I meant to mention
Jun. 20th, 2006 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azekeilLast night, I got accosted by bible bashers. These folks seemed to be from the Church of Latter-day Saints, or, as most people apart from me already knew until afterwards - Mormons.
I was in a fairly kind mood, and they took my interest. So I chatted to the two nice clean upright young men on my doorstep for a while. One had short blonde spikey hair, cheekbones, and striking but gentle blue eyes. The other was somewhat taller and had short black spikey hair and brown eyes.
I'm sure I must have had a faint smile on my lips throughout because they were being polite and mirroring me as best they could, which lead to a slightly surreal experience. I'm sure they had no idea why I was smiling.
They asked questions about my beliefs - which I have never given serious thought to since I was a teenager - and found myself wandering what my answers should properly be. I gave some non-commital answer, but stated that I believed everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves (and I was going to add "without having other people push their beliefs on you", but chickened out). They asked about what I thought about the writings in the bible. Here I said that I didn't believe the accounts as they were written down; but that there must have been some grain of truth to them - no smoke without fire, and all that.
At some point they asked me which version of Christianity was the 'true' version - pointing out that people often follow the religion they were brought up to follow (meaning branch of Christianity) with little thought to which is the 'true' version. I asked how they had come to become members of the Church of Latter-day Saints - they said that indeed they had been brought up in the religion, but that they had questioned it on a personal level and felt calm and at peace with the answer. At this point I decided to throw in that any religion I might choose to believe in would have to accept some life choices that I have made that might be controversial: My girlfriend has another boyfriend. I think the response was 'Mmm.' Then they moved on to talk about prophets and Joseph Smith, and how to pray, before finally trying to give me The Book of Mormon - at which point I had to politely refuse stating that I wouldn't ever get round to reading it - the simple truth. I let them give me a pamphlet though.
What a strange experience. I wanted to ask many more questions, but felt they were too rude. What drives people to walk around talking to strangers about their religion? I'm sure I must live in a very secluded way, to feel that talking to strangers is abnormal. It certainly makes me question a few things in myself, although they are almost entirely non-religious questions.
I was in a fairly kind mood, and they took my interest. So I chatted to the two nice clean upright young men on my doorstep for a while. One had short blonde spikey hair, cheekbones, and striking but gentle blue eyes. The other was somewhat taller and had short black spikey hair and brown eyes.
I'm sure I must have had a faint smile on my lips throughout because they were being polite and mirroring me as best they could, which lead to a slightly surreal experience. I'm sure they had no idea why I was smiling.
They asked questions about my beliefs - which I have never given serious thought to since I was a teenager - and found myself wandering what my answers should properly be. I gave some non-commital answer, but stated that I believed everyone should be allowed to decide for themselves (and I was going to add "without having other people push their beliefs on you", but chickened out). They asked about what I thought about the writings in the bible. Here I said that I didn't believe the accounts as they were written down; but that there must have been some grain of truth to them - no smoke without fire, and all that.
At some point they asked me which version of Christianity was the 'true' version - pointing out that people often follow the religion they were brought up to follow (meaning branch of Christianity) with little thought to which is the 'true' version. I asked how they had come to become members of the Church of Latter-day Saints - they said that indeed they had been brought up in the religion, but that they had questioned it on a personal level and felt calm and at peace with the answer. At this point I decided to throw in that any religion I might choose to believe in would have to accept some life choices that I have made that might be controversial: My girlfriend has another boyfriend. I think the response was 'Mmm.' Then they moved on to talk about prophets and Joseph Smith, and how to pray, before finally trying to give me The Book of Mormon - at which point I had to politely refuse stating that I wouldn't ever get round to reading it - the simple truth. I let them give me a pamphlet though.
What a strange experience. I wanted to ask many more questions, but felt they were too rude. What drives people to walk around talking to strangers about their religion? I'm sure I must live in a very secluded way, to feel that talking to strangers is abnormal. It certainly makes me question a few things in myself, although they are almost entirely non-religious questions.
