What is the difference between distribution and spread? Have you got a clear distinction or are you splitting hairs? I agree the spread (or distribution) of JWs is similar to the Catholic church on that map, but I think JWs do better proportionally in areas such as northern and eastern Europe, Russia, Oceana, parts of Africa, Japan and central Asia.
Brazil. JWs up 26% in 10 Years
by Joker10 126 Replies latest jw friends
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cedars
slimboyfat
I think JWs do better proportionally in areas such as northern and eastern Europe, Russia, parts of Africa, Japan and central Asia
I KNOW the JWs do worse proportionally in areas such as the horn of Africa, virtually the entire Arab world, large swathes of the Indian subcontinent (specifically Pakistan and Bangladesh), and all of China and North Korea. Are you ignoring this vast part of the world for any particular reason?
Cedars
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slimboyfat
We don't know how many JWs there are in countries of the Middle East but we know there are some in almost all of them. Are there proportionally more Catholics in that region? Probably but I don't think we can be sure.
Incidentally I wonder if the CIA is counting the Catholics that are American soldiers stationed in various bases around the Middle East.
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cedars
slimboyfat
We don't know how many JWs there are in countries of the Middle East but we know there are some in almost all of them. Are there proportionally more Catholics in that region?
I'll repeat what I've already said. There are supposedly less than 30,000 JWs in all "30 Other Lands" combined according to the Worldwide Report.
By comparison, according to the CIA, there are:
- Between 9 and 12 million catholics in China alone
- 660,000 catholics in Saudi Arabia
- 270,000 catholics in Egypt
- 310,000 catholics in Iraq
- 165,000 catholics in Singapore
- 143,000 catholics in Kuwait
- 128,000 catholics in the United Arab Emirates
- 50,000 catholics in Qatar
- 22,000 catholics in Morocco
- 40,000 catholics in Libya
- 39,000 catholics in Tajikistan
- 26,000 catholics in Turkmenistan
- 22,000 catholics in Tunisia, and so on.
Incidentally I wonder if the CIA is counting the Catholics that are American soldiers stationed in various bases around the Middle East.
Feel free to ask them. You either trust their figures, or trust the Watchtower's figures. However you try to rationalize, the disparity between the number of catholics and JWs in arab/communist countries is colossal. There's no getting round it.
Cedars
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slimboyfat
If Catholics have 14 million adherents in the 30 "other lands" in the Watchtower report, that represents around 1.2% of their total membership.
If JWs have less than 30,000 in those countires that represents around 0.4% of their total membership.
So Catholics are better represented in those 30 countries, China alone apparently accounting for most of the difference.
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cedars
So do you still think Jehovah's Witnesses are more evenly spread around the world than catholics?
Cedars
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slimboyfat
So do you still think Jehovah's Witnesses are more evenly spread than catholics.
I think it is much closer than I originally thought. But if we looked at the rest of the world in detail I think JWs would still be slightly more evently spread because they have a more proportionally representative presence in countries like Norway, Russia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and so on. And even if they are broadly similar it still means that JWs and Catholics are much more evenly spread than most other churches. Plus whereas the Catholic church is in steep decline in places like the United Kingdom, Jehovah's Witnesses are still growing.
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cedars
Ok, well if Norway, Russia, Japan, Kazakhstan and Georgia are all somehow of greater significance than the countries I've mentioned above, we'll leave it there!
Cedars
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slimboyfat
We should perhaps also remember that without China, JWs would actually have a proportionally larger presence in the 30 "other lands". Plus I used the upper estimate for the number of Catholics in China when making the calculation. If the lower estimate was used the proportions of JWs and Catholics in the region would be closer, although Catholics would still have the slight edge.
