LDS Mission Prez: "Don't want to listen - get up and move"

[_just me]

LOL

The problem wasn't reported by people who were asking missionaries questions.

[_stemelbow]

Most bus passengers, I think you will find, will be delighted to hear that the company actively discourages people taking advantage of the captive state of passengers on long journeys to inflict on them solicitations to buy insurance, give to charities, or join religious sects.

I'd agree. While I acknowledge some missionaries can overstep their bounds and be rude, often without realizing they are being rude, some also will not. What is going to happen when missionaries hop on a bus and some other passengers start asking them questions? Starts acting quite interested in the LDS Church?

Manon bus: "Hey who are you guys? what are you doing?"

Missionaries (while looking up a driver to see how he responds. Driver skeptically looks in the rear view mirror): "uh...well we can't talk about it."

Man on bus: "can you tell me where your church is or how I can learn about it?"

Missionaries: "uh...well, we can....but, I mean, where you headed?"

Man on bus: "I'm going to work. So do you have something to help me understand your beliefs?"

Missionaries: "uh well." (The one missionary motions toward the bench seat where he puts a Book of Mormon). "we aren't allowed to tell you that stuff while on the bus".

Oh boy.

Your Hindu analogy is just a bit silly, isn't it, as I think you saw half-way through writing it? Of course if you are on the bus and I ask you about your religion as part of a conversation, no-one is going to throw you off for replying.

That's my point. What do they expect to do? Throw them off if someone asks them a question and they pursue the question to the end? Its stupid stuff.

But if a missionary organization deliberately and systematically sends its representatives onto the buses in order to try to convert people, the company is within its rights (and will I am sure be supported by the great majority of its passengers) when it says something like "People on a 12-hour journey to Duluth are having a hard enough time already without being ambushed by neighbors who are there to missionize rather than because they too need to get to Duluth. Keep off our buses please." That applies to any religion, not just yours - but that good old sense of persecution seems to be at work again.[/'quote]

I'd agree with you, but as I said, some missionaries can be quite obnoxious and persistent, others won't be. It just seems like a weak case here. A couple of instances in which the topic was raised? We don't even know the extent of it at all. We simply know the topic was brought up, and in one case the missionaries initiated it.

What do you call it when people talk that way? Don't you like to use a word that begins with 'w' and ends with 'g'?

Indeed, this seems like much ado about nothing. People out there can handle themselves.

[_Buffalo]

Not remotely the same thing, stem.

Abusing privileges: playing video games in study hall
Abusing people: beating your spouse black and blue

Seriously, Stem?

certainly abusing privileges may require different actions than abusing people, but the word abuse still holds the same meaning in each case. Privileges are violated. Or People are violated. Besides, I don't think Joey is saying the samething as you here. We'll see.

And it's not about not talking to people on a bus. It's about not soliciting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solicitation

It sounds more like not talking to me. Afterall what action will they take if missionaries hop on a bus and someone starts asking them who they are, what they do, can he/she go to church with them?

Stem, it appears you're being willfully obtuse here. It's hard to imagine you sincerely thinking that abusing people and abusing privileges are the same thing, or that conversation and solicitation are the same thing.

[_stemelbow]

I like to think what would happen to a missionary who reported that he had spent his time sitting quietly on a bus in the hope that someone else would start a conversation with him about religion.

Is that the kind of thing you did on your mission? Get many baptisms that way?

No. But I rode buses at times. I didn't get on them looking to convert people. I got on them to get someplace. Occasionally conversations would arise.

[_stemelbow]

LOL

The problem wasn't reported by people who were asking missionaries questions.

LOL all we have is that it was reported by one guy about a conversation had that he wasn't involved in, but included a claim that he was approached, whatever the means, on two ohter occasions by missionaries, adding something to the effect that the missionaries were telling him that his beliefs were wrong. That seems far-fetched. That he used the term "indoctrinate" to describe what the missionaries were doing is an obvious clue where this guy is coming from. Missionaries don't go out telling others how wrong their views are. Its just not the method.

Its really making a stink about nothing, if you ask me.

[_Chap]

Bus company to LDS Church:

"Please stop telling your missionaries to travel on our buses with the aim of starting conversations with people and trying to convert them to your religion. Our passengers don't appreciate being bothered that way, and we don't want them bothered while they are traveling with us."

Stemelbow has a problem with that. The bus company evidently doesn't, and it's their bus. Enough with the w.....g word, stemelbow.

[_Buffalo]

LOL

The problem wasn't reported by people who were asking missionaries questions.

LOL all we have is that it was reported by one guy about a conversation had that he wasn't involved in, but included a claim that he was approached, whatever the means, on two ohter occasions by missionaries, adding something to the effect that the missionaries were telling him that his beliefs were wrong. That seems far-fetched. That he used the term "indoctrinate" to describe what the missionaries were doing is an obvious clue where this guy is coming from. Missionaries don't go out telling others how wrong their views are. Its just not the method.

Its really making a stink about nothing, if you ask me.

You're saying missionaries never do that?

Even if they follow the method, the first vision pretty much lays it out that all other religions are wrong.

[_MrStakhanovite]

by the way Joey, Scratch's God damn coding makes the m in your URL capital, which is what gives you the 404.

[_stemelbow]

Bus company to LDS Church:

"Please stop telling your missionaries to travel on our buses with the aim of starting conversations with people and trying to convert them to your religion. Our passengers don't appreciate being bothered that way, and we don't want them bothered while they are traveling with us."

Stemelbow has a problem with that. The bus company evidently doesn't, and it's their bus. Enough with the w.....g word, stemelbow.

Where do you think I said I have a problem with the bus company saying this? I don't. I'm just saying this is making a big deal out of nothing.

[_stemelbow]

You're saying missionaries never do that?

Even if they follow the method, the first vision pretty much lays it out that all other religions are wrong.

Okay. My mistake. I meant to suggest missionaries do not engage, generally, people on the street or on a bus with a "your beliefs are all wrong".