Yeah holding doors or putting your foot in the way is not appropriate.
I know your friends probably say it but we aren't all like that. I try to respect people at all times. If I am knocking on doors in the morning I knock very softly. Loud enough so if someone is awake they can come but soft enough to not rouse your from sleep (Or at least make you get out of bed).
Actually my friends tell me to get a name so they can go to the elders or however that works. Only been in one service and didn't stay for the whole thing. MOST of it was ok but i was raised in the Nazarene church and was fairly young when i went so i didn't really comprehend what all was going on.
i'm not condemning the religion alone, i'm condemning "religion gone wild" period. And i don't care WHICH religion it is.
i've said it several times before and i'll say it again, i don't care if one fucks a goat, just don't fuck MY goat. If people are nice and polite i can be so as well. When people are asses, well i sometimes can be a bigger one. Only when called for. i wouldn't have dropped my towel at first go around, but she DID disrespect me the first time by not honoring the fact that it was a bad time for me and simply walking away to return later. i didn't do it until the 3rd or 4th time when after repeated requests to leave she didn't. She was breaking the law for crying out loud.
i prescribe to the battle philosophy of krav maga, the training for the Israeli military. It basically states that when one is confronted with a conflict the very first thing you do is try to mitigate that conflict. Next, warn them. The next thing to remember is kill 'em with kindness and give them an opportunity to either be sensible or leave. The next is continue negotiating politely and as pleasantly as is practical. ONLY when you have followed these steps do you attack. But when you attack you do so with every intent to incapcitate/kill the threatening party. In a literal fight situation that means if i'm confronted/attacked and i make the determination that my
ONLY option is to fight, i will take my first swing aiming for my assailants windpipe or take a pen out of my pocket and shove it in his eye/ear(you know that soft spot below/behind your earlobe? EVERYONE has that weakness no matter how big and bad you are). Or literally gouging his eyes out, if i can ball shots. Once that determination is made it's the end of the conflict for either him or i.
Verbally on the other hand, when i make that decision that someone needs there attitude/viewpoint adjusted i have made a 23 year old man sob relentlessly because i was tired of his attacks on my friends(they are Christian and he is gay). To be honest it was a big fat juicy hanging curveball right over the middle of the plate. CRACK! You just have to be observant enough to know which weaknesses to attack. It's easier to kill a man because they ALL have the same or similar weaknesses but VERBALLY, you must not only be adept with your given language but also able to identify your enemies weaknesses.
Some may say i did good standing up for the group(out of this conflict, not blanket judgements) while others will say i'm a homophobic gay basher. Lord knows it happened quite a bit at the time. But either way, this guy brought it upon himself by his own decisions and actions and refused to listen to logic or reason. And imho i believe he needed his attitude checked. And you know the funniest thing about it is? He's now one of the MMJ patients that i grow meds for. From my viewpoint, the shift of perspective worked out in his favor. And so does he. He jokes with me about it now that he's fully out of the closet. And told me that i basically started the process. Not as a statement of anger towards anyone but rather the recognition that he was filled with rage that had nothing to do with the friends of mine he attacked. He tells me he was angry because it was socially unacceptable at the time(1994) and while those friends believed it was socially acceptable those views were NOT his to own.
P.S. i respect your technique of being respectful. What the religious zealots of ALL religions don't realize is that they would have a higher success rate if they were just very kind and persistent. As are the vast majority of Witnesses i have encountered. Just another case of a few religious nuts being lumped in with those that bear the spiritual fruits.
Kinda like dumb-ass gangbangers parading around smoking pot. "Will you look at how ALL those potheads act! DISGRACEFUL!"
Aw crap! Just saw it after the post. Sorry for the wall, but Rome wasn't built in a day and barriers take time to tear down too.
