[color=green]Mod note: Split from Are Mormons Christian?[/color]
Owned…
[quote=“Durins Bane”]Owned…
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Aw, but he was so mean and show-offy with it… He’s not someone who draws people in to his way of thinking, is he?
Why do Mormons use kids on bicycles to evangelise? It just seems counter-productive. Why not have slightly older people with more life experience and people skills and knowledge of their subject to send out into the world? What can a uniformed child tell me about faith? Most religions have older people as their point of contact. In most cultures, we have the ‘elder’ as a confidant. Seems to go against common sense. It must yield ‘results’, though, or they wouldn’t do it.
I’m not trying to insult anybody here, I’ve just always wondered why.
RDO already addressed that in the thread. Mormons used to use adults for evangelizing, but that was too great a strain on the families for the men to be away. Most Mormon evangelicals now are unmarried college students who take a couple of years off from school or who put their two years in before enrolling.
[quote=“Durins Bane”]Owned…
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Heh. What a hypocrite (not you, Durins Bane, the guy in the video). “They’re trying to dominate the conversation.” Wouldn’t let them get a word in edgewise. That’s a guy who’s whole goal was to talk to the camera and show them up.
He had no interest in hearing what they had to say. When they tried to respond he told them to shut up.
Buttercup’s question is legitimate, though. I covered it earlier as a matter of logistics, but what about effectiveness?
I’ll be the first to admit the typical LDS missionary is ill-prepared to handle a discussion with someone who wants to debate (or just argue). And they’re ill-prepared to answer any doctrinal questions beyond what is contained in the discussions they are authorized to teach. Especially those that are out in the field for just a few months. Some of them have barely read all the scriptures through once.
So, why let them represent the Church? Because their job isn’t to be able to out-argue someone. Their job is to present the core beliefs in simplicity, bear testimony on the things they know to be true, and tell the people they are speaking to how to find out the truth of the matter for themselves through prayer to God. Missionaries aren’t supposed convert people by convincing them. They’re supposed to turn them to God so the Spirit can convince them.
And what if someone has a legitimate doctrinal concern that is interfering with their inquiry? Well, that’s why there are stake missionaries and local members with experience and knowledge who are supposed to go out and sit in on the discussions.
If you want to learn what the church really teaches week to week, the missionaries are a great source. For debate or scholarly inquiry, they’re usually not a good place to look.
[quote]Heh. What a hypocrite (not you, Durins Bane, the guy in the video). “They’re trying to dominate the conversation.” Wouldn’t let them get a word in edgewise. That’s a guy who’s whole goal was to talk to the camera and show them up.
He had no interest in hearing what they had to say. When they tried to respond he told them to shut up. [/quote]
Oh come ON! Sure, he was acting for the camera, but the simple fact is, he KNEW what he was talking about and he did it eloquently, with a fair bit of style, politeness and great good humour. Didn’t let them get a word in edgewise? They HAD nothing to say! And DIDN’T really know what they were talking about. And got angry into the bargain. A pair of dummies.
As DB said – OWNED!
I see it a different way. An eloquent, well-read man in his 30s bullied and manipulated a couple of 20 year olds for the sheer pleasure of doing so.
On a more positive note, what we observed in that video is also one of the reasons the Mormon missionary experience is so good for the lads. Can you imagine how much those guys learned from that experience, and from similar experiences? They’ll be well equipped to handle most any tense situation they may encounter in their future careers.
I’ve been a non-believer for ten years, but I have no regrets about having been a missionary. It was excellent life training.
Did he accost them in the street and try to foist dodgy literature on them? Didn’t think so. He “bullied” them? No way. He tore a strip off them, sure, but responded with politeness and amused good humour when the best they could do was get angry and snippy.
And what on earth is wrong with deriving pleasure from outwitting someone in an argument? So they were just kids. THEY instigated the whole thing.
You get banned from forumosa. 
Actually, I’ve just invited a couple of local Mormons to my place for a meal. I dislike their religion and missionary work, but hold no malice toward the kids doing it. Actually, I feel sorry for them - thus the invite.
Out of respect, I won’t be guzzling booze in front of them, but if they start selling religion, they’re gonna be getting the Mighty Stomach of Thor smiting their cracker asses.
I think he taught them something, no doubt, but he was pretty malicious and awfully gleeful about making them feel stupid. He’s far more equipped than they are to debate religion, and was more than happy to rip them a new one. Those are the actions of a bully.
You’ve got to be kidding me. Politeness? Well, I guess since he didn’t tar and feather them or beat them with a stick you could call it polite. But maybe that was the video camera.
Good humor? It was simple mockery.
He didn’t outwit them. It wasn’t a matter of wits, but of not letting them talk once he got started. He was belligerent.
Right. By offering to share their beliefs they instigated the whole thing. 
And had they been a pair of Buddhist monks offering the wisdom of Buddha and someone treated them the same way, you’d have the same reaction?
As for the guy being intelligent, sure he was. But he didn’t really know the Bible or the surrounding history. The Romans weren’t the ones responsible, it was the Jewish Sanhedrin. They just had to get approval from the Roman governor before passing their death sentence. And his paraphrasing of the Bible wasn’t exactly on the money, either.
Of course, I doubt the two missionaries knew that, either.
[quote=“almas john”]Actually, I’ve just invited a couple of local Mormons to my place for a meal. I dislike their religion and missionary work, but hold no malice toward the kids doing it. Actually, I feel sorry for them - thus the invite.
Out of respect, I won’t be guzzling booze in front of them, but if they start selling religion, they’re gonna be getting the Mighty Stomach of Thor smiting their cracker asses.[/quote]
That’s very kind of you. I appreciated invites for dinner when I was proselyting in Hong Kong.
I’m pretty sure if you let them know up front that you are not interested in a religious discussion they’ll be polite and respect your wishes. I suspect you already did that. But if you didn’t, they’ll probably think it’s their duty to at least make the attempt. And since you are being kind in treating them to dinner, they’d be particularly keen in hoping you would gain the blessings of the gospel. But again, a simple “I’m not looking for religious discussion” should work well.
[quote=“Tomas”]I see it a different way. An eloquent, well-read man in his 30s bullied and manipulated a couple of 20 year olds for the sheer pleasure of doing so.
On a more positive note, what we observed in that video is also one of the reasons the Mormon missionary experience is so good for the lads. Can you imagine how much those guys learned from that experience, and from similar experiences? They’ll be well equipped to handle most any tense situation they may encounter in their future careers.
I’ve been a non-believer for ten years, but I have no regrets about having been a missionary. It was excellent life training.[/quote]
Why bring a Book Of Morman by two apprentices to a Bible fight with a well versed believer?
Buddhist monks don’t proselytize in the street as far as I know. And they certainly don’t buttonhole punters in the street and try to foist Chick tract nonsense on them, to my knowledge.
[quote=“R. Daneel Olivaw”][ But he didn’t really know the Bible or the surrounding history. The Romans weren’t the ones responsible, it was the Jewish Sanhedrin. They just had to get approval from the Roman governor before passing their death sentence. And his paraphrasing of the Bible wasn’t exactly on the money, either.
Of course, I doubt the two missionaries knew that, either.[/quote]
The dude never said the Romans were responsible. All he said was that crucifiction was the Romans execution method of the day.
Actually it has been a case of them pounding on the door to expain their vesions of scripture and being pushy to the extreme. The ones I came across in Australia were very agressive in pushing LDS.
I have not been approached by any LDS lads here for religious services. But chat about other things yes.
[quote=“sandman”]Did he accost them in the street and try to foist dodgy literature on them? Didn’t think so. He “bullied” them? No way. He tore a strip off them, sure, but responded with politeness and amused good humour when the best they could do was get angry and snippy.
And what on earth is wrong with deriving pleasure from outwitting someone in an argument? So they were just kids. THEY instigated the whole thing.[/quote]
Those two kids ran into a buzzsaw. The man was eloquent and knowledgeable.
I am always surprised when missionaries come up to me and start “spreading the word”…almost all of them think that Jesus was a Christian and that he started the Christian church. :s
[quote=“Satellite TV”][quote=“R. Daneel Olivaw”][ But he didn’t really know the Bible or the surrounding history. The Romans weren’t the ones responsible, it was the Jewish Sanhedrin. They just had to get approval from the Roman governor before passing their death sentence. And his paraphrasing of the Bible wasn’t exactly on the money, either.
Of course, I doubt the two missionaries knew that, either.[/quote]
The dude never said the Romans were responsible. All he said was that crucifiction was the Romans execution method of the day.[/quote]
No, he asked which were responsible, the Romans or the people. It was a false dilemma that ignored the actual correct answer. Perhaps it was not done in ignorance of the history, and if the missionaries had said “the Romans” then he would have jumped on them for that.
This guy had been to Sunday School and had had read the Bible, although he preferred to paraphrase than to quote it. But he didn’t demonstrate a better knowledge of the Bible because he wasn’t giving them a chance to say anything.
A little insight into missionary training: Missionaries are taught not to argue. Once you get into an argument, even if you wipe the floor with the person through either rhetoric or reasoning, you will not gain anything as a missionary. Instead of raising their voices and pushing to get in a word, they kept their calm and tried to wait.
I’m with you completely on this point, and I from my personal experience I don’t find RDO’s explanation to actually address the point. Here’s a great example of why not:
So what you get when you meet many missionaries is kids who certainly have a deep conviction in what they believe, but cannot articulate exactly why they believe it, or even the details of what it is they believe. But they want you to call them ‘Elder’? I give them 10/10 for general presentation, but 1/10 for achievement. The missionaries I have met have done nothing but give the impression that a Mormon is someone who believes in something they can’t fully explain, for reasons they don’t fully understand, and wants you to be the same way.
The presentation of their beliefs is not based on reason, and irrational presentations turn me off immediately no matter who is giving them. There’s a reason why 1st century Christians didn’t permit novices to teach, and ‘elders’ in the 1st century church were genuine elders, with years of knowledge and experience. That’s just sensible.
It’s particularly off putting when they demonstrate that they’re not even familiar with their own Scriptures. This should ring immediate alarm bells because it reinforces the idea that they believe in writings they haven’t even read or assessed personally for themselves. The frequently used response ‘We can’t answer that but if you write to our stake president he’ll be happy to find someone to answer it for you’ just sounds like ‘We don’t know the answer because we only receive information on a need to know basis and we can’t reason out an answer for ourselves - if you want to join our group you have to get used to being told what to believe by the hierarchy’.
The Church really needs to revise its missionary strategy. The missionaries are very good at getting into the Church a certain kind of person, the kind who doesn’t base their beliefs on reason and isn’t particularly concerned about rational thought. But unfortunately the Church really doesn’t need people like this. No church does. These people fall out of churches as easily as they fall into them, and statistics indicate that they typically fall out of the LDS Church very shortly after they join. The LDS Church has a real convert retention problem. The evidence demonstrates that missionaries are just not effective at bringing in new members, and the Church isn’t good at keeping them in. This demonstrates that the entire missionary program is completely missing the point.
These kids just aren’t good at preaching. They shouldn’t be out there. It’s all very well to say that they aren’t out there to convince people, but that’s clearly what the LDS Church wants them to do, and it’s clearly what the early Christians did. You don’t see the early Christians saying ‘Well we believe in some stuff, we can put you in touch with some other guys if you want to know what it is, you should believe in some stuff too, you’ll feel a burning in your bosom if God has chosen to convince you, and yeah basically come to church on Sunday, see you there’.
This is particularly ironic given that you’ve told me that the missionaries with whom I spent nights in discussion were teaching me wrong doctrine.
Tomas, the former Mormon here.
When I was a missionary, we were always trained to “teach by the Spirit.” Meaning, the folks we “invited” (this was the word used) to “hear the gospel of JC” would either feel the truth of what we were saying or they wouldn’t. I later taught missionaries the same as a trainer at the Mission Training Center in Provo, Utah.
That’s why personally, I didn’t spend much time bothering folks who obviously weren’t interested. If they wanted me to, I’d help them out with an English question, play with their kids for a while, or shoot some hoops with them, but I’d move on pretty quickly, looking for folks who wanted to hear what we had to say. I wasn’t trained to debate doctrine, though I was expected to have a reasonable knowledge of church doctrines so that I could explain them if asked to.
In the end, though, it came down to trying to connect with people on an emotional/spiritual level and, barring that, moving politely along our way.
In other words, there was never any intent for Mormon missionaries to be doctrinal experts. They are barely adults, sent out to get their basic Mo’ training and hopefully convert a few people in the process. Believe me, the church knows that most of its emissaries are going to lose most any religious debate with someone who has really studied. The leadership isnt’ really interested in converting people based on objective explorations of doctrine.
Is that a bullshit approach? Perhaps. But it works pretty well in a lot of countries.
Am I saying that belief in Mormonism comes down to whether you “feel it” or not? Absolutely. I “felt it” for many years and then, slowly, felt it less and less. That’s why I’m out. Intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, it just doesn’t work for me. I have friends and relatives who are smarter than me who are aware of all of the holes in the doctrine, but they “feel it” to the point where they wouldn’t think of giving it up.
You can debate doctrine until the cows come home, but in the end, those who feel it will believe it, and those who don’t, won’t. No big deal.
One more thing–getting angry at 19-20 year old boys sent out to invite you to hear their message is an awful lot like getting pissed off at girl scouts sent to your door to sell cookies, or some telecom salesman trying to make his quota, or some high school kid selling magazine subscriptions for the drama club. Many of them probably don’t want to be there, and most of them certainly don’t want to bother you, but the troop/company/club director gives them pressure to get out there and deliver the numbers. Believe me, an LDS missionary would much rather offend somebody who thinks his religion is bullshit than disappoint mom, dad, and the bishop back home.
If you’re going to get angry with somebody, get angry with the church leadership. The kids don’t really deserve it.