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    the "Convert or Die" mentality

    On campus today there was a group of people handing out copies of the New Testament to students. They're generally nice, but to me they have been repeatedly intolerant and downright rude. They invade personal space and just keep on pressing their views until I walk away or cave and take a Bible. Two years ago, one of them even threw a Bible at my head from across the room. They keep getting invited back to campus every year to try and convert the student body, and I seem to be the only one who has had a bad experience with them.
    Whenever I try to express my annoyance with these specific people and their actions towards me, I generally get a response like "stop being hateful towards Christians." I want everyone to understand that in NO WAY am I hateful towards Christians (hi Malflick ) I just really don't like it when people try to force their beliefs on me. I would dislike it just as much if they were any other religion, it's just that where I live, when I encounter this, 99.9% of the time they happen to be Christian, and when I rant about them I come across as hateful.

    What are your experiences with conversion tactics, and what do you think of people who do this?

    #2
    Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

    I can confirm they are always there chucking mini bibles at people....

    in high school a local church would have the boys and girls there invite people they found out had crushes on them to lock-in church events.... I had a crush on this girl, she invited me, and I spent hours running from youth pastors politely hounding me unrelentingly.

    (Hi Nightingale! You do seem to have a fondness for one Christian a lot, IDK what they are talking about )

    Those people at campus are always annoying....
    hey look, I have a book! And look I have a second one too!

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      #3
      Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

      Generally college kids are annoying.
      Satan is my spirit animal

      Comment


        #4
        Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

        My family is mormon. I am not. My parents beleive in if we all want to be in heaven togeather as a family we all gotta be mormon and uphold the gospel. I failed them getting tattoos, piercings, having premartial sex and of course practising witchcraft as the latest addition. There are guilt factors they use to try to get me to come back. They never once said I was going to hell because they know I am not a bad person. In general mormons are fairly good at avoiding this cursing. In general they beleive I wont reach the highest level of the celestrial kingdom.

        They try to get me to join in family prayer during my visits, family bible study, mormon movies specifically about pioneers and how god delivered them, ect. All tactics that never worked on me as a child why would they work now lol?

        From other christians I've been yelled at for mentioning my family was mormon (them assuming I was to and thus doomed to damnation as many christians for some odd reason don't believe mormons are christian. They totally are as they believe in christ the savior same as all the rest).
        I've been bible thumped when I was atheist. Mostly online.
        Now that I wea rmy pentagram proudly around my neck I'm interested on what kind of bible thumping I will get. I don't think most people realize its a pentagram cause its got a super cute cat on it lol.

        I cannot say I'm like some who have no problem with christianity or islam. I have major issues with it. The religion not the people who practise. I'm learning to hold my tongue. I figure treat them as I would like to be treated. I've never talked a friends religion down who was christian ect. So I play nice and supportive. I even go with a friend to a wednesday night church service with our children. I cannot deny its just for the food lol. They know I'm not chritian there but they are kind to me anyways and their meat load rocks.

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          #5
          Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

          Originally posted by Medusa View Post
          Generally college kids are annoying.
          they aren't kids, they are adults from off campus
          hey look, I have a book! And look I have a second one too!

          Comment


            #6
            Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

            Flamethrowers make great tools of persuasion...

            Err sorry, serious answer,

            Start travelling past them with one or more friends. This provides them the options of
            1) behave better in public
            2) increasing the supply of witnesses to public stupidity until the campus has to do something about them

            Doesn't matter which choice they make, you win.
            life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

            Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

            "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

            John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

            "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

            Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


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              #7
              Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

              Originally posted by Malflick View Post
              they aren't kids, they are adults from off campus
              Ahh. Well go gather up some annoying college kids and introduce them to each other.
              Satan is my spirit animal

              Comment


                #8
                Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

                Has anyone ever tried complaining to the college staff about the whole Bible chucking thing? Sounds like it could potentially hurt someone.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

                  Originally posted by iflewoverthecuckoosnest View Post
                  Has anyone ever tried complaining to the college staff about the whole Bible chucking thing? Sounds like it could potentially hurt someone.
                  not that I know of. they're pocket-sized New Testaments, so not a really heavy Bible or anything. when they threw one at me I easily deflected it with my arm.

                  also, this college is kind of infamous for not listening to the complaints of its students.... (HUGE understatement, but I don't want to get into that right now) :/

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

                    Originally posted by iflewoverthecuckoosnest View Post
                    Has anyone ever tried complaining to the college staff about the whole Bible chucking thing? Sounds like it could potentially hurt someone.
                    ....The college has ignored complaints and dangers of far more serious and awful varieties, which I do not want to speak of right now....

                    - - - Updated - - -

                    Originally posted by Medusa View Post
                    Ahh. Well go gather up some annoying college kids and introduce them to each other.
                    I can think of a few people I would love to see argue with them, with the hope of mutually assured destruction lol.
                    hey look, I have a book! And look I have a second one too!

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

                      Throwing ANYTHING at someone is assault. You can file a report with campus police, local police and county sheriff. I'm guessing that this is a private college? Don't know of any publicly funded colleges or universities where off-campus groups are allowed to come on campus and behave in such a manner. Ya might even talk to your nearest ACLU office. There may be no legal action they could take, but they might at least write nasty letters while leaving your name out of it.
                      I often wish that I had done drugs in the '70s. At least there'd be a reason for the flashbacks. - Rick the Runesinger

                      Blood and CountryTribe of my Tribe
                      Clan of my Clan
                      Kin of my Kin
                      Blood of my Blood



                      For the Yule was upon them, the Yule; and they quaffed from the skulls of the slain,
                      And shouted loud oaths in hoarse wit, and long quaffing swore laughing again.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

                        I had a lady try and get me to "convert" the other day on campus (though nowhere near as forceful as that). She asked if I was Christian and when I said i wasn't she promptly launched into the classic speech about how Jesus saved her from her life of sin and he would do the same for me. At which point I explained I had been raised in the church and had made the conscious decision to change my path. This confused her, I don't think she was prepared for that kind of response as she started repeated lines from her previous speech.

                        You should definitely file some sort of formal complaint with the college. I know that sort of behavior would never stand here (though this is a very diverse campus).

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

                          Originally posted by Nightingale View Post
                          On campus today there was a group of people handing out copies of the New Testament to students. They're generally nice, but to me they have been repeatedly intolerant and downright rude. They invade personal space and just keep on pressing their views until I walk away or cave and take a Bible. Two years ago, one of them even threw a Bible at my head from across the room. They keep getting invited back to campus every year to try and convert the student body, and I seem to be the only one who has had a bad experience with them.
                          Whenever I try to express my annoyance with these specific people and their actions towards me, I generally get a response like "stop being hateful towards Christians." I want everyone to understand that in NO WAY am I hateful towards Christians (hi Malflick ) I just really don't like it when people try to force their beliefs on me. I would dislike it just as much if they were any other religion, it's just that where I live, when I encounter this, 99.9% of the time they happen to be Christian, and when I rant about them I come across as hateful.

                          What are your experiences with conversion tactics, and what do you think of people who do this?
                          I would say travel in a group of people past them, frankly ignoring them is the best thing they could do, try to ignore them. Usually if you're in a group they behave better or are to nervous to approach you (in my experience it is usually they are to nervous).

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

                            You see, Pentenchostal Christianity has become really widespread in Brazil, about 20-25% of people where I live practice it. And it's unberable, cause the standard view of those people is a literalistic, fundamentalistic and moralistic view of the Bible. I have about a billion bad experiences with those people, and it's what caused me for some time to have a huge prejudice against Christians, that with the help of the Goddess I am managing to overcome.

                            It's so bad that the Rio de Janeiro municipality had to forbid "religious manifestations" in public transport, because they have a standard practice where they board buses or trains en masse and do public, unwanted, and very loud christian thingies. I once asked one of them to stop and was a man threatened to beat me if I didn't stop asking them to stop doing something which's against the law.

                            They absolutely are everywhere shouting "YOU'RE GOING TO HELL"-esque things, distributing fliers, accosting people on the street to speak of Jesus. I've had so many bad experiences from this kind of behaviour I am outright hostile to such people. It sucks, but such's life over here.

                            Just so you guys know, my sister's a Catholic and she's a really accepting person, with an open view of religion; she chose Catholicism because it answered what she yearned for. I am completely okay with people like this, for example; the problem is not Christianity, the problem is people who are prejudicial and pushy with their subjective beliefs.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: the "Convert or Die" mentality

                              Honestly, the people with a convert or die mentality scare the ever living shit out of me. I've had rather.....I'm going to be polite and say unpleasant (ie: Violent)..... experiences with them to say the least. Like taking that "die" part seriously. If a friend of mine at the time hadn't come looking for me, I wouldn't be here typing this.

                              My response when faced with random strangers that try to push it is a first attempt of a polite "No thank you" sometimes by a followed "I'm pagan" if they keep pushing, followed by walking away. When they follow me after that I usually follow up with telling them where they can shove their pamphlets and that if they keep harassing me I'm calling the cops. I don't take chances with stuff like that-I warn waaaay ahead of time in the conversation that I'm more than willing to involve police and usually pull my phone out to emphasize my point.
                              Always taking art commissions, especially for fantasy and pagan related artwork
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