Analysis of a Time Consuming System: Shocking Numbers about JWs (page 2)

Tristram

Good stuff, and the fact you lowballed the figures speaks volumes as well. I, for one, spend a lot more time travelling to and from meetings, as well as before and after meeting time (lucky you, getting out in 12 minutes!) Also think of the guys that have parts every week or at least frequently, the school conductor, WT conductor, etc and the hours get much higher. That of course applies inversely to time taken away from family, home responsibilities, or just simple "down time" which we all desperately need.

sir82

And the saddest part: Imagine the force for good that 6 million people who had 800+ hours of suddenly free time would be.

Or at the very least, how enriched their lives would be if they really studied something with all that time (as opposed to the Watchtower style of study, looking up answers to pre-determined questions in 3rd-grade level reading material).

drew sagan

"That's just the minimum amount of time a devoted jw would spend"

That is the craziest part of it all! This is the minimum amount of time they would have to spend to keep up with it all. This dosn't even take into account daily Bible reading outside of the 'weekly' schedule.

After spending all this time and effort into the religion, do these people really have the time and/or energy to really study the Bible? The real fact is that all this suedo study and busy work activity they do keeps them from learning!

JH

Thanks for the time and effort it took to make this thead Drew Sagan

Amazing Mind Blowing Total: 828.8 Hours Per Year!!!

Thats 35 complete days of 24 hours !!!

The figure is conservative because it takes me 1 hour to prepare a 1 hour watchtower study, and even more if I go into every bible verse they say to go read !!! Same thing with the 1 hour book study. I need 2 hours to read it once, and go see every verse and answer the questions correctly like they want it to be.

I'd say it's more like 1000 hours a year

Now compare this to the average time a Catholic person will go to church every year

52 weeks X 45 minutes = About 39 hours at Church and about 5 hours getting there and 5 hours puting other clothes on.

Total of 50 hours a year for a Catholic, compared to 1000 for a JW

Leolaia

Thank you for showing how much of my childhood was a waste. :-{ I think I'm depressed now. Now let's calculate how much back wages we're owed by the Watchtower corporation in an ideal dream world. Let's say I get paid a minimum wage of 50 cents per hour. I was in the "trooth" for 13 years. How much do I get?

Tristram

I just remembered something from the DC a few weeks ago: the part on "The Deeper Things of God" or something, where we are encouraged also to have special research projects going in addition to our normal study. Of course we were told to be "balanced" and not get get carried away and neglect our regular study. Don't worry.

Nathan Natas

Terry pointed out

24 x 365 = 8760 Total hours available to all of us each year. 10% would be 876 hours. 9.9% of your time is not as much as it sounds on paper. Psychologically, however, it is more than too much.

Yes, the total number of hours is correct, but consider that most people spend about one-third of that time unconscious (I don't mean at the meetings, I mean asleep).

A full-time job takes up 2080 hours each year.

So let's subtract those times from the time of your life during a year, and you're down to 3760 "disposable" hours a year - ten hours a day. Unless you live in Bethel and have worker bees taking care of the daily minutae of life for you, we know where those ten hours go. How much time do we spend on personal care and grooming? Only a smelly fanatic with wild fly-away hair would tell us that this time is "wasted." We have to eat, too. How long do we dawdle over our meals and use theem as an 'excuse" for building social relationships? (My tongue is in my cheek, next to the mashed potatoes.) What about food prep time? Sure, we can live on cold pizza and warm beer, but it takes time to wait for the @#%%#@ delivery guy to get here. (no tip for him!) Laundry? Save time by multitasking, and shower while fully clothed. Better yet, just jog to work in a rainstorm without an umbrella. Jehovah will understand.

stillajwexelder

Weekly Surround Time to Meetings
Getting Ready at Home: 15 Minutes I would say this is very conservative - my wife takes about 1 hour -those with young kids even longer

Travel to Kingdom Hall: 10
Time Spent Before Meeting: 12.5 Minutes
Time Spent after Meeting: 12.5 Minutes
Drive Back Home: 10 Minutes
Total Per Meeting = 1 Hour
Total Per Week = 3 Hours
Total Per Year = 156 Hours

Nathan Natas

Tristram said,

we are encouraged also to have special research projects

O, that is just laugh-out-loud FUNNY!

PRECISELY the sort of thing that led to the Bethel purge and Carl Olaf Jonsson's disfellowshipping.

So make sure your special research projects into the deeper things of God stay in the Kiddies' Wading Pool as provided by the Faithful and Discreet Slave. Don't attempt horseplay in the deep end of the Governing Body's Pool of knowledge, and NO DIVING!

drew sagan

Personal study projects are another way the WTS puts a guilt trip on the rank and file. Think about it, they spend conservatively around 800+ hours per year in witness activities and somehow they arn't doing enough?!!! WTF?!
They work hard on the guilt.
It's like that scene in the movie Cool Hand Luke when Paul Newman has to keep digging the same hole and then fill it up again. It's a constant cycle and the GB keeps telling you to make more of an effort. They want you consumed with the work, it leaves no time left for non witness activity. It also keeps you in a state of emotional immaturity, one in which you must depend upon somebody else and can't make decisions and choices on your own.

Analysis of a Time Consuming System: Shocking Numbers about JWs

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