I opened the door for solicitors

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The cool thing about doors is that you can shut them as well as open them.

Boru

[SlowCalculations]

The cool thing about doors is that you can shut them as well as open them.

Boru

I opened it because i thought they where bottle collecters i'm fine with other types of things i like helping out.

---

Calmly practice how you will go about answering their questions by asking them questions.
It helps if you can always keep asking them questions.

Let the inner 4 yr old in you.....OUT.
Keep asking why or how.

If they ask about your apt and how it randomly appeared, trying making statements about the apt and also asking them to confirm.

"My apt is made from natural raw materials. The wood in my apt came from several trees, like the ones growing naturally over there.
Is there any material that my apt is made of that didn't come from earth in one way or another ? More than likely you asked this question because you wanted to get to the idea that a builder built my apt. Which came first, the builder or the natural materials that the builder uses ?

You guessed it, the natural materials came first. Nature existed long before the builder began to exist. And how did the builder begin to exist ?
He had natural parents that gave birth to him. The builder is also a product of nature. Again, nature comes first and nature produced a builder that used natural materials that existed long before he did to build the apt.

Let's recap shall we. Nature produces materials. Nature produces the builder. The builder uses materials to build the apt."

That is a good answer that at the time wasn't coming out of my head. i do remember thinking 
someone built it or something. I pretty much just gave shit answers and told them to google. I kind of think i might want to engage for the experience i mean iv'e been wanting to know how to debate, so it's a good opportunity for me to learn. One of the reasons why i decided not to respond about someone built it is because by the looks on their faces and how they looked around i'm fairly certain they where judging my environment because i'm "Poor" and in their eyes god gave me a house. I believe that's why they started that and there are things i don't like, but could engage with and things that i strictly find disrespectful yes i'm not ritch but it's not any of their business.  I also didn't wanna be asked why i had a trans flag hanging on my wall, but oddly enough they avoided asking that one which i find ironic now that i look back on everything. But yea i think next time if a question is asked and if i decide i'm ready to try again i'll have a better argument to bring to the table.  Thank you for giving me a example, i can tell you understood what i was mostly trying to ask which is isn't always easy to do with my scrambled thoughts. To be honest people fascinate me i don't always got the words to engage but i'm very observant and i think i'm curious of how a person can read a bible, but somehow skip science and evolution and every other book or even worse read and still fall straight back into the bible. I have a hard time grasping nothing ever existed, or how things came to be but i certainly don't think anything came from a magical all powerful human being if anything that sounds stranger. I did tell them i was an atheist sense i was seven just to see their face i was more curious even though i new i was throwing myself in a bin. It's funny how that's shocking like a child can't have their own mind early on somehow.

[mordant]

I feel like an idiot   these religious people came to my door and because they didn't have a bible i didn't think they where religious so i let them ask me a question. 
Keep in mind i have aspergers so i don't know how to people as it is and there like do you believe in god? and my brain was like "Walk away slowly and shut the door" and because i don't like lying my mouth just goes uh, i'm an atheist? And there just like oh? tell me how you got to that conclusion, and i'm like uh iv'e been like this? oh okay, tell me how this apartment just randomly appeared here. .___. And i'm like thinking "I don't know how to have a actual debate man, i just watch debates" so i'm sitting here like a complete moron who doesn't sound like they understand which clearly makes them look like their winning. And i'm like "Google it" or read a Charles Darwin i can't get words out of my head very well but there are tons of things online you can look up "i have to go now, bye" and shut the door. I wanna hide in a hole now to be fair, i can't debate worth the life of me yet iv'e watched millions of videos. The words didn't come out i didn't mean it to sound like you win. i latterly meant the words aren't in my head to explain and you should find someone who can. 
Damn, now i'm worried there gonna come back because i opened the door for them the first time and they where gone for so long too! is it odd to say i feel like my personal space was sorta invaded? A question, doesn't always mean debate, or the bible and i wish they would have just said a question about god cause then i'd have had more room to say sorry i didn't realize that's not a conversation i'd like to have.  I also am nervous about them showing back up or starting something with folks below me now, is there anyway i can make it so they can't knock on my door? but i also don't want to make it so i can't help other people who actually need something like bottle collecting or more important things. 
I know i'm sorta hard on myself for mistakes, but i really do feel dumb. 
but religious people have always made me feel dumb? i also tend to freeze up and slur my words and my thinking gets all fuzzy cause social anxiety.

Don't beat yourself up. I am very high functioning on the spectrum and my stepson a little more effected than me and so I understand well that it's very common for folks like us to often not have snappy answers to stupid questions when put on the spot. I have gotten better at it over many years.

You can't "make it so they can't knock" on your door, but you don't have to answer and you can put a sign addressed to all purveyors of ideology or products that you do not welcome their impertinence.

You owe them NOTHING. Repeat that to yourself a couple dozen times until it sinks in. And trust me, they are not thinking of you in any way other than as a "mark".

---

Yea, true i guess i just feel dumb for not knowing what to say  :/ 
but also i don't want to be mean and cut them off and say leave. but your right i should.

It is not "mean" to have healthy interpersonal boundaries and preferences, and enforce them or expect others to respect them.

You have a right to live as you please, and that includes living, as my mother used to put it, "in peace rather than in pieces".

[Fireball]

I just tell them, "I'm not in the slightest bit interested", if I even bother to answer the door. However. You can call the local "Kingdom Hall" and have your name "stricken from the rolls". My mother was a devout Catholic, and did that to keep them away.

[The Valkyrie]

“You’re a Jehovah’s Witness? What’s Jehovah accused of?”

“You’re a Mormon? Why the extra ‘m,?”

[EgoDeath]

I just tell them, "I'm not in the slightest bit interested", if I even bother to answer the door. However. You can call the local "Kingdom Hall" and have your name "stricken from the rolls". My mother was a devout Catholic, and did that to keep them away.

You know it's bad when even other religious folks don't want to answer the door for you.

[Cecelia]

I've showed up to the door naked a few times when JW's come. That usually gets rid of them quickly.

As for the question "Did this apartment appear randomly?" the correct answer is always "Yes". If they say "No it didn't" ask them to prove it. Ask them if they were there. Insist the building created itself. Explain that the building exists outside of time and space.

[LastPoet]

I've showed up to the door naked a few times when JW's come.  That usually gets rid of them quickly.

O.O how is that a deterrent?

[Cecelia]

I've showed up to the door naked a few times when JW's come.  That usually gets rid of them quickly.

O.O how is that a deterrent?

They're usually to embarrassed for me to ask!

[SlowCalculations]

I was thinking about this before returning home today after work and i think i was almost embarrassed that i couldn't defend myself after watching tons of debates. But in the end it probably doesn't matter your not wrong. I actually put a home made no religion no politics at my door and hopefully they can read, maybe someday but for the moment i just don't got enough skills to debate.

But, once again, while I'm not trying to minimize how this situation made you feel, who the fuck are they to come to your door and essentially challenge you to a debate about god's existence? You seem to be on the defensive here, but as far as I'm concerned you should be on the offensive. Fuck them for thinking they can just come challenge you like that. Is that how normal humans interact? Knocking on each other's doors and challenging each other to debates? Certainly not in 2019 it isn't. Fuck them!

It was arrogant yea, ignorance is bliss. But also reminds me of hamlons razor. My flaw is i'm extremely kind and probably trust to easy so i didn't expect that. Although my mother is religious and i just told her this story and she laughed because i told them to google it and basically read. So hey, if shes not offended they're fine. Made my dad mad though not at me just how they interacted with me not sure why, but i always suspected my dad was a non beliver who just goes with what my mother says but he claims he believes in "Something" so unsure sometimes other times he says differently.

Once again, who cares if they're offended? I agree, you are too nice! Not knocking you though, I hear what you're saying.

It's just, to me, fuck anyone who comes to my doorstep to challenge what I do or don't believe. It's no one's business unless I choose to specifically engage in that conversation. You shouldn't be worried about them being offended, you should be saying, "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, get off of my goddamn property."

Just my two cent.

I know that I'm restarting an old form. This morning I came looking for another atheist site and I remembered I also had this account I don't know why I left and I don't really remember what happened.  Hopefully, I didn't do anything ridiculous.  although I was just a couple of days ago thinking about this situation that happened and I had forgotten exactly what happened or why it happened. So reading this and having it all come back to me was kind of interesting. 
 Now in 2021 I would say I'm not so scared to tell people to go away anymore. I don't think I would have had the confidence back then even given great advice to actually tell anyone to go away I think I would have felt too embarrassed or ashamed even though I had nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about. Ironically you were completely right and I needed to toughen up. Today people don't knock on my door anymore i started putting up signs and telling people I don't have any interest in religious debates or politics. So far everyone has respected the signs. 
 It did turn away somebody just looking for bottle collection once but that was only once and I was just too slow to open the door.  but they didn't seem too bothered or anything so that was mostly my fears rather than reality.