by jwfacts 24 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
| No Religion (b) Comprises 'No Religion, nfd', 'Agnosticism', 'Atheism', 'Humanism' and 'Rationalism'." |
Julia O, you are correct. Muslims are not a large number yet, but sadly growing faster than any other group.
Islam
1996 200,885
2011 476,291
Increase 137%
Interesting stuff, thanks jwfacts!! I'm sure your fine website has had some part to play in making Watchtower's life a misery down under!
Cedars
Australians are an apathetic bunch, so don't confuse atheism with don't-know-don't-care-ism.
Exactly right. This is what makes witnessing in this country such a massive waste of time, nobody cares.
Muslims are not a large number yet, but sadly growing faster than any other group
I read somewhere a while back that Islam growth is almost keeping up with world population with around 50 million Muslims every year. And I believe everything I read on the net.
JWs should follow the LDS example (like they seem to be anyway) and start using TV and billboards to preach, clearly Gods blessing is with these methods rather than the archaic door to door work.
Thanks for this info Paul, I will be sure to discourage and sow doubts with my active JW family with some more facts.
clarity: The atheists don't have to pedal or peddle.
Damn those Godless people. How dare they use reason, facts and evidence to support their argument!
Thanks JWacts for your hard work.
Julia, you are right, and I must add that "no religion" must include even christians who prefer not to be affiliated to any denomination. I believe that was the case of the existentialist philosopher Kierkegaard.
I read in another post that you like history. You may be interested in a book by Carl Olof Jonsson that connects history to JW's flawed doctrines of doom. Remember the signs: earthquakes, famine, wars, plagues. He deals with that issue just as well he did in "the Gentile Times Reconsidered" The book "The Signs of the Last Days, When" is hard to find, but I got my copy from a library in California.
Just ran some numbers for fun based on the actuals provided by Paul
The X factor is to show by what factor the religion varies from normal population growth ie JW's are negative 7.4x whilst 'no reilgion' is positive 2.6x
What might it look like in Australia in 25 years time - your guess is as good as mine...:-) The Australia government are forecasting around 38 million population by 2056 so a lower growth rate might give numbers like those shown in the last 2 columns.
JW's can look forward to stagnation while showing minimal nominal growth and becoming as significant as the SDA - funny that - cos thats where they come from - right? :-)
Interestingly, because the official number of JWs is publishers, there is quite an discrepency between the publisher figure and the census figure. There were 85,638 JWs in the Census, but in 2011 only 64,498 publishers.
Whats the rule of thumb? About 1 in 3 in any cong are hardcore - the rest are 'making up the numbers' literally......so that 64,498 publishers is really 21,500 true believers...
What I would take from this is that unless the GB make a truly signifcant change in doctrine its just steady as she goes flatline stagnation.
By truly significant I mean an end of the world prediction with a firm date, or scrapping the d2d work, extreme family shunning and medical suicide doctrines etc
Great work Paul!
But the GB would just spin this as further proof that "The End is Near!"
When there's growth, "Jehovah is Blessing the preaching work!" when there is no growth or a decline, "Brothers, this is just further proof that we are living deep in the Time of the End."
very excited to see the growth in people who have no religion. And I agree that those numbers are not all atheists actual survey's for atheists still has a low percentage rate.
Also true this group may simply be uninterested in religion.
The real number, which is impossible to get, is how many people who identify with a religious tradition actually believe in that religion vs lukewarm support.
If the trend continues Nons (no religious affiliation) may become the dominent group.
Thank you always for your site Paul, and your charts.
Interesting about the JW Census. The difference from that and actual pubs. is 21,140 (that would include nonpubs, JW children. Certainly, under 5 would be included in that. U.S. stats show their under 5 at 5.6% on one site. Couldn't find percentage for Australia. But, that percentage less, brings the remaining possible group (DF'd, inactive or ?) to 16,344. These are still mentally stuck in JWism, still 'claiming' JW. These could no doubt 'jump' back in, especially if there is a bad earthquake or tsunami, or some scarey time in their life.
This difference between Census and reporting pubs is almost 33%. Yikes!
Interesting analysis Besty. Hopefully your projections fail to account for the increasingly irrelevant doctrine leading to ever increasing decline, and a lower figure by 2036.
Gayle, they do not seem to have released the age breakdown for 2011, but did for previous years. For 2006 the census total was 80,919, and the 0- 14 year olds was 14,363. The Watchtower figure for publishers was 60,692. Since a person does not normally become a publisher till at least 10, it seems the d/f, inactive figure is less and maybe more like 10,000.
