trying to convert me on a trans-con
 

Flying home recently, I ended up sitting next to a guy that, from about the moment we left the gate tried to tell me about the word of Jesus. Nice enough guy, but not really my thing and I tried to politley indicate as much, but he didn't give up.

As soon as we got the okay to use electronic devices, I used a pause in his conversation to get out the noise canceling headphones and fall asleep (I actually was tired). But once we were about the land though, I had to put the headphones away and the conversion started again. And of course, we were put on a ground stop since our gate was occupied for about 10 minutes.

He wasn't damning me to hell for not beleiving the word, but it wasn't very pleasent.

Anyway, how would you all handle the situation? I'm glad I had bought the headphones earlier in the week or else I'm not sure what I would have done for the other 2.5 hours of the trip.

Well, you could start by stopping the guy and asking to see the peer-reviewed source material for his claims. Then tell him that you don't want to hear anything more about it unless he can produce evidence from outside sources that verify his preachings. You could just tell him that you believe organized religions are a tool to keep the weak minded in step, but that would be argumentative.

Sounds like a topic for the Religious Travelers forum. :eek:

How about going into a discussion about how it's fair that the Church of Satan gets tax-exempt status too and how Michael Chertoff looks the part of the High Priest for the Church of Satan?

I generally feign an inability to speak English at that point and conceal myself in a WSJ (This generally confuses them further...). Once airborne, the headphones go on and the outside world is blocked out.

You might as well try to teach card tricks to your dog instead of converting me, as I'm not listening and it ain't gonna work... :D

If all else fails tell him nicely to GO PLAY ON THE WINGS.....

I had something similar happen to me on a KLM Newark-Amsterdam flight a couple years back. I was already miffed because my scheduled 332 was subbed out for a 74M and I had no PTV screen to pass the time. My seatmate was some sort of evangelical missonary donig work in Africa (for which I give him credit), who then proceded to try to evangelize me (and for the record, I'm a progressive-minded Epsicopalian). Did not make for a fun flight.

LOL. Good one.

Can someone post a few sentences in German that get at "I can't speak English." I think "I can't speak English" is "Ich spreche nicht Englisch" but a couple of other sentences would help to reinforce the point.

German because I look more German than Spanish, which I can speak after a fashion.

My cousin who is a chinese descent and a Chatolic, used to say he's a moslem to shut the mormon followers trying to convert him, seeing their looks when my cousin told them he's a moslem is priceless

If you've got the personality for it, you could have some real fun. Tell him that you are deeply religious and that whenever you hear the word Jesus, you automatically start speaking in tongues. Then, ever time he says the word, blurt out a few lines of jibberish.

"You want to save my soul? Too late, sunny/honey. I'm here for your soul!" :D

On one of my flights from SCL to the US, I was seated next to a Chilean employed by a US-based church who could only speak Spanish as far as I could tell. He wanted to try to convert me and as soon as he started going into "the talk", I went from Spanish to Spanglish to showing I was tired to falling asleep. Worked wonders.

I think 'Ich kann nicht Englisch sprechen' is probably a little more realistic, but your phrase should get the point across.

When I have religious types come to my front door most are very respectful and will say thank you and goodbye if I tell them that I'm not interested.

The ones that persist are told, truthfully, that I find their subject matter obscene and if they want to tell me out their religion then I will regale them with stories about my sex life. In fact, wait a minute, I have a magazine to show you!

It never fails!

This is good. I'm ashamed that I didn't think of it myself. BTW, you owe me a Diet Pepsi and a new keyboard. :)

I'd have politely said "I'd rather not discuss religion". If that didn't work, I'd have said, "listen, I really don't want to continue this discussion". If that didn't work, I'd explain the situation to an FA and ask to be re-seated.

I've thought about carrying a bible and starting to read it whenever a seatmate starts with the questions that annoy me such as "so, you go to school in *insert random city that doesn't even really have a college*?" or "were you visiting friends or family?"


I think the best thing to do next to a religious traveler is to pretend you are already saved/baptized/converted to their mindset or a simple and more polite "i'm not interested in discussing religion/"family values" (a rebuttal a mormon used while trying to talk to me at home)/anything else for that matter.

I don't really like discussing politics on planes either.