Yes, indeed. After three years I dusted off my Bible put on my Sunday suit and walked door-to-door in the glorious morning sun for 90 minutes solid (no breaks--old-school). But, no, not with 'them.' I always felt some subtle compulsion to do this, I don't know why. It was not for subterfuge or causing trouble. I just wanted to be free to say what I might want to say and see how people react, without my own personal religious biases.
I walked with only a Bible. I am an athiest. I did not wish to compromise or demean either.
Here's the presentation I had generally in mind:
"Good morning, my name is Simon and we're just stopping by briefly asking you and your neighbors a viewpoint question. Do you think that, in total, religion is more a force of division and trouble in the world today, or more a source of good? [they answer, often that they wish it was was the latter but more often it was the former]. In this case I'd ask them if "Do you think there will ever be a time when religion's are all in harmony or united maybe even as one?" [No one said 'yes'] so I'd briefly discuss what was preventing that. Then I'd say "well, no matter what beliefs you and I have or how they differ I think we agree with one scripture, said by Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount. [Read or quote Mat 7:12, Golden Rule]. Now notice Jesus didn't say to do good only to those in your religion, or with your beliefs. So today we're just spreading a message of tolerance of all beliefs as long as we are doing the best we can, as long as we are doing good to one another. So we are just leaving you with that thought, and I hope whatever your believs are, they work well for you and we can work towards making our world a more peaceful and tolerant place."
SUMMARY OF RESULTS (interesting just for kicks or for the memories)
1- Nice born again woman who was not really interested, but settled down and told me she admired me and said "God bless you today"
2- A non-religious Catholic who was baffled by the first question and said "to be honest I...I just don't know". But he shook my hand and was pleasant.
3- A 30ish year old girl who just hesistantly looked at me and was like "I think... I'm going... to pass" and shut the door. Lol
4-Weird older Asian woman who was very soft spoken. She babbled a few things and I made out that she was an Evangelical christian. So I asked her about it and she just said "I... I want to serve my husband." (say what?). I was kind of stumped so I asked "oh, well I hope you find that fulfilling." I tried to go on a little bit and she cut me off and again said "I just want to serve my husband." We kind of looked at each other for a few seconds and I said "ok, have a nice day" haha
5-Two tough looking older women, and when I asked about religion they said "We are from the USSR!" (lol, ok) So I said "ok, so I guess you're not really religious yourself then." They said "No! Non-religious. We must do work now!" So I left.
6-Martin, finally made it through my whole presentation. He was a devout, but only semi-religious Baptist and he was very sweet and we chatted in general about religion. He agreed very much with my message of tolerance and started finding similarities between me and him and our belief in Jesus. I wanted to expand on this and said that we must expand that though becuase other religions like Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist may be doing the best they can but themselves don't believe in our same God at all. He kind of agreed but said that Jesus said the way was only through him. I said that didn't seem fair, and he said God knows peoples hearts and predestines them and knows that, no matter where they grow up, if they will become christian or not. I also said this wasn't fair, since 99.9% of those religions never convert and if you're born in Bangladesh you have no shot really, and he agreed and said that was troubling, but that we should be kind towards all and let God be the final judge. In all he was really nice and said it was nice to discuss things like this in a comfortable and non-judgemental setting and said God would bless me.
7-A woman at the window who said she was "not interested in doing any surveys" and closed the curtain
8-A woman who said that religion was more good but there would be no unity in this lifetime... then said she was on a business call so this stalled out
9-Got through the whole presentation again with a fairly active Christian, who said she knows of many differences between her and JWs. I agreed and said that "religion though is not an exact science or else we'd all have agreed upon it already. So in general we need to respect and tolerate our differences whatever they may be." She agreed and then became a lot more amiable, saying she really admired the door-to-door work saying she could never do it (I said it takes some getting used to for sure and she laughed).
10-A woman who did not look pleased and answered my first question "We're Jewish, we have our own Bible." Uh oh. Well I said half of it is the same. Then I said I was sharing a scripture by Jesus and that I know you don't believe in him ("No, we don't!" she said pissed lol) but I said the principle we surely agreed on and read the Golden Rule. She said that her religion did agree with. I said "Right, and it might not have even first been said by Jesus but as long as we are good towards one another and tolerant of differences, we can agree that will bring forth a better world." Finally she loosened up a bit and said "yes that's true, well thank you very much!"
11-A sleepy guy in his early 20s who was just generally non-religious, confused, and mildly bemused at the whole charade.
12-A woman pretending to be on the phone who answered my question about religion in a agitated manner. Respecting the phone, I started talking about how we must be tolerant of beliefs and she said "I think its just very annoying that you come here and try to sell your religion to me!" Lol, I was like "I'm not selling anything, just that we all should respect whatever religious beliefs or non-religious beliefs we may have. And she just kind of shut the door. Okey-doke!
13-A rude old man where the conversation went like this:
ME: Hi there
HIM: No...
ME: How are you this afternoon?
HIM: No...
ME: Ok well we were just stopping....
HIM: No.... {slowly closes door} haha
14- Two siblings with Down Syndrome. The girl just said "No!" so I just cut short and said I wanted to encourage us all to be respectful of different beliefs. "BYE... sir"
15-"I'm sorry, my English... is not good enough for this" [bad stretch here!]
16-Older man who opened the door, saw me, and rudely said "NO! GOOD BYE" without me saying a word. I had the Bible behind my back, so this was a pretty bold and rude generalization he made. Yeah, sure there's a 90% chance its a JW, but what if it wasn't? Actually and in this case it wasn't a JW!
17-Jack. A very nice middle aged man with two small kids who was very happy. Went through the whole presentation and he basically agreed with everything and thought it was very nice. He apologized for being sick (?) and I left.
18-A very busy Spanish man who seemed nice though "Oh... Is there any way you could come back at a different time I'm extremely busy". I said of course and apologized for the interruption.
19-A nice girl, but barely spoke English. We tried but it was impossible so I just wished her a wonderful day.
20-A skeptical middle aged man who got asked about religion and asked "Why are you asking." After a general response by me he said "Respectfully we deal with this issue in private." I said I understood and said we were just sharing one thought that whether he was religious or non-religious we could all agree on and finished my Golden Rule+comments portion. Then he brightened up and said "Oh... Well that's a very nice message!" Then he thanked me, shook my hand, and the street was done.