The Jehovah’s Witnesses have invited me to a meeting

Somehow I’m on the radar of the local Jehovah’s Witnesses. They nabbed me outside of my house by saying (in Spanish) “You’re English right?” which I found quite interesting since I hadn’t said a single word.

I know the local Nuns now understand to keep clear after two rather unfortunate incidents when they came to visit me to discuss helping the poor and I suggested that they may find all that money they spend encouraging Africans to die from HIV might be useful to their cause. But somehow the Jehovah’s Witnesses know where I live, that I am English, and that I’m not very impressed with religion and now they want to “save” me.

They’ve invited me to come to a talk they are giving on Monday, which they describe as the anniversary of Christ’s death. It’s actually the most important day of their year and will be used to begin the brainwashing process of various fops that will also attend their cult’s event. I’ve agreed to attend on the proviso that I can ask questions. They have very foolishly agreed.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are an interesting lot. For starters they’ve firmly predicted the return of Christ and the end of the world seven times in their short history (they began as the Bible Students in 1870) and they’ve watched each and every one of these dates pass. Ripe fruit for the picking, I must say. How can they claim such certainty when their track record is 100% failure?

They also firmly believe that Heaven will be on Earth and that God will be in charge with Jesus as second in a government over the Earth. Their religion is really a political doctrine, waiting for the return of the great dictator to whom they will obligingly subjugate their every thought and right. Another ripe fruit. I wonder how clear they make it in their preliminary talks that they are anti-democratic. But it gets even better than that.

They absolutely believe that 144,000 people of all those that have ever lived will be in heaven and everyone else will just be dead. They have no belief in hell or an after life for those outside of the select group. There are currently around 6.5 million actively preaching Jehovah’s Witnesses on Earth and it is estimated that there are around 16 million in total. So what exactly is the hook to get people to join up? Well, absolutely fucking nothing if you can handle a little simple mathematics, since even if you are one of the really active, gung-ho, motivated, shout it from the hill tops, piss people off by interrupting their hangovers by knocking on their doors in the morning, Gawd-fearin’, word spreading, numbskull believers then you still only have a 2.2% chance of getting into Heaven if you are willing to ignore all the non-preaching members and all the ones that have already died. And of course, everyone before this nonsense started in 1870 is just fucked anyway. Hahaha, you’ve really got to laugh.

So I think I might take them up on their offer and head over for a chat on Monday night. I might mention the topics above or I might have chat about the morality of withholding blood transfusions from children and the fact that the incidence of death during labour within their group is 100 times as high as that from people that don’t have a hard time accepting some life giving blood. If I do I’m sure they’ll get rid of me pretty quickly since they immediately shun anyone from within their own ranks that raises any issue of doubt.

If I go I’ll record the lot and transcribe it here. Feel free to add any tips or useful arguments you might think make good ammunition between now and then.

If I go then I’ll have succeeded in making the danger list of the local Catholics, the Muslims and the Jehovah’s Witnesses. That only leaves the local Hindus but I’ve already met them (there are only about 5 of them anyway) and they don’t mind at all that I completely disagree with their religion and we get on pretty well.

UPDATE: 2007-04-02 10:28
Due to an absolute failure to sleep last night and the fact that I'm almost certainly going to have a really shitty Monday at work, I suspect that I will neither have the energy or the patience to attend the Jehovah's Witness meeting tonight. We'll see, but it's really not going to be productive if I turn up tired and pissed off as then I'll play right into their hands by appearing to be the angry, evil atheist as opposed to the pleasant, good natured, atheist. There'll be plenty of other chances.

The lack of sleep was due to an unusually severe bout of unhappiness. I usually don't suffer from it having become quite comfortable with meaninglessness. Recently however I've been realising how at most times in my life I've at least had some chance to still meet and talk with people that at least are aware of some of the things I'd like to talk about even if they don't agree with my opinions. For two years now I've not met anyone that doesn't seem utterly uninterested in their own existence and I think the angst was just another bout of feeling irretrievably isolated. Just another reason to move somewhere with more options and also time to dust off the CV and change jobs.

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