and isnt now
otherwise you wouldnt be sending 2 of 52,000 ignorant intolerant Mormon teenagers to my Christian door to tell me that Im in the wrong religion...
Wheres “the principle of religious liberty” in that ???
By your comment, I don’t think “religious liberty” means what you think it means.
Personally I’ve never had a Mormon come to my door, live alone one (and I’ve know a few over the years) tell me I’m the wrong religion. I know they go door to door, but they’ve never come to my door so perhaps I’m missing something.
OTOH, I’ve had quite a fair share of JOHO’s and evangelical Christians tell me growing up as a Catholic that I was the wrong religion, that I was not a Christian and was an Papist heathen idol worshipper. And I’ve had a fair share of Catholics tell me I was wrong when I left Catholicism, including my own brother. I’ve had more than my fair share of Christians, of many persuasions tell me that I was evil and going to Hell, etc. when I became an agnostic and eventually an atheist. And many of them were and are quite nasty about it.
And I should mention that I’m not one of those non-believers who is anti-religion. I believe it is a personal choice, protected by our Constitution even for those of us who have chosen not to believe. I don’t go around telling people they are stupid for belonging to a religion, I don’t BTW go around protesting public displays of religion, i.e. Christmas trees in the town square. I think they are beautiful and represent our shared Christian cultural heritage.
But if a couple of young men come to your door wanting to tell you about the Book of Mormon, that’s not a crime even if you find it personally offensive. You have no right BTW not to be offended – that’s Liberal territory.
All you have to do is say “No thanks. I’m not interested.” and shut the door. I do the same thing when the JOHO’s come to my door, when my neighbor and co-worker invites me to come to their evangelical church, when my SIL asks me to go to Mass with her, when kids come around selling magazine subscriptions and when telemarketers call me.
I’m not pro-Mormon, I’m certainly NOT pro-Romney (I can’t stand him and don’t trust him on the issues) and I’m as I said not anti-religion and particularly I’m not anti-Christian. But if you are inferring that Mormons or any persons of a religious faith (including Jews, Buddhists, etc.) have no right to espouse their faith and tell you about their faith, that their very doing do so is a personal affront to you and your Christian door, keep in mind that the gate swings both ways.
You and others believe Mormons are blasphemous, fine. I’m not going to argue with you nor do I care to. A lot of religions believe other religions are blasphemous and so it has been since man looked to the heavens and tried to find answers for difficult questions and it goes even today.
The Founding Fathers, many of them devout Christians themselves, well understood, not having been too far removed from the many violent religious persecutions of all types in Europe, the importance of the Freedom of Religion and that includes the Freedom of Religions you don’t agree with, the Freedom to speak your own mind and the Freedom to ignore that with which you don’t agree. Therin lies the "religious liberty". I will defend to my very last breath, your right to believe as you see fit. Would you do the same for me?
For a guy who says he doesn’t care, you sure used a lot of words to tell us that.
Sure; believe what you want; but PLEASE!!! Don't be upset when OUR 'freedom' permits us to TALK about your heretical way of belief.
Agreed, MD Expat.
I like to chat with Jehovah’s Witnesses when they come to my door and I even take their literature. I know they think they have the true religion and that I am probably a lost soul — it doesn’t bother me a bit, so long as they are friendly and go away and leave me alone when the conversation is over.
I think it is great to live in a country where we can share religious beliefs, even if they are different.
I have been a Mormon missionary and gone door to door talking about our faith. The goal is not to tell people how wrong they are; it’s to offer them something that I think is worth knowing about. My life changed for the better because of Mormonism, so I’m glad to share that knowledge with anyone who would like to know about it. Probably 99 per cent of people I talked with as a missionary weren’t interested, so we said goodbye and moved on.