To be a JW there are a number of things a person has to do, believe and say. Following Christ is the barest minimum. Towing your idea of the Christ through the intricate series of your organization’s requirements is actually much closer to the truth. So the actual date of origin of the Kingdom Halls, the New World translation of the Bible, the Watchtower, the Awake!, your doctrine, medical beliefs and eschatology, in fact all the things that turn you into a JW, are hardly two millenia old.

To be specific your ideological origins trace to late 19th century Pennsylvanian religious culture, “last days” Christian ideology and Charles Russell. The rise of end-times sects like yours was a common response to the wildly popular spiritualist movement that got started in New York state in the 1840s and was bringing in to the citizens of the U.S. all kinds of new ideas from people like Swedenborg and Mesmer.

As to making fun of people who “make time to visit” me – actually I have a number of neighbours who visit me and to whom I speak quite civilly. The issue is what it means to “visit.” To visit doesn’t mean to try to sell or to try to convert. So if the young woman comes back and actually wants to visit, then I will be quite nice. I’ll even offer her lemonade. We can sit in my backyard and talk like real neighbours do.

The thing about having a religion that requires you to “witness” (i.e. offer conversion), is that you have to expect to be converted back.

About bragging on the net – have you seen the blogs put up by JWs about their witnessing experiences? If you haven’t then this is another example of the kind of thinking that leads to the frankly erroneous semantic logic that led to your “follow” argument. If you have and you’re blasting me for posting, get real dude.

Finally, in Jesus’ day like our own there are, and there will remain, permanent differences of opinion. There are and were people who simply can’t stand the fact of difference, whether of opinion, belief, act or orientation, and who need to create a narrative response that gives them the right to try and eradicate those differences about during their lives and, if that fails, to “ensure” the ultimate (post-death) destruction of the multitude of persistent evildoers. Me, I’m fine with the fact that you and I will never agree. I don’t mind at all posting your objections on my site. I accept that nothing is going to happen to you in life or after death that will convince you of the error of your logic. Consequently, unless you poke me, I’m happy to leave you be. Can you say the same?