Wow....didn't see this coming.
JW Fastest Growing Religion...In N. America???
by owenfieldreams 8 Replies latest jw friends
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owenfieldreams
I knew they had exponential growth in the third world developing countries, but this figure surprised me a little. Thoughts anyone? How can this be??? Something here is not right...
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Layla33
It's not true, see V posts on the real truth behind the "numbers".
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owenfieldreams
I'm sure the borg "massaged" the numbers to show an increase, but every organization does that. Taking that into account, this report from an organization that is, believe me, no friend of the borg kind of surprised me.
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drew sagan
Not only are the numbers published by the Watchtower dubious, they do not accurately reflect the complex trends of religious growth.
One key is to follow the large amounts of people who identify themselves as born again Christians, or "evangelicals". This movement completely dwarfs anything going on within the Watchtower. But it cannot be tracked by looking at the stats of one denomination. It is bigger than one denomination.
In the case of this article, I think it really comes down to how you define "faith". And I still would also agree with the previous poster that the published numbers from the Watchtower cannot be trusted. They have made a number of changes the past 5 years or so that helps them reach bigger numbers on paper, while there is no real tangible change (like letting old people turn in 15 minutes of time so they can remain a publisher). Not that doing such a thing is bad on its own (I would argue that its much better for them to count this way). Problem is that when you compare the current stats after such changes have taken place to their past stats you have no way of knowing the curve. Are they really growing? Or are they simply doing a better job counting? Or is it a little of both? We really don't know. -
MissingLink
The problem here, as usual, is that statistics lie. Let me throw this one at ya - Imagine in 2006 I started a cult with just 2 people. Last year, we recuited one more. We're up to 3 people now. Last year we had a 50% growth! We are by far the fastest growing religion in the world!!!!
The point is that percentage growth is meaningless in determining which organization is growing the fastest. The JW 2.25% increase if based on 6.5 million amounts to about 145,000 people. The Catholic .87% increase amounts to 580,000 people. This is 3 times the growth of the witnesses. Percentage increases are statistical garbage when used to compare across groups. They are only meaningfull within the group from one year to the next.
That article was written by someone who is no mathologist!
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buffalosrfree
missinglink, thanks for that, that is some of what I have thought about for years, numbers do lie. Statistics can also like. i.e. the percentage of growth of the WT vs the percentage of growth by the Catholics. its the total numbers that make the difference. I would like to see the percentage of loss of witnesses over the last 10-20 years and see that brought up at the meetings. They never mention the whole story, and having been an attendant I know personally they the individual congregations will at times fudge the numbers of attendees. I.e. at one memorial the attendance figures myself an two other attendants came up with afte4r counting the attendance 3 x's was 50 people short of the attendance reported by our congregation. The numbers were definitely fudged. The society is lead by lawyers ,the will lie to hide the real facts.
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Layla33
I'm sure the borg "massaged" the numbers to show an increase, but every organization does that. Taking that into account, this report from an organization that is, believe me, no friend of the borg kind of surprised me.
The JW religion is not the fastest growing religion by any stretch of the imagination in the US. I am not surprised at the lies that the JW tell. They using inactive people as well, to even show up on the radar...
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VoidEater
Not even the WTS is claiming growth in 2007 for English speakers...