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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Atheist above. I actually don't mind the evangelizing as long as they don't go after children or helpless old people. I have never been attacked by an evangelical, in my experience, they have been more gentle. [/quote]

An evangelical approached me in an airport while I was reading a humanist newsletter (I think).  After a short while, I asked if she were trying to convert me.  "Yes" she answered cheerfully.  I told her not to bother and she went away.[/quote]

Proselytizing means forcing someone to become religious against their will. Nobody in America can be proselytized. People can talk with others about God and religion- but once someone tells you they aren’t interested- they should be left alone. That’s why I don’t buy the atheists who say they were attacked- they don’t say how or why or who attacked them. People who are religious don’t attack people while speaking to them about God or religious beliefs. Who would listen to or be receptive to a person who was “attacking” them?[/quote]

Proselytizing does not mean FORCING someone to convert. It means trying to convert someone, period. [/quote]

Correct.  Proselytizing means trying to force someone to convert, not necessarily succeeding.  Just because a person follows you on the street telling you how you're going to hell if you don't accept Jesus into your life, doesn't mean they are right, or that you'll actually go to hell if you rebuff them.    Atheists don't believe in hell.  Or heaven.[/quote]

It means trying to convert someone. Which is part of the mission, I understand that. But it is also aggressive - maybe not physically menacing, but if a person follows me down the street telling me I’m going to hell for not accepting Jesus into my life is still behaving in a socially aggressive way. It’s not respectful, and splitting hairs about how it’s trying to force someone to convert is gaslighting. The situation you described is aggressive regardless of whether I believe or not.

I don’t think the situation described in the OP is a proselytizing one, but don’t sit here and pretend that it’s just “sharing the good news” to follow people and tell them they’re going to hell if they don’t believe as you believe. If a Muslim did that, I imagine that you would find it aggressive and unwelcome. Please recognize that it is the same behavior you are describing. [/quote]

Having an adult family member scream at you when you’re a kid that you’re going to go to hell is an attack.

The only thing it accomplished was changing my mind about evangelicals. 
[/quote]

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