Apostacy (at least > 10'000!!!) amongst the anointed: a mathematical analysis

by bohm 5 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  bohm

  Hello!

  In another thread there was a discussion about weater the amount of anointed (and in particular, the dropoff). I have tried to calculate it here. These are my assumptions which i very much need someone to check out.

  • There can be only 144000 which have *died* while they had their heavenly call before armageddon.
  • Some of these are allready selected in early christianity.
  • In 1935, all the remaining anointed was selected. They was selected amongst those who was alive in 1914.
  • In the following time, some have turned away from JV. They have therefore been replaced by others.

  in order for my analysis to hold true, these assumptions must be true. it is especially the second last one i am worried about.

  This is what i did. I assumed there was an initial number of "remaining anointed" selected in 1935, and that they was choosen from an age distribution proportional to the general populations distribution of people between 21 and upwards (ie. they had to be alive in 1914, but no further assumptions on their age).

  I assumed there was a constant (across time/age) amount of apostacy. i set this to 0.5% per year (Papo), and when a person became an apostate, another had a heavenly call; the other person is selected from the general population at random (ie. a baby may be selected by god, but may realize it only at a certain age).

  Now, i got the age distribution from http://www.censusscope.org/us/chart_age.html and the death rate from http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/STATS/table4c6.html . I then assumed half of the annointed had been selected in the previous centuries (2000 year is quite a long time so this seem to be a bit in the low end), and simulated the development of the number of anointed. The result is in the following plot.

  

  To the left there is the total number of people partaking at the memorial. Notice the increase is due to a high number of young ones who was selected by God coming of age (ie. i only assumed people aged more than 35 will report to being annointed, which is certainly true today).
  The vertical line is the total number of apostates over the year, the value is about 14'000 (Nice job, devil!!!).
  The amount of people partaking in the memorial today should be about 5600 with these values (or rather, all anointed age more than 35, note some may be annointed but without knowing it, so this is an over-estimate!).

  To the right is the age disribution of annointed today. The "spike" at 90 years of age is from people who was babies in 1914.

  Now the fun thing :-). If the assumptions i have made are correct, we can estimate the amount of apostacy we must have in the organization to get the amount of anointed at this years assembly, given a certain amount of people who was selected as annointed in 1935 (the "start-annointed"), but since its kind of late in my timezone and i havent verified the assumptions made above, i will leave that untill it is verified.

  Sincerely!
• 

  Black Sheep

  New Light will put your calculations out.

  WT 2008 Jan 1 Study edition. Page 23

  15 Even so, over the years since the 1930's, a few individuals have been called to a heavenly hope. Why? In some cases, it could be that they replaced individuals previously called who had become unfaithful. (Compare Revelation 3:16.) Paul even spoke of personal

  acquaintances who had left the truth. (Phil. 3:17-19) Whom would Jehovah call to serve as such replacements? Of course, that is

  converted ones, but individuals who—like the disciples to whom Jesus spoke when he initiated the Memorial observance—have already proved their loyalty to an extent.*-Luke 22:28.

  16 It seems, however, that not all who have been called to a heavenly hope since the 1930's are replacements for ones who have fallen away. Jehovah has evidently made sure that we will have anointed Christians among us all through the final days of this system of things until the destruction of "Babylon the Great."0 (Rev. 17:5) And we can be confident that the full number of 144,000 members will be completed in Jehovah's due time and that all will eventually take their place in the Kingdom government. We can also believe the prophetic Word that the ever-growing great crowd will as a group continue to prove itself faithful. Soon it will "come out of the great tribulation" brought upon Satan's world and will joyfully move on into God's new world.
• 

  yadda yadda 2

  Although one of your assumptions is incorrect this doesn't totally invalidate your very thought-provoking analysis.
• 

  bohm

  Thanks Blacksheep!

  It seems i overlooked two effects: 1) There is a influx of newly annointed ones beoynd 1935, 2) there is a percentage of those claiming to be annointed who are not.

  Since it would be most fair to let both of these figures vary over time there seems to be to little data to properly conclude annything without making assumptions... However, a question one may answer is: "what total influx would be required to keep the number of annointed ones constant over 3 decasedes", and one may be able to guesstimate the number partaking in the memorial (may be that a certain percentage of total population jv is crazy to claim being annointed without actually being it?). But i think i will leave that untill i have found quotes in the WT which may help answer these questions.

  However, i still think one may conclude one thing: The development over the past 3 decades is not consistent with saying a *large* number of annointed ones was singled out in 1935.
• 

  Tuesday

  This is my thread you're responding to right?

  Where did you get your data from?

  You're also not taking into account that the apostacy percentage you're getting, the majority of people leaving are kids raised as JWs. Which they are most certainly not annointed.

  If 60% of JWs are leaving, I think only a small percentage of that would be from Annointed. I would say MAYBE 2% and that's pushing it on the high side.
• 

  bohm

  Tuesday:

  Yes it was yout thread, but i couldnt find it when i wrote the post.
  I wrote it because i looked at a graph on jwfacts of the number of annointed at the memorial, and saw it had been relatively constant since about 75, and i thought to myself that it looked kind of funny because it was to flat. So what i wanted to do was to try to simulate what would happend to the demography of a large population of annointed choosen in 1935, but where some might deflect (like ray franz), and be replaced by other annointed ones (choosen from the baptized which i assumed was distributed as the general population, see the post). The input data - the 72000 - was just selected more or less just to match the number participating in the first memorials.

  I am not calculating children leaving, becuse i assume being annointed is not something that is enherited. Hence i fix a chance PER YEAR of a given annointed deflecting. I know the true propability for any baptized jv to leave per year is about 1-1.2% (this is reported in the WT), and i assumed that for a given annointed it would be 0.5% (the annointed are more faitfull). I will agree its properly in the high end, but this is not my point, lowering it to just 0.1% would make it very bad for the WT, because we would expect far fewer partakers. Now, as black sheep said, i misunderstood the current light on the annointed class, and was not aware that the WT says God may still not have reached the 144000, and with a constant influx of new members it is offcourse possible to maintain a steady population of annointed (as in the past 3 decades). There is also another possibility i didnt take into effect, namely that a number of those claiming to be annointed are only fakes, but i see that as a problem for the WT - if many of those claiming to be annointed are lying, is it really a good idea to make them prepare the spiritual food?!?!

  Well, its only a calculation. I might try to add the effect that the heavenly call is not closed and see what the effect of a number of "newly-annointed" each year will have on the graphs. I dont think it will save the wt though: 9000 simply seem like a very high number when so many professed to be annointed in 35.