Archive for the 'proselytizing'

It’s a gorgeous day in Austin today. Cold, but sunny and blue. In a few minutes, I’ll throw on the old hoodie, fire up the old iPod, leash up the old dog, and take a walk in the old park. Might even look for that old geocache that eluded me last time. In all, it’s simply too awesome a day, and, as the sort of godless person who does his best to make each day count knowing I don’t have an eternity of them waiting for me in Candyland, it’s entirely conducive to my best of moods. Which is why I just don’t have any incentive to get all riled up by a text I got from a Christian acquaintance of mine this morning which read Merry christmas. Thank god for the gift that keeps on giuing ‘jesus (Errors in the original, but most people text without regard to proper spelling, capitalization and punctuation.) The confrontational nature of communication between believers and atheists is a matter that often takes center stage. Having been involved in AETV since 1999, it’s not as if I shy away from such confrontation. I frequently enjoy it. I’m also a firm believer in holding the feet of believers to the fire, so to speak, to force them to argue competently for their beliefs and listen with some degree of actual understanding to atheists’ rebuttals. Still, sometimes I find it fun to sit back, watch a believer do what he does, in situations where no forceful rebuttal is needed because the fail is apparent from the outset. Take Mike (not his real name), this fellow who texted me. Now, he and I get along in person. He knows I’m an atheist. When we talk, we don’t argue religion, not because I don’t want to, but because I’m perfectly happy to let him make the choice of whether or not to do that, knowing I can pretty well deflect anything his ORU theology degree can throw. What Mike does is, in a way, more entertaining. He tries very passive-aggressive — often to the point of indifference — forms...
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We received a letter this week from a woman who had an upbeat story worth sharing. I don’t think I would ever have thought to try this, but what a great idea: I have written in before about general stuff but I had a story about something that happened yesterday that I would love some opinions on. Near where I work, on nice days there are usually a lot of people out proselytizing. Now, I have dealt with street and door-to-door proselytizing before, usually women; and they have usually not been too bad. However, I find the idea of going up to people on the street to push religion kind of appalling, and though I personally don’t mind, because it offers the opportunity for discussion, I still find it to be incredibly rude. I understand the reason they go around in pairs, or sometimes even groups of 3 or 4, so they are able to corner people. And it just bothers me. So I was walking home from work, and I spotted two young men with Bibles talking to some young lady sitting on a park bench. I decided to go up to them, and instead of addressing the two young men I turned to the girl and said something along the lines of “You are a good person, you have your own morals and can make your own decisions and don’t need them or their book to tell you that you are weak, because you are not.” Then I told them all to have a nice day and started on my way again. But then the two boys started shouting after me. I say “boys,” they were probably in their early twenties. So, as they started to shout things like “yeah get out of here! No one cares what you have to say!” I decided that I couldn’t just leave it at that. Maybe I should have left it, but I decided to go back. Maybe I shouldn’t have said this, but addressing the first boy I said “Well why don’t you tell her about the part where Lot gets drunk and has sex with his daughters, or the part in Judges where Jephtha sets his daughter on fire.” After looks of...
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