could otherwise have used to do some charity work giving my love in the here-and-now which can give tangible results in improving the quality of life of people here now through organisations such as Oxfam or whatever I don’t believe God is so egotistical that he would prefer us to sing songs to praise him instead of helping those in need does he really sit up there on his cloud looking down on those worshipping thinking “ah that’s great – they’re singing about how great I am, I feel much better now”  I don’t believe a “God of love” would really be like that let him judge me if there is a judgement day on the deeds I do in this world I won’t ask for special favours I honestly don’t know if there is an afterlife but I do know there is life before death and whether there’s an afterlife or not I know I have the capacity to benefit others through my giving love in this life…and how many religions are there hundreds? Thousands? They can’t all be right can they most are mutually exclusive the universe couldn’t have been carried on the back of a turtle swimming through space or whatever and be built in seven days most religions must therefore be wrong but they all claim to be the right one so that proves there must be a hell of a lot of deluded religious people I have a blessed life in so many ways I’ve been in a riot (stunned faces) but I wasn’t violent you assumed that so that’s an illusion I was the one holding up the “Drop the Debt” banner in front of the world’s cameras while everyone else was throwing bricks and petrol bombs I’ve already found my spiritual path have you heard of Daoism have you read the Tao of Pooh (younger woman: “I’ve heard of it, I thought it was just some sort of joke”) well Daoism was first recorded thousands of years BC in China the only mystical thing about it is its name and it describes the way things are have you read The Road Less Travelled  that’ll teach you about God I recommend you get a copy read it and it’ll change your life forever no thanks I won’t take a booklet as I’ll never get around to reading it so it’ll be a waste (younger woman “you obviously relish books…quite unique”) I think there’s a case for Atheist Christians (slightly stunned faces) I believe in a lot of things Jesus said, and that he probably existed but I’ve seen no evidence that he was the son of God I’ve been arrested a few times campaigning to protect the environment it wasn’t a pleasant experience being in a cell but I did it because it needed to be done…”

Well, to their credit they stood very patiently and listened to my sermon on the doorstep for over an hour.  It was funny though.  I genuinely love the Witnesses and I don’t mean that to sound patronising; they’re good people and the world has too few people who give love so dedicatedly, and I’ve had numerous conversations with Witnesses over the years and they’ve taught me some valuable truths.  For example they don’t give birthday or Christmas presents.  One witness explained how the birthday present notion was dropped because somewhere in the Bible there’s a description of somebody’s head (John the Baptist?) being served up on a silver platter as a birthday gift.  Well I don’t know if that’s a good reason not to give presents, but if you think about the notion of giving someone a gift when you have to then it becomes clear that really giving gifts