great point slimboy! I always wondered about Mormon numbers in comparison. It was obvious they must count differently. :-)) Randy
2008 Publisher Statistics Charted
by jwfacts 29 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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oompa
007: Must be alot of sinful anointed being replaced.
carla: I can never truly wrap my head around the jw logic of the 144,000. How does a jw see the increase in 'partakers' and not be 'stumbled'? If part of the increase is due to sinners who no longer qualify and many of those are already dead, where did they sin? in heaven? how's that possible? How do they reason that out in their own head?
Guys the way they reasoned it out was to do away with saying all the new anointed ever since 1935 are NOT REPLACEMENTS. Last year WT said that evidently more annoited are just being called up....there were many posts about it...i forget the issue, but I believe it was in spring of last year in a QFR.................oompa
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Fadeout
When considering the number baptized as opposed to the net gain in publishers, be sure to factor in a death rate... this will have a significant impact on your "number missing" graph.
According to statements made by the Society in the past, I estimate a 1% Disfellowshipping rate per year. Of course, not all DFed ones were counted as publishers, some were inactive. But after subtracting deaths and DFs from the "number missing" I get a column I call "Estimated new inactive," a guess at how many people who were counted as pubs last year are no longer counted, not due to death or DFing.
Here is another interesting thing to chart if you want to see graphically how ineffective the preaching work has become: Plot a time series of baptisms, Hours (in thousands for a better scale), Bible Studies, and Pioneers. You'll see that while Hours, pioneers, and Studies increase, baptisms remain unaffected. Plot at least the last 40 years for best effect.
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elder-schmelder
What is the exact number of partakers last year?
elder-schmelder
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jwfacts
Fadeout, I have taken the death rate into account at http://www.jwfacts.com/index_files/statistics.htm Once removing the number that die the graph looks like the following, which still leaves over 30% of those baptised leaving each year.
From a quick glance it seems to me that the biggest contributor to the decline in growth over 2007 is the leavers.
Yes, there are about 50,000 more that left this year than last year, even though the number of baptisms is similar. It is amazing how few baptisms JWs get with over 1 billion hours of preaching. And then on top of that they are loosing half out the other end. No normal business can operate with 50% churn of customers and the JWs only survive because they use volunteer labour.
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jwfacts
memorial partakers 2007 - 9105
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steve2
I disagree with SBF's take on how Mormons "inflate' their current membership. For example, The 5-yearly New Zealand Census is based on citizens' own self-report. The latest census (2006) showed approximately 40,000 self-reported Mormons (down slightly from the previous Census) and 17,000 self-reported Jehovah's Witnesses (also down slightly from the previous Census). If anything, Census figures reveal a decline in most 19th-Century Amercian religions (LDS, 7th-Day Adventists, JWs) and a huge increase in pentecostal Christians.
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slimboyfat
Actually Steve that figure confirms my argument that Mormons inflate their membership numbers.
If only 40,000 identified themselves as Mormons then that represents just over 40% of the figure the Mormon church officially claims for their membership in New Zealand (which is 97,474):
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/contact-us/new-zealand
So in other words the Mormon church claims two and a half times more members in New Zealand than those who identify themselves as Mormons.
Contrast that with Jehovah's Witnesses. You say 17,000 identified themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses in the New Zealand census. Compare that with the fact that Watchtower official figures only claim 12,000 Witnesses in New Zealand. So Watchtower official figures underrepresent the number of Jehovah's Witnesses by something like 35%.
The same pattern emerges in any country where census returns are compared with official statistics: Mormons inflate their numbers whereas Watchtower numbers are always conservative. I think the worst case I saw was in Mexico or Peru where it turned out that only 10% of Mormons claimed by the church identified themselves as such.
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slimboyfat
I found the figure for Mexico.
Number of members currently claimed by Mormon church: 1,121,893
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/contact-us/mexico
Number who identified themselves as Mormons in the 2000 census: 205,229
Number of publishers claimed by the Watchower in Mexico: 600,000 (actually this figure was lower in 2000 when the census was made but I use it to compare with the current Mormon figure above)
Number who identified themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses in the census: 1,057, 736
This is just one example. The pattern is replicated in any country with detailed census returns for individual denominations you care to check. Mormon numbers are always and everywhere grossly inflated.
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slimboyfat
Found the figures for Australia too.
Number of members the Mormon church claims in Australia: 119,975
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/contact-us/australia
Number who indentified themselves as Mormons in the 2006 census: 52,141
http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/ABSNavigation/prenav/ViewData?action=404&documentproductno=0&documenttype=Details&order=1&tabname=Details&areacode=0&issue=2006&producttype=Census%20Tables&javascript=true&textversion=false&navmapdisplayed=true&breadcrumb=POTLD&&collection=Census&period=2006&productlabel=Religious%20Affiliation%20(full%20classification%20list)%20by%20Sex&producttype=Census%20Tables&method=Place%20of%20Usual%20Residence&topic=Religion &
Number of publishers the Watchtower claims: 60,692 or 62,435 (average and peak numbers in 2007 Yearbook for 2006 service year)
Number who identified themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses in the 2006 census: 80,919
http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/ABSNavigation/prenav/ViewData?action=404&documentproductno=0&documenttype=Details&order=1&tabname=Details&areacode=0&issue=2006&producttype=Census%20Tables&javascript=true&textversion=false&navmapdisplayed=true&breadcrumb=POTLD&&collection=Census&period=2006&productlabel=Religious%20Affiliation%20(full%20classification%20list)%20by%20Sex&producttype=Census%20Tables&method=Place%20of%20Usual%20Residence&topic=Religion &
So fewer than half the people the Mormon church claimed as members called themselves Mormons in the census, whereas many more identified themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses than are counted as publishers in Watchtower statistics. It is the same pattern everywhere - Mormons inflate their membership numbers.
How many Mormons are there really? They claim a membership of 13 million worldwide. But some in some countries the figures are so grossly exaggerated, especially in Latin America, it would be surprising if there are as many as a third of the official number who would actually call themselves Mormons. I think it is safe to say there are fewer than 5 million active Mormons worldwide.