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Well, I don't think we're referring to all xians. However, here in the states there are large groups of what we call fundies. They are primarily concerned with shoving their belief system onto everyone. We had a president that said if you don't believe in gawd your not a real citizen of the US. These are the ones who feel sorry for those of us who don't believe in their god. These are the ones who have no compunction against telling you that Jesus loves you and your going to burn in hell for eternity with their sicky sweet voices and smiles.

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Going back to the general theme of the topic, I once had an encounter with some Mormons in Preston, my home town.
It was a rainy night and I'd just got off of the train and was heading to catch a bus to my Grandad's. When this besuited trio come up to me and ask 'Excuse me, we're going around tonight asking people what is the meaning of life?'. They were thinking they'd got me now.
I wasn't in the mood for them trying to recruit me so I replied with 'The meaning of life is to find what the meaning of life is' and bid them farewell.
All they said was 'Oh' and left me to try someone else.

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LOL Good one, Yaxx!

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Contrary to what some would have you believe it's actually quite a hard set of beliefs to try and live by, and I for one don't go round being sickeningly happy all the time proclaiming about how Jesus loves me and everybody and so on - life is not made as simple as they make out.
Now I've got that out of the way my tale is that I was once having a discussion/argument with someone about evolution.
Now this fellow had always had a new-agey view on things but had by then got very deeply into the Christian thing. I started to get really concerned when he started to say that the estimated timescale for life to arise and for life to develop to the point where we're at was 'too short'.
I tried to argue this point by saying that the billions of years we were talking about are a length of time such that most of us would have trouble writing down with the correct number of zeroes in it let alone trying to visualise how long a time it is. He still wouldn't have it.
I then argued that whilst evolution is based around theories and may not be the full picture, it is the best one we've got that seems to fit in with a lot of what we see in nature and in the fossil record.
His answer was that the rocks were created with the fossils already in them. At this point I decided to call it a day and leave him to it.

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Oh, and welcome to the evolution side of the agrument. Just as frustrating over here as well. Believe me, you will be glad later in life for just giving up for the day.

"Try not. Do or do not. There is no try." -Master Yoda

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I seldom go out of my way to make the acquaintance of sweet little baloney believers and hogwash harassers (wasting precious time in my life with nonsense). I actually feel sorry for such people, because of what they are missing in their poor little lives. They are petrified of thinking otherwise because of a fear of the nonexistent consequences of such irreverent thought.

On the other hand, when peddlers of religious materials, or other such baloney, make any attempt to push their foolish ideas upon me, I take exception to that rule.

On many mornings, when I had been ready to get into my car to go to work, some female would come running up to my car to offer me pamphlets and other religious reading materials. Each time, I had always politely declined. Finally, having become tired of refusing the reading materials, I merely asked her if she *would like TO HEAR ABOUT MY RELIGION* (which actually is of the *whatever exists, exists* kind). She scurried away as fast as her legs would take her. She has never bothered me since. Perhaps she saw imaginary horns growing out of my head, or something. Poor soul...

ljbrs

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I very occasionally get a Jehovia's Witness from time to time. I merely reveal that I am a practicing Wiccan and they disappear faster than you can say "Watchtower".

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It happened many years ago when I was still a freshman working my way thru college at a small store. An elderly customer took a strange interest in me for unknown reasons and used to talk to me in the third person by addressing my boss, as in "Does he go to college? What is he studying? Oh, he's a Professional Student, eh?" This was bizarre enough, but it got worse.

After a few weeks of this, this customer discovered that I was a geology student, at which point he deigned to speak to me directly. "If you're a geology student, then you must believe in erosion. Explain to me where all the dirt went from the Rocky River, the Mississippi River, and the Grand Canyon." I explained to him that it was all in the respective bottoms of Lake Erie, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Gulf of California, except such sediment as had been deposited on flood plains. He disagreed of course, citing Noah's Flood, specifically the part where the springs of the earth were opened, etc. It was his view that the Grand Canyon and other such features were scars left by the various openings of the abyss which caused the Biblical Flood, and that it was a myth that they were formed by erosion, that water couldn't erode rock, and that everything I was learning as a geology student was wrong and that I was wasting my parent's money. He even claimed that the clay that oozed up in the gravel parking lot after heavy rains was put there by the Flood.

I responded that 1) I was paying my own way thru college and wasn't costing my parents a dime, 2) That I couldn't possibly be a Professional Student because the college had yet to pay me anything for studying there, I had to pay them, and 3) That his ideas were pure bullshit as evidenced by the continuing need to dredge channels, by core samples which definitely showed sedimentation, the fact that erosion could be observed in process at all those locations, that I knew more about erosion, geology, and even the Bible than he'd ever know, and 4) He should think twice before ever again attempting to ridicule an intellectual superior.

Ooh boy was he mad. "Well I'll never shop here again," was his parting reply, and my boss said, "Good riddance."

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You had a good boss there, Pyrrho. I hope you two departed on good terms.

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I once had a salesguy mention to me that he was a fundamentalist Christian. The Chicago Cubs were on the radio at the time, and he kind of off handedly mentioned that he thought God had a sense of humor and would make the end of the world happen right after the Cubs won the World Series...

He seemed quite sincere about it. I just tried very hard not to laugh.

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Well, Aodoi, at the rate the Cubbies are going, he may actually be right.....

"When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not." -Master Yoda

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when i was in graduate school, many years ago, one evening i was in my little apartment grinding out my reactor theory homework when two teenaged girls from the local baptist church knocked on my door. they asked me what would become of me when i died. i responded that i supposed i would rot. nonononono they cried what about your immortal soul? they were shocked when i told them i didnt think i had one. they left in a huff before i could invite them in to smoke some dope and have group sex. too bad.

comrade billyboy

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Honk! Honk!

My first close encounter of the third kind was back in my college days. The doorknockers for christ were skulking around early one Saturday morning.
I let the JW's IN!........GAACK!! Talk about self-victimizing! Yep, sometimes there's a heavy price to pay for an education.
I argued a bit with them then proceeded to clean my living room while they both shifted into AD/HD pontification mode.
After about 15 minutes of it, I finally urged them out the door. I then turned around and was amazed at my now sparkling-clean living room!
A great motivator for house cleaning, I must say.

From then on, when any are lurking at my front door, I tell them I'm a "Druid, reformed" or " reading the bible is against my religion". That always hurries them off my doorstep and I get to keep my messy living room.
By the looks of things around here today, I might should let them in again sometime soon.
Is this where "Cleanliness is next to godlyness" comes from?

Hey!, maybe I can just clean house without the added torment and guilt trippers!

"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others."
Groucho Marx.