Reasonable Dissent

Door-to-door atheism

My new neighborhood seems to have much more Mormon traffic than I’ve had other places. They ride up to your door on bikes with nice tucked-in shirts and ties and ask you if you know how evil you are. It’s quite pleasant. Oh wait. What’s the other thing… irritating. Not because they came to my door, but because actually they have treated me pretty badly in the past. One time I recall, I opened the door to see them standing there with their pamphlets and, since I’m not trying to be overly rude, let them give me their opening line before I told them I wasn’t interested. But my dogs were quite excited to see someone outside, so I pushed them back inside with my foot so that they wouldn’t run amuck in the neighborhood. No, not kicked, pushed barefoot back a couple of feet. Honestly I thought it was a courtesy to them as well. And they had the nerve to chastise me about mistreating my animals, and how much I must need their help to learn how to discipline these animals properly. Or one time the obviously more experienced door-knocker seemed to feel he needed to make an example of bullying the unbeliever to the new guy. Ug. I didn’t say even a word against you.

It’s always been a glimmer in my mind that one day I’ll be sitting around just watching TV or reading a book with no plans when they show up and get to have a good debate with them. Well, I’m not sure how much of a debate I would actually get, but it’s a nice thought. One thing I’ve always wanted to ask them though is this line of thinking. Even with all of your door-to-door converting, there has to be someone that you just don’t have time to get to. What happens to this guy? Is he ok because he never had a chance to learn about your teachings, or does he burn for eternity because he never accepted something he was not exposed to?

Let’s take the first option. He’s not going to suffer forever because it wasn’t his fault that he never got exposed to the “true” teachings. Well, then what about the people they did talk to who didn’t convert, like me? I wasn’t going to hell until they showed up and told me about it all; their actions directly are pushing me into hell. Maybe if they did just a little bit better of convincing me, I’d be saved. Or if they didn’t show up I’d be ok. But because they came and failed, I’m doomed.

Ok, what about option #2. This poor sap never heard the good word they’re preaching, but he’s going to burn in hell anyway. That’s a bum rap for that guy. But how do theses guys feel about that? It takes, what, 10 minutes per house? So when they go to bed at night and can’t sleep for 20 minutes do they think about the 2 households of people that will suffer for eternity because they didn’t make it to them? Every time they hit the snooze button in the morning, do they weigh the pros and cons of getting a little more sleep vs condemning another person forever? Sounds like a rough life to me…

But anyway, this got me thinking. Have any atheists tried this kind of thing? I know I’ve seen pamphlets with atheist ideas online. Can anyone point me to stories or recaps of how it went and what they tried? It would be a very interesting experiment. I have no intention of insulting anyone or being aggressive about anything. But how would people react if I came to their door and said something like, “Hi, I’m an atheist and I think we’ve gotten an unfair reputation in this country. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have about my beliefs if you’re interested. ”

Would I get hostility because I’m an atheist? Is it too intrusive, no matter how nice I am? The idea is to get some discourse going. I don’t have a script to read; I want to know what they think and go from there. Friendly debate is a wonderful thing. Maybe I’d stick my trusty iPhone on Voice memo in my pocket and release the more interesting ones as podcast kind of things. Who knows? But it sounds interesting.

So, let me know what you think. Has this been tried before? If I came to your door, how would you feel about it?

Side note: Did you know you can request Mormons to come to your house online? I would never condone doing this, but I remember in college people used to have endless fun sending Mormons to each other’s house… The internet is a wonderful thing, but you have to watch out. Anonymity only helps people take advantage of you sometimes.

Tags: atheism, mormon