Friday, May 16, 2008

Tip: Stop Creepin' People Out.

A coworker lives in a gated community where they do not allow solicitors or anybody going door-to-door for any reason. But for those who bring God’s message, this is not a deterrent. They’ve now begun mailing letters with pamphlets inside to attract believers. Perhaps this tactic would work better if the materials weren’t creepy as hell. The letters start introducing what sounds like a weird self-help scheme. It even mentions that they have answers to age-old questions such as “Why do we grow old & die?”.

The pamphlets themselves are super-duper disturbing:
Those blankly cheerful people combined with that tagline are enough to put me off Kool-Aid for months! Honestly, who thinks this looks appealing? And reading inside doesn’t reduce the disturbing aspect either.

There’s a whole bunch of talk that why man has suffered because of our free will. Here’s a quote:

All the evidence shows that we are nearing the end of man's tragic experiment in independence from God. It has been clearly demonstrated that rulership by humans apart from God can never succeed.
Granted pamphlets have to be succinct but these are certainly some sweeping generalizations aren’t they?

Seriously, does this type of message work for anyone? I know and have known people of many different faiths and levels of faith in my life but I cannot think of one who would look at this material and say “Gee, this sounds exactly for me. Where do I sign up?”

Look, religion can be a powerful and transformative good. And whatever other wackiness these pamphleteers are up to, I highly doubt they remotely approach the ballpark of other religions’ wackos with far more dangerous recruitment techniques. Still, it’s too bad their message in drowned out with such creepy, off-putting presentation materials. Maybe they need to convert a PR consultant or something. Focus on less cultish, “the end is nigh” stuff and more “love your fellow man”, “be a good person” type stuff.

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