Has a total stranger ever struck up a conversation with you about God/religion, and if so did it bother you?

I guess you could say that. Not really ME though. I was more a witness.

Yes and I just completely ignored them.

It's happened to me a few times....and yeah, it's annoying. It's usually old men who do it too. I try not to be rude, but once I think the old dude could tell I was irritated and quickly backed off trying.

Yep. I'll just do the usual "mmm hmmm", "that's right" and keep it moving.

Other than some Jehovah’s Witnesses who rang my doorbell years ago, no. I politely declined to pursue a conversation, and they politely departed.

What's rude about it is the arrogance behind it. Many Bible wavers don't think they're being rude when they decide to start "witnessing" to total strangers. They believe that the word they speak is so in his glory that random people should WANT to hear what they have to say.

^^^^Well it's little different than the sales people in the mall who practically drag you to their booth to sell you stuff to shine your nails.

One time, when I was pregnant with my third and waiting for him to come out, this woman in a crazy outfit approached me at a teriyaki place where I was picking up some food. She asked when I was due, yadda yadda yadda, and then asked if she could pray for my baby and I. I was embarrassed but said sure. She said a prayer with her hand on my belly.

Here's the weird thing though...

The next day (Mother's day) I went into labor and had my son at 7 am the day after. It was an intervention free birth but my son got stuck in the birth canal right at the end. There were a few scary moments but ultimately he was fine.

I had to leave the hospital early to make it to my daughter's preschool graduation, so we didn't stay for long. As we were taking the elevator down, we stopped at a floor and the doors opened, then closed before the woman standing at the doors could get on. Then they opened again and she got on and it was the same crazily dressed woman!

She totally remembered me and I remembered her and it was just a bizarre coincidence. I took it as a moment of synchronicity.



That didn't bother me.

I don't like it when people try to convert me though.

A couple neighbors of mine talked to me about religion once. One told me it uholy for one to get angry, which of course I disagreed with and made me angrier, and another told me I looked like a "nice Christian girl" and inquired about what my religion was. The first neighbor annoyed me, but the second, no - she was just making polite conversation. People can sometimes be paranoid - it is possible people are just talking and not try to convert you

MandyPerfumeGirl wrote:

A couple neighbors of mine talked to me about religion once. One told me it uholy for one to get angry, which of course I disagreed with and made me angrier, and another told me I looked like a "nice Christian girl" and inquired about what my religion was. The first neighbor annoyed me, but the second, no - she was just making polite conversation. People can sometimes be paranoid - it is possible people are just talking and not try to convert you

I agree with that too. I like talking about philosophy and theology

Yes but most of them have just been trying to peddle their crap - JW's who accost you and don't know when to leave you alone or this one weird cult that was making the rounds back when I was on campus. Everything they said was identical, which made them sound like brainwashed fools.

The genuine people I don't mind but the ones who are just trying to lure you into their cult, I do mind.

It's never happened to me but if it did I would out of nowhere start talking to them about German cartoons or Thrash metal to see how fast they would end the discussion.

I told my husband to be nice to the Jehovah's Witnesses who used to always come over. I just didn't want him to be mean...

So he invited them in and about once every two weeks they would show up and try to convince my husband that their religion was the truth, and he'd just politely disagree and tell them what HE thought about the Bible and religion. They never could convince him and when it became just going around in circles finally he told them that he didn't think that they were saying anything new and they stopped coming.

They came over for like a year though.

Never happened to me but if it did I would quickly tell that I wasn't interested in talking about religion.

Edit: I take that back, it did sort of happen to me once when I was reading a book at the mall I had just bought. This lady came up and asked me what I was reading. She made some remark about how it was nice to see young people interested in books, and that it was just a shame more weren't into reading the Bible.

I didn't make a fuss out of it though.

TPP, that is quite the story with the old woman.