I was approached by a Jenovah’s Witness today and since I had nothing better to do, I decided to waste 2 hours of her time and hear her out about her little club lol so she wouldn’t spend it on another clueless foreigner. In the end I was like “oh I’m not interested” and skipped away and she looked disheartened and insisted to meet up and join their events so I get a better sense of what they do. I gave her a fake phone number and said “sure, hit me up”.
Has anybody actually joined one of their events for the giggles? What’s the gameplan here? I don’t understand what exactly the goal of recruitmenet is. What happens if you do get “recruited”? They don’t seem to want money, just more volunteers to hand out flyers so I’m unsure why they work so hard to recruit people lol.
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Religious devotion, saving souls and whatnot.
Ask them how many people get to go to heaven and why they want to increase their numbers.
I don’t think Jehovah’s witnesses are really a cult, and wasting someone’s time like that is kind of messed up imo
JW is absolutely a cult, and they use many classic cult techniques.
You’re basically not allowed to have a relationship with anyone outside the organization. And if you leave, everyone in your life (including family) will cut you off completely. Which means people are stuck in it.
“Elders” have complete authority and cannot be questioned. They can investigate you for any allegation and demand you prove your innocence.
University is banned, you are expected to graduate high school and quickly learn a trade to make money to give them. No critical thinking allowed.
Sounds more like a waste of your time.
I’ve seen a fair few people surround themselves with extreme beliefs, first justifying it exactly as you did – just messing with people and wasting their time. Then they started saying they didn’t believe, but started holding up tangential ideas as notions with a lot of merit worth investigating. Fast forward a few months and they were claiming it as an identity.
“Just for giggles” sounds an awful lot to me like code for “I’m genuinely curious but I don’t want to admit it publicly, so I have to invent a mischievous excuse.”
And the thing about cults is this may well be your first time messing with them, but this is absolutely not their first time encountering someone who wants to mess with them.
My dad used to go to Hara Krishna events when he was in his early 20s. He liked the food
“nothing better to do”.
You need to get yourself a hobby
I’ve been here a little over a year and had my very first unsolicited intercom buzz last week – a JW lady! I played the wakarimasen card, and she asked in English if I knew about JW. I kind of laughed a little harder than I should have, but she was gracious and left.
Not cult, but with those foreigners with an album of pictures asking donations for kids in some developing country (scam):
I was meeting a friend in Shibuya but I had a 1h work-related meeting and my friend was going to wait for me somewhere nearby. Right before I go to my meeting, one of these people asking for donations stop him and he starts talking to her. I tell him in our native language “it’s a scam, don’t fall for it” and leave. After I come back he is still talking to the girl about how he agrees we should donate money and help these kids. When she finally asks for a donation, he goes “oh, sorry, I don’t actually have any money with me” and starts laughing as soon as he turns his back to her. He and OP have the same idea of a good pastime.
So the Jehovah’s Witnesses game plan is to gain converts for their religion, so the people at the top can collect offerings from them to fund the watchtower society which is their leading body. All the while they use their members to recruit more people. They are definitely after your money but they aren’t overt about it.
I’d avoid their events. They’ll brainwash you and convince you to join. If you want to learn more about them go to their website or read any of the countless writeups on them online. Essentially they are a 7th Day Adventist Spin-off apocalypse now type cult who believe the world is ending presently and that the current generation is the last generation, and they’ve believed that for about 4 generations now. They believe heaven has a occupancy limit of 144,000 people. There’s more Jehovah’s witnesses than that who have died. So basically heaven is full and you aren’t getting in.
They also don’t believe in hell. They believe the earth will be transformed into some paradise planet after armegeddon.
How they function is they totally control the social lives of their members encourage them to shut themselves off from the world, from politics, from education, and spend all their time and energy towards the cult.
I just say 結構です and move on. My husband gives them a more emphatic 要りません and moves on. IDK why you would want to waste that much time on actually engaging them in a discussion just to annoy them.
Learn to value your own time.
Damn…what I’d do if I had a couple of free hours…
> What happens if you do get “recruited”?
They generally want you to join them.
There are more people out there than you might think who lack social skills and can’t get along with their coworkers, neighbors and family. Some of them can actually do better in an environment with more rules about what to do and say because they can avoid offending others that way. Good recruiters look for them.
Yes. I once invited them into the house. They gave me books to disprove evolution; fruit fly’s colorings, and how even if they change colors, it’s still a fruit fly…
I told them that’s not how evolution works, and explained it to them like they’re five.
There was a full “ctrl-alt-delete” moment, where everything shut down. Then they rebooted, and I could see the wheels turning. I’m almost certain they ended up leaving the 144,000 club.
Not a cult per say, but there’s that old christian foreign lady who often walks around Suma beach (Hyogo prefecture) talking to anyone sitting there and what sounds like a friendly conversation quickly becomes a long monologue praising the *Great Lord* and how everyone should become a good christian in order to fulfill happiness in their life.One my way to the station, I actually stumble upon this old lady once and since i’m a foreigner it was easy for her to talk her nonsense to me and, even though i clearly showed signs that i wasn’t interested, she kept following me for 10mins straight while repeating the same stuff again and again, so i just gave up and listened. When i eventually reached the station i just told her it was nice listening to her but i was a satanist. She froze, turned back and i never met her again.
For those who live near Suma, If anyone of you has ever encountered this lady share your story please haha
I never talk about religion with people because nothing good can come of it.
However, if someone wants to knock on my door specifically to talk to me about religion, I think of it as permission to get off my leash and tell them what I really think.
The Mormons are always so genuinely friendly. Young guys excited and full of vigor having a great adventure overseas. When I talk to those guys, I get a feeling that most of them are good people who will probably grow out of the religion once they are old enough. After just a little bit of probing into their beliefs, I feel that they understand that it is all BS.
On the other hand, the Jehovah’s Witnesses seem closed-minded and brainwashed. When a lady told me that she would let her own child die rather than give a life-saving blood transfusion because blood is “命”, I could barely hold back my contempt for that religion.
It’s interesting when they come to my door, but I wouldn’t go to the effort to attend any of their events. If you want to waste the time of “bad” people, perhaps you should try scambaiting instead.