You need to come to NYC, occhiblu. In the Times Square subway station alone, we've got the Jews For Jesus, Falun Gong, Scientologists, and the woman I simply refer to as Screaming Jamaican Jesus Lady. Occasionaly, the Nation Of Islam will strap on the bowties and make an appearance. It's like a rageddy-assed Mall Of Weird Belief.

At Grand Central, there's sometimes a group I call The Rosary Squad: carefully multicultural yet identically glaze-eyed militant Catholics who hang out by the token booth saying the rosary in a rousing monotone mumble. When some irate commuter got into it with the clerk, they started mumbling louder. All the mingling sound was kind of impressive in an Apocalypse In A Cereal Box kind of way.

So, urbanity is no ticket away from zealots, it just offers you more variety, plus we got every kind of political wacko you can name too, just to complete the anvil chorus.

Yeah, I'm used to the nutjobs (religious or not!) in public spaces, it's the door-to-door "Have you accepted Jesus as your savior?" thing that weirds me out a bit.

Washington DC had tons of them, but we also had churches on almost every corner there, so it seemed a bit more expected. Here it's a little... disturbing.

That could possibly be due to my mood, though. We had a blocks-wide power outage last night and my first thought was "Earthquake's coming! HIDE!" All the hoopla about the 1906 quake (3,000 people died! Fires raged for days! Earth liquefied!) has me edgy.

Don't you have Jehovah's Witnesses?

Anyway, dealing with the door-to-door is easy. I just gargle with bourbon, put on a kilt, pips' bra, a pair of swim fins and a Sherlock Holmes hat, then answer the door with a freindly "Yes? How can I help you?"

A friends father always answered the door naked to Jehovah's Witnesses.

Jonmc, honey, I'd have made you pull up a chair. Or at least posed for a picture.

Can I confess that to me, especially with all the doorgoing JW's, Mormons, salesmen,politicians and fake doctors offering breast exams, that I am really kinda not comfy with the idea of actually knocking on a door? I mean, I don't mind talking about God (can you tell?) but I'd be afraid I'd be interrupting something important-and I personally am not fond of unexpected interruptions of any sort. Do unto others, and all that.

To each their own, I'll stick to hanging out with you guys and being the token.

Indeed: I would suspect that door to door witnessing has done more harm than good to the religions that embrace it.

I've observed the whole country getting goddier over the last decade, even through my liberal bias. Two points: San Fran may be one of the last bastions to hold out and scare away the godders, by rep. Two: PST, they may indeed have done more harm than good for the religions, I have no idea. But they're good for the neighborhood. Well dress folks strolling the sidewalks I consider a free mini neighborhood watch.

Indeed: I would suspect that door to door witnessing has done more harm than good to the religions that embrace it.
posted by PinkStainlessTail

You'd also think that spam email didn't sell any products. Sadly, both seem to be effective.

Do you think they really get converts that way? I always kind of figured that it was supposed to be good for the soul of the knocker-on-doors to try, but that they weren't really figuring on converting anyone.

a kilt, pips' bra, a pair of swim fins and a Sherlock Holmes hat

Someone needs to photoshop that.

Montreal isn't exactly a hotbed of evangelism, but when I was a kid we'd occasionally get bérêts blancs coming around. Once when I was fourteen or so they sent around a pleasant-looking girl who seemed roughly my age. She asked if I minded if she said a prayer in the house. I couldn't think of any real objection, so she knelt down, said her prayer, and then left politely with no attempt to proselytize.

A few years later our family spent most of a summer building a cabin right across the border at the northern tip of the Adirondack Park. One Saturday we drove down there and found a neat pile of JW tracts, wrapped in plastic, left in a conspicuous corner of the frame.

fake doctors offering breast exams

Wow.

Do you think it'd be any different if it was a real doctor?

I've heard that due to a clerical error, the world is supposed to end in 2007 (and I heard this back in the 90s, not like last week or something). And by clerical error, I think they were talking about the calendar systems in the middle ages. This was a couple of friends of mine working on a television pilot, though (possibly loosely based on Millennium, though it may have predated that show slightly).

Contrary to popular belief, the Mayan calendar does not actually suggest the world ending in 2012. So they'll be just as surprised as the rest of us when it does.

jonmc: we got every kind of political wacko you can name

Look out, its about to get worse.