To me it's interesting how Witnesses always seem to turn up in pairs - my experience from being sufficiently bored to debate with them once was that the one sent to talk to me was being observed by the elder lady, who was hanging in the background with a sour look as though more concerned that her charge might fail to evince sufficient strength of faith than with whatever my reaction might be. Of course, there's an obvious safety aspect for them which is very understandable - it's best not to go around annoying people on your own - but having your opponent silently observed by an inquisitor is a bit disconcerting. I found myself not wanting to get her in trouble... (Am I over-reading things, or is this a standard way for evangelicals to test their newer members?)
Their arguments seem, on the whole, to be pretty standard. Mine launched straight in with the Argument from Design, which you'd've thought they might have realised is a little easy to shoot down these days. Oh well.
The tack after that was an attempt to put forward the bible as prophetic and therefore inerrant - "it was right about all these things, so surely the rest deserves some attention too". (The prophecies in question concerned Jesus rather than any of the more amusing wormwood/Chernobyl type of modern readings.) Of course, it's rather easy to make your prophecies accurate when you get to edit them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea) a few hundred years after the events concerned...
I keep hoping they'll turn up one day with one of their fun arguments. A friend had them attempt to tell him that all the ills of the world are the fault of the "sexual revolution". I mean, just think of the entertainment you could have with that one. And I just get boring old creationism. I demand a better class of Witnesses, damnit!
(Don't you mean "evangelist" rather than "evangelical"? AIUI they're not the same thing, although there's probably at least some overlap.)
I find your description puts me in mind of a driving test. Did the inquisitor tap a pencil at any point and require the other Witness to bring their current line of argument to an emergency stop? :-)
It's nice to hear that they do at least have arguments for atheists. I'm still curious to know whether they have a lot of success with not even trying to deploy them, but that's probably half my question answered.
Possibly... I meant "evangelical" in the sense of "member of one of the sub-sects of Christianity which actively evangelise". There may well be a capital-E Evangelical church as well, just to confuse things...
I'm afraid I don't recall seeing the observer taking any sort of notes. A pity. From there they could branch out into customer satisfaction surveys - "Please rate your proselytising experience from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) in each of the following categories:".
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Their arguments seem, on the whole, to be pretty standard. Mine launched straight in with the Argument from Design, which you'd've thought they might have realised is a little easy to shoot down these days. Oh well.
The tack after that was an attempt to put forward the bible as prophetic and therefore inerrant - "it was right about all these things, so surely the rest deserves some attention too". (The prophecies in question concerned Jesus rather than any of the more amusing wormwood/Chernobyl type of modern readings.) Of course, it's rather easy to make your prophecies accurate when you get to edit them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea) a few hundred years after the events concerned...
I keep hoping they'll turn up one day with one of their fun arguments. A friend had them attempt to tell him that all the ills of the world are the fault of the "sexual revolution". I mean, just think of the entertainment you could have with that one. And I just get boring old creationism. I demand a better class of Witnesses, damnit!
I find your description puts me in mind of a driving test. Did the inquisitor tap a pencil at any point and require the other Witness to bring their current line of argument to an emergency stop? :-)
It's nice to hear that they do at least have arguments for atheists. I'm still curious to know whether they have a lot of success with not even trying to deploy them, but that's probably half my question answered.
I'm afraid I don't recall seeing the observer taking any sort of notes. A pity. From there they could branch out into customer satisfaction surveys - "Please rate your proselytising experience from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent) in each of the following categories:".