Those people will grasp for any hope offered to them. And if there's one thing religion offers in spades, it is hope. A false hope, perhaps, but that's enough for someone who is desperate a lot of the time.