I have a co-worker who is a JW. Everyone at work has a list of employee addresses, to send get well cards, congratulatory cards or holiday cards as appropriate. I just received from her a long religious letter mentioning the Newtown massacre and her religious take on it as well as JW religious tracts. Now, I like this person. I leave her batshite religion alone. She is the only JW person at work. There are at least 2 other atheists, as well as a smattering of Catholics, Hindi, Lutherans, Buddists etc. I find this offensive, and thoughtless, although I am sure she had ‘good intentions’. Any suggestions on how to gently address this so it won’t happen again. She is well liked at work, but this was so very clearly over the line.
Tell her Armageddon has come and it’s the End Times for Pauline Christianity and all the Pauline Christian sects that based their doctrines on the Bible. The work of Israeli archeologists at Megiddo (named after the Canaanite Divine Assembly, that word translated into Greek as “Armageddon”) shows that the people who wrote the Bible, Hebrews/Jews, can only be traced back as far as 700 B.C. which means all the Bible stories of “Hebrews” like Abraham, Moses and the Exodus, David and Solomon and Greater Israel, are all Jewish concoctions, without a shred of historical truth in them. The Bible cannot be used for spiritual authority when it’s filled with lies pawned off on gullible believers as real history. There are no ancient Jewish witnesses for “Jehovah” who told the truth so J.W.‘s basing their doctrines on liars and their lies have nothing but religious propaganda to sell to others. Just tell her “know the truth and the truth shall make you free”. But religious lies and lying won’t.
If she still wants to remain a Christian there’s only one option really for her now, which is Celestial Torah Christianity that is not Bible based but stellar where no man can get to it and manipulate it as Judaism tried to do until God sent the correction in. Celestial Torah Christianity information (its no one’s property) can be viewed at: http://biomystic.org/celestialtorah.htm.
I have a co-worker who is a JW. Everyone at work has a list of employee addresses, to send get well cards, congratulatory cards or holiday cards as appropriate. I just received from her a long religious letter mentioning the Newtown massacre and her religious take on it as well as JW religious tracts. Now, I like this person. I leave her batshite religion alone. She is the only JW person at work. There are at least 2 other atheists, as well as a smattering of Catholics, Hindi, Lutherans, Buddists etc. I find this offensive, and thoughtless, although I am sure she had ‘good intentions’. Any suggestions on how to gently address this so it won’t happen again. She is well liked at work, but this was so very clearly over the line
IMO the best way to handle someone whom you know well and who is sincere is to honestly tell them that while you sympathize with their well wishing about the tragedy, you aren’t religious and find proselytizing personally offensive. It will save her the embarrassment of an in-your-face confrontation but show her that you may still remain friends as long as she knows the parameters. We have an active jw church here and most of the kids have been my students. I find their beliefs totally out of mainstream religious philosophy and extremely restrictive,but treated them no differently than the other students. We also have friends who are jw but they know how I feel about religion in general and we avoid the discussion entirely. Your colleague may do that as well.
I think this is a bit of a wakeup call for someone in authority to set down some guidelines as to how that employee list is to be used. A list of personal information such as name and address is ripe for abuse intended or otherwise. If that info is going to be distributed or made available to all employees there need to be clear boundaries outlining what is permissible and what is not. A few suggestions:
THE LIST IS NOT TO BE USED FOR ANY OF THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES
1) The list may not be shared with or used by anyone except current participants on the list under any circumstances. You wouldn’t want someone selling this list to marketers who might want to target people in the health field nor would you want someone to share the home address of an employee with an ex-paramor who might be stalking them or a patient who has formed an unhealthy attachment and asks for a home address to send them a gift.
2) The list should not be used for religious prosthelytizing or political campaigning of any sort under any circumstances.
3) The list should not be used for fund raising activities.
I’m sure there are other things that should be included and that is something that perhaps the supervisors should thinks about
PERMISSIBLE USES OF THE LIST
1) Sending greeting cards, congratulations, gifts etc. and whatever else the employees believe is acceptable
This list could blow up in everyone’s face if some precautions aren’t taken.
I have a co-worker who is a JW. Everyone at work has a list of employee addresses, to send get well cards, congratulatory cards or holiday cards as appropriate. I just received from her a long religious letter mentioning the Newtown massacre and her religious take on it as well as JW religious tracts. Now, I like this person. I leave her batshite religion alone. She is the only JW person at work. There are at least 2 other atheists, as well as a smattering of Catholics, Hindi, Lutherans, Buddists etc. I find this offensive, and thoughtless, although I am sure she had ‘good intentions’. Any suggestions on how to gently address this so it won’t happen again. She is well liked at work, but this was so very clearly over the line.
This one is easy. Screw it up, throw it in the bin and think no more about it.
And in the unlikely event it happens again. Repeat.
Of course you could start sending her photocopies or print-outs of atheist articles and jokes anonymously. It might not accomplish stopping her, but it would equalize the pissed-off level between the two of you.
I think this is a bit of a wakeup call for someone in authority to set down some guidelines as to how that employee list is to be used. A list of personal information such as name and address is ripe for abuse intended or otherwise. If that info is going to be distributed or made available to all employees there need to be clear boundaries outlining what is permissible and what is not. A few suggestions:
THE LIST IS NOT TO BE USED FOR ANY OF THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES
1) The list may not be shared with or used by anyone except current participants on the list under any circumstances. You wouldn’t want someone selling this list to marketers who might want to target people in the health field nor would you want someone to share the home address of an employee with an ex-paramor who might be stalking them or a patient who has formed an unhealthy attachment and asks for a home address to send them a gift.
2) The list should not be used for religious prosthelytizing or political campaigning of any sort under any circumstances.
3) The list should not be used for fund raising activities.
I’m sure there are other things that should be included and that is something that perhaps the supervisors should thinks about
PERMISSIBLE USES OF THE LIST
1) Sending greeting cards, congratulations, gifts etc. and whatever else the employees believe is acceptable
This list could blow up in everyone’s face if some precautions aren’t taken.
Mac, that is pretty much the header which went out with the list, except religion was not mentioned because I think everyone thought the idea of sending a religious tract was so far beyond the pale as to be an unnecessary item to address. Obviously we were wrong.
I have a co-worker who is a JW. Everyone at work has a list of employee addresses, to send get well cards, congratulatory cards or holiday cards as appropriate. I just received from her a long religious letter mentioning the Newtown massacre and her religious take on it as well as JW religious tracts. Now, I like this person. I leave her batshite religion alone. She is the only JW person at work. There are at least 2 other atheists, as well as a smattering of Catholics, Hindi, Lutherans, Buddists etc. I find this offensive, and thoughtless, although I am sure she had ‘good intentions’. Any suggestions on how to gently address this so it won’t happen again. She is well liked at work, but this was so very clearly over the line
IMO the best way to handle someone whom you know well and who is sincere is to honestly tell them that while you sympathize with their well wishing about the tragedy, you aren’t religious and find proselytizing personally offensive. It will save her the embarrassment of an in-your-face confrontation but show her that you may still remain friends as long as she knows the parameters. We have an active jw church here and most of the kids have been my students. I find their beliefs totally out of mainstream religious philosophy and extremely restrictive,but treated them no differently than the other students. We also have friends who are jw but they know how I feel about religion in general and we avoid the discussion entirely. Your colleague may do that as well.
Cap’t Jack
Thanks for the input, I think I will follow your advice.
Does she know you’re an atheist? If not just tell her, hey, thanks! But I’m an atheist, yer barkin’ up the wrong tree. The shock value alone will probly get her to stop.
She sent the letters to everyone in the department. It is now Topic#1 of conversation. I hoped she’d had the good sense not to send it to our boss, we were going to try to keep the fallout within co-workers. Apparently the boss got one, at least her assistant did. Now we will have to see what the fallout will be. We are running it by the union for advice as well. I’ll keep you posted.
I have a co-worker who is a JW. Everyone at work has a list of employee addresses, to send get well cards, congratulatory cards or holiday cards as appropriate. I just received from her a long religious letter mentioning the Newtown massacre and her religious take on it as well as JW religious tracts. Now, I like this person. I leave her batshite religion alone. She is the only JW person at work. There are at least 2 other atheists, as well as a smattering of Catholics, Hindi, Lutherans, Buddists etc. I find this offensive, and thoughtless, although I am sure she had ‘good intentions’. Any suggestions on how to gently address this so it won’t happen again. She is well liked at work, but this was so very clearly over the line.
I have a co-worker who is a JW. Everyone at work has a list of employee addresses, to send get well cards, congratulatory cards or holiday cards as appropriate. I just received from her a long religious letter mentioning the Newtown massacre and her religious take on it as well as JW religious tracts. Now, I like this person. I leave her batshite religion alone. She is the only JW person at work. There are at least 2 other atheists, as well as a smattering of Catholics, Hindi, Lutherans, Buddists etc. I find this offensive, and thoughtless, although I am sure she had ‘good intentions’. Any suggestions on how to gently address this so it won’t happen again. She is well liked at work, but this was so very clearly over the line.
