Morbid Wrote:
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> At best this is a waste of time. You are playing
> with fire, and it is absolutely sure that you
> cannot win this one.
>
> I used to have some Jehova Witnesses people coming
> to my place to talk about God/religion and so
> forth. While I seriously do not mind talking about
> those issues, and I respect their wish to live as
> they see fit, I also knew who they are, because
> there was a large community of them, where I grew
> up.
>
> A mature woman and her young apprentice would come
> about once a week and talk with me for an hour or
> two. As an intellectual challenge, I thought I
> would play their own game on them, and challenge
> their reasoning and perception of themselves... I
> actually came to they point were they had to admit
> that they approved of genocide, despite their
> pride of being among those that resisted the Nazi
> regime during WWII and being sent to death camps
> for their beliefs.
>
> It was a no go. The young apprentice was replaced
> for the next visit, and they just kept on coming
> like nothing had happened... 110% resistant to any
> sort of argument whatsoever. You can wear down one
> of them, but they will just replace that person,
> and in a battle of numbers and patience, trust me,
> they have more.
>
> You will find yourself entangled, because you have
> invested time, energy and effort in presenting
> interesting strategems and lines of thought. You
> will be unwilling to extract yourself, because it
> will be difficult to write this exercise off as a
> total loss, and they won't terminate the
> communication unless you reject them flatout. This
> where you are vulnerable, and that very process is
> how cults and sects recruit new members.
On the subject of Jehovah's Witnesses, my father about 12 years ago was getting very angry at being woken up at 9am on a Sunday morning when he's trying to sleep because he worked long hours during the week. He said if you come round again I'll sue you. They came around the next weekend, and he promptly rang up the "head office" for the Jehovah's Witnesses, and said something along the lines of "Your people keep coming round to my house even though I don't want them to, I've said I'm not interested, and have said I'll sue them if they do it again." Their response: nothing. They've not bothered him since however.
Everyone knows that million-to-one chances happen 9 times out of 10; indeed, it's a common requirement in fairy tales. If the human didn't have to overcome huge odds, what would be the
point? Terry Pratchett - The Science Of Discworld
GPGSL S5 Race driver for IED.