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My shortest and most successful reply was to two guys knocking at my door with the opening "We want to talk with you about god.".
As an ex Christian, the best method is to tell them (preferably in your best southern accent) that your already a Bible thumping, baptized and saved brother or sister. God bless their little hearts and wish them many souls that will turn to christ in their blessed endeavors.
Just say something along the lines that you're not interested and walk away. I don't know why people act like they don't have a choice whether to speak to people or not. People need to get a backbone.
There was a poster whose neighbor was always bothering him about him "knowing Jesus," so before long, he told the neighbor that he was Satan. The neighbor laughed until the man asked in a demon-y voice, "Do you believe I don't exist?" to which the neighbor answered something like, "Satan exists, but you're not Satan." So he continued with, "Whether you believe I'm Satan or not, do you think Satan is unaware of our conversation? Do you think he's letting me speak for him or would he be controlling what you hear me say instead?"
I simply tell them I'm Pagan. That results in them either scurrying away or staying in total fascination and forgetting what they wanted me to know, which has led to some very nice conversations. For several years I lived in an area that had a lot of Mormon missionaries. Lovely kids and for some reason, there could be 20 people waiting for public transport and I was the one they'd gravitate toward. It got so that I knew their schpeel and would cut them off by finishing it for them. I'd tell them I'm a Pagan and that's not changing. Most would be like "Pagan, really?" and want to know more, only a few times did a couple of them bolt. One time I was on a bus with 2 girls, one was quite happy to talk with me, the other got up and moved and kept shooting her friend dirty looks. I chatted with the first one the entire ride, it was quite nice.
You make a good case. In fact, I try my best now to never burn a bridge. The time I called the LDS church a cult I was just in a bad mood. But from now on I'm going to try my best to polite and not tell people off from having a discussion about religion, no matter how different their point of view is from mine.
To the lions!
Yes, some of the responses in this thread have been pretty funny.
But I tend to worry about people who think nothing of confronting a total stranger with their religious proselytizing. It seems to me like kind of a mental illness. On one hand, I don't want to mock someone who may be mentally ill, and on the other hand I don't want to leave myself vulnerable to them, either. So getting them to quickly go away seems the best option.