How to start a conversation with a potential proselyte

Dear forum,

Improving Our Skills in the Ministry—Initiating a Conversation in Order to Witness Informally — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

I picked out an example from the Jehovah's Witnesses' publication as an example describing how to start a conversation with a person you wish to convert. The bottom line to get the conversation is asking a "bait question" like

"What's your opinion on religious topic X?"

The potential proselyte will give an answer according to their personal opinion. However, the missionary isn't actually interested in the answer of the potential proselyte, but just uses it as a door opener to rattle off his religious view to the potential proselyte.

As for the point of proselytizing occuring at the door of your home, you always have the option of closing the door. At the internet, this doesn't seem to be the case, at least not in this forum. In addition to "bait questions" which turn out as such only after several posts, the atmosphere of this forum might appear to some overly amiciable to certain religions, especially to those which may see themselves as the completion of all religions founded earlier.

Do you think this as a problem or an advantage of this forum? Do you mind "bait questions"? Do you think discussions labelled as "interfaith" should abide by a definition of interfaith as given on this website:

The word "interfaith" describes an interaction between people of different religions or faith traditions. But it is more than that. It is about understanding our significant differences, but also recognizing our similarities, and working together for peace, justice and healing in our world.

Interfaith cooperation is not about renouncing religions, or combining all religions into one."

What Does Interfaith Mean? | URI

Do you think that according to the point explained above, that there might be a problem in this forum? Or do you think this forum is doing fine as it is?

Please share your opinions, and have a Happy New Years Eve !!!

Sirona said:

Dear forum,

Improving Our Skills in the Ministry—Initiating a Conversation in Order to Witness Informally — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

I picked out an example from the Jehovah's Witnesses' publication as an example describing how to start a conversation with a person you wish to convert. The bottom line to get the conversation is asking a "bait question" like

"What's your opinion on religious topic X?"

The potential proselyte will give an answer according to their personal opinion. However, the missionary isn't actually interested in the answer of the potential proselyte, but just uses it as a door opener to rattle off his religious view to the potential proselyte.

As for the point of proselytizing occuring at the door of your home, you always have the option of closing the door. At the internet, this doesn't seem to be the case, at least not in this forum. In addition to "bait questions" which turn out as such only after several posts, the atmosphere of this forum might appear to some overly amiciable to certain religions, especially to those which may see themselves as the completion of all religions founded earlier.

Do you think this as a problem or an advantage of this forum? Do you mind "bait questions"? Do you think discussions labelled as "interfaith" should abide by a definition of interfaith as given on this website:

The word "interfaith" describes an interaction between people of different religions or faith traditions. But it is more than that. It is about understanding our significant differences, but also recognizing our similarities, and working together for peace, justice and healing in our world.

Interfaith cooperation is not about renouncing religions, or combining all religions into one."

What Does Interfaith Mean? | URI

Do you think that according to the point explained above, that there might be a problem in this forum? Or do you think this forum is doing fine as it is?

Please share your opinions, and have a Happy New Years Eve !!!

Click to expand...

I think it is healthy to speak with people from different religions or spiritual paths then what we ourselves hold. But it should be done with dignity and respect for what the other person believes in too. Since you took Jehova`s witnesses as an example I would say, I have had many good spiritual talks with them over many years. so no problem with them for me.
What you call proselyting is often a big part of a religion or spiritual teaching to spread the words and teaching to others, and I find it to be a good way to come in contact with others.
Even as a Practitioner one of the requirements we would have to do is to spread the word about the teaching, but also about the CCP's evil deeds in China and in other parts of the word. But the main part is the cultivation of our mind and body.

Here's what I did:

"Hello, we are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints. We are talking to people today about our beliefs, and answering questions. Would you like to know more?'

Sometimes they even said 'yes.' That was nice.

That's pretty much what I did when I was an 'official' missionary.

Sirona said:

Do you mind "bait questions"?

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Of course I would mind. It's a dishonest tactic.

... although it's in keeping with the generally offensive nature of proselytizing.

Amanaki said:

I think it is healthy to speak with people from different religions or spiritual paths then what we ourselves hold. But it should be done with dignity and respect for what the other person believes in too.

Click to expand...

Proselytizing - i.e. the attempt to get the other person to abandon their beliefs in favour of yours - is inherently opposed to treating the other person's beliefs with dignity and respect. The proselytizer treats the other person's beliefs as literal garbage: something worthless to be discarded.

Sirona said:

Dear forum,

Improving Our Skills in the Ministry—Initiating a Conversation in Order to Witness Informally — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

I picked out an example from the Jehovah's Witnesses' publication as an example describing how to start a conversation with a person you wish to convert. The bottom line to get the conversation is asking a "bait question" like

"What's your opinion on religious topic X?"

The potential proselyte will give an answer according to their personal opinion. However, the missionary isn't actually interested in the answer of the potential proselyte, but just uses it as a door opener to rattle off his religious view to the potential proselyte.

As for the point of proselytizing occuring at the door of your home, you always have the option of closing the door. At the internet, this doesn't seem to be the case, at least not in this forum. In addition to "bait questions" which turn out as such only after several posts, the atmosphere of this forum might appear to some overly amiciable to certain religions, especially to those which may see themselves as the completion of all religions founded earlier.

Do you think this as a problem or an advantage of this forum? Do you mind "bait questions"? Do you think discussions labelled as "interfaith" should abide by a definition of interfaith as given on this website:

The word "interfaith" describes an interaction between people of different religions or faith traditions. But it is more than that. It is about understanding our significant differences, but also recognizing our similarities, and working together for peace, justice and healing in our world.

Interfaith cooperation is not about renouncing religions, or combining all religions into one."

What Does Interfaith Mean? | URI

Do you think that according to the point explained above, that there might be a problem in this forum? Or do you think this forum is doing fine as it is?

Please share your opinions, and have a Happy New Years Eve !!!

Click to expand...

Don't be so scared, Sirona!
If a JW wants to speak with you, by all means answer their leading question, and then you'll find out what they wanted to tell you. It's not a problem if you like talking to people.

Sirona said:

Dear forum,

Improving Our Skills in the Ministry—Initiating a Conversation in Order to Witness Informally — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

I picked out an example from the Jehovah's Witnesses' publication as an example describing how to start a conversation with a person you wish to convert. The bottom line to get the conversation is asking a "bait question" like

"What's your opinion on religious topic X?"

The potential proselyte will give an answer according to their personal opinion. However, the missionary isn't actually interested in the answer of the potential proselyte, but just uses it as a door opener to rattle off his religious view to the potential proselyte.

As for the point of proselytizing occuring at the door of your home, you always have the option of closing the door. At the internet, this doesn't seem to be the case, at least not in this forum. In addition to "bait questions" which turn out as such only after several posts, the atmosphere of this forum might appear to some overly amiciable to certain religions, especially to those which may see themselves as the completion of all religions founded earlier.

Do you think this as a problem or an advantage of this forum? Do you mind "bait questions"? Do you think discussions labelled as "interfaith" should abide by a definition of interfaith as given on this website:

The word "interfaith" describes an interaction between people of different religions or faith traditions. But it is more than that. It is about understanding our significant differences, but also recognizing our similarities, and working together for peace, justice and healing in our world.

Interfaith cooperation is not about renouncing religions, or combining all religions into one."

What Does Interfaith Mean? | URI

Do you think that according to the point explained above, that there might be a problem in this forum? Or do you think this forum is doing fine as it is?

Please share your opinions, and have a Happy New Years Eve !!!

Click to expand...

I certainly find people who are dishonest annoying. I think most of us do. To ask a seemingly innocent question when you have a different, hidden, agenda is tiresome. But on the internet you can very easily close the door. You can just stop responding, or even put the person in question on Ignore so you don't have to read the stuff they post. I've done this with quite a few on this forum, once I've realised they have a pattern of deceptive posting that disguises a viewpoint they are trying to push - our Baha'i friend Jim being the most recent addition to the list.

The JW method of proselytising door to door is fairly harmless. In London you can see them coming a mile off, as they are fairly well-dressed, go round in pairs, and are almost invariably black. They are always very polite - and not insistent when I tell them everyone in the house is Catholic, which is my usual way of closing down the discussion before it starts.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Proselytizing - i.e. the attempt to get the other person to abandon their beliefs in favour of yours - is inherently opposed to treating the other person's beliefs with dignity and respect. The proselytizer treats the other person's beliefs as literal garbage: something worthless to be discarded.

Click to expand...

I honestly see more atheists having that attitude. All over the place. What strikes me as strange actually.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Proselytizing - i.e. the attempt to get the other person to abandon their beliefs in favour of yours - is inherently opposed to treating the other person's beliefs with dignity and respect. The proselytizer treats the other person's beliefs as literal garbage: something worthless to be discarded.

Click to expand...

I think there's a difference between respecting a person and respecting their beliefs. If a person believes we should reinstitute slavery, or that all Jews deserve to die, sorry, I don't respect those beliefs. If asked my opinion, I would encourage people to abandon those beliefs, because they're irrational and harmful. I don't think that means I am disrespecting the person who holds those beliefs.

Sirona said:

Dear forum,

Improving Our Skills in the Ministry—Initiating a Conversation in Order to Witness Informally — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

I picked out an example from the Jehovah's Witnesses' publication as an example describing how to start a conversation with a person you wish to convert. The bottom line to get the conversation is asking a "bait question" like

"What's your opinion on religious topic X?"

The potential proselyte will give an answer according to their personal opinion. However, the missionary isn't actually interested in the answer of the potential proselyte, but just uses it as a door opener to rattle off his religious view to the potential proselyte.

As for the point of proselytizing occuring at the door of your home, you always have the option of closing the door. At the internet, this doesn't seem to be the case, at least not in this forum. In addition to "bait questions" which turn out as such only after several posts, the atmosphere of this forum might appear to some overly amiciable to certain religions, especially to those which may see themselves as the completion of all religions founded earlier.

Do you think this as a problem or an advantage of this forum? Do you mind "bait questions"? Do you think discussions labelled as "interfaith" should abide by a definition of interfaith as given on this website:

The word "interfaith" describes an interaction between people of different religions or faith traditions. But it is more than that. It is about understanding our significant differences, but also recognizing our similarities, and working together for peace, justice and healing in our world.

Interfaith cooperation is not about renouncing religions, or combining all religions into one."

What Does Interfaith Mean? | URI

Do you think that according to the point explained above, that there might be a problem in this forum? Or do you think this forum is doing fine as it is?

Please share your opinions, and have a Happy New Years Eve !!!

Click to expand...

Ahhh ... the bait ... or is that de bate?

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Proselytizing - i.e. the attempt to get the other person to abandon their beliefs in favour of yours - is inherently opposed to treating the other person's beliefs with dignity and respect. The proselytizer treats the other person's beliefs as literal garbage: something worthless to be discarded.

Click to expand...

Then i dont proselyte Because i respect others belief, but yes i do speak of what i follow and what i see as my understanding of the truth (not saying my words is the only truth of course, and i may be wrong in many things i believe to be true today)

dianaiad said:

Here's what I did:

"Hello, we are from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints. We are talking to people today about our beliefs, and answering questions. Would you like to know more?'

Sometimes they even said 'yes.' That was nice.

That's pretty much what I did when I was an 'official' missionary.

Click to expand...

I miss those guys across the back fence. We had some good times. I no longer have the honour of feeding someone their first vegetarian meal, learning how hard it is to be in a foreign land, what they thought of their last 6 week posting in rural Canada. I built a deck last year, and could have uses some younger strength for a few hours.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Proselytizing - i.e. the attempt to get the other person to abandon their beliefs in favour of yours - is inherently opposed to treating the other person's beliefs with dignity and respect. The proselytizer treats the other person's beliefs as literal garbage: something worthless to be discarded.

Click to expand...

Heck, they usually don't know anything at all about the other person's beliefs, or what they do is ridiculously biased. But I wonder how many times such folks have sat on the bench beside somebody of their own faith, started in, and then discovered it was a fellow adherent. That could be rather funny.

I'd require they first watch this.....

Nowhere Man said:

I'd require they first watch this.....

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I've seen that before. Frankly, those Mormons were considerably more polite to the atheists than most of the people upon whose doors I knocked.

However, that's fine. Had they knocked upon my door, I'd have invited them in, given them milk and cookies, agreed with them that Darwin had some great ideas (some of 'em very wrong, but hey...he did a fairly good job anyway), asked them why, if I also believed in evolution, it was a problem for them if I also believed in God.

After some pleasant conversation, I would have sent them on their way.

Just as I do every proselytizer that comes to my door.

Its probably the biggest topic of Civil and Religious order in the world. How do Churches consider the Great Commission and how do Governments treat proselytizing activity. Do individuals feel required to spread their faith in some sort of duty, near Mormons, or Jehovah's witness, frequent mentions.

I've been Accused of proselytizing and I had to look up the word. So Apparently, its a favorite target as well! That's as if I've a charismatic movement with which is only complete itself with the conversion of others, without any sort of Religious Fair Practices legislation, like not making Jewish employees eat pork, schedule all your religious employees on Sunday, etc.

Presbyterianism is supposed to be from a specific background of Europe having very careful Catholic or anti-religious borders, a background that involves a Parish, the conversation of a Parish like the Louisianan counties, or "parishes", or in common British parlance, is obviously that, there's an assignable dutiful zone of religious zoning among even different denominations, that the Reformed are in the Netherlands , but the Catholic is in next door in Belgium, and they didn't cross both fences and shoot each other for the fun of it. Calvinism with its theology in Southern Baptists early on, and Reformed theology, and Prebsyterianism , led to fewer Northern Protestant missionary targets, since these were seen as God Ordained enterprises, or one was next to God to make the assumption that the Offspring of God were to be found in other activities. Most Methodists and Baptists decry top-to-bottom conversions, the target is traditional, comfortable even, to sway the religious sponsorship of the top of countries as a well-done job, at the neglect of classes, and individual feelings.

So come join a I-***-AG orientation today. We the People, of the State of Alabama, Invoke the Favor and Guidance of Almighty God, in our 1901 Constitution, as written, to Invoke the Favor and Guidance of Almighty God from the 1861 Montgomery Confederate Constitution, in the Year of our Lord. There's a Bonnie Blue Flag at the party for the less intellectual than Puritan-Covenanter Westminster Confession Confederate relations. I-***-AG

Amanaki said:

Then i dont proselyte

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You praised the JWs on this, so I feared the worst. Good to hear you don't proselytize.

Because i respect others belief, but yes i do speak of what i follow and what i see as my understanding of the truth (not saying my words is the only truth of course, and i may be wrong in many things i believe to be true today)

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So in these conversations, you're open to having your own mind changed?

9-10ths_Penguin said:

You praised the JWs on this, so I feared the worst. Good to hear you don't proselytize.


So in these conversations, you're open to having your own mind changed?

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I see everyone who holds a spiritual belief and lives by them as a good way of living a life, so if i did speak good about JW it is because i spoke to many good people within their faith.