There are more Jehovah's Witnesses in Portugal than there are Scientologists in the whole world

by cedars 83 Replies latest jw friends

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  Calebs Airplane

  Isn't the scientology cult intended for rich folk? (that kind of limits your potential membership pool)
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  slimboyfat

  Mmm I like nougat with my expresso.

  Anyway, yes Scietology is way overbown, largely because it is wealthy famous people from California mostly.

  There are also many more active JWs than there are Mormons worldwide, which is an even lesser known fact, because Mormons are highly duplicitous about their membership data.
• 

  Jeffro

  EdenOne:

  Why don't we ever get the clearly stated number of how many BAPTIZED and ACTIVE withesses thare are? The number of publishers is interesting,

  Because it would make the number who stop reporting more obvious.

  but it only obscures matters.

  And there's your answer.
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  slimboyfat

  How would you define an active a Witness if not by participation in preaching?
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  Jeffro

  slimboyfat:

  How would you define an active a Witness if not by participation in preaching?

  That might seem like a fair question, but it's based on ambiguous semantics.

  JW 'activity' is based on largely ineffectual self-reported 'preaching', much of which is spent trudging door to door or driving in car groups, or and in some cases entirely made up (and there is significant pressure to do so), rather than actually 'preaching' per se.

  'Activity' of a religious person could be based on attendance at religious services. Or it could be based on charitable acts. There is no scriptural basis for defining 'activity' as 'door-to-door preaching'.
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  EdenOne

  True, but how can a publisher who has not taken his baptismal vows be counted as a member ? That's my whole point.

  Eden
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  EdenOne

  Jeffro

  There is no scriptural basis for defining 'activity' as 'door-to-door preaching'.

  My thoughts exactly. Besides, "witnessing" is also said to be made through conduct, commenting on the meetings, etc. So how does that count as "activity" ?

  Eden
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  slimboyfat

  However you measure active Witnesses, I reckon the way they count members is stricter than most other religions. This is bourne out in census returns.
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  Jeffro

  slimboyfat:

  However you measure active Witnesses, I reckon the way they count members is stricter than most other religions.

  Their more 'conservative' method of counting membership artificially inflates their growth rate.

  If JW 'membership' were counted in a similar manner to other churches, JW growth would be pitiful. It would likely be negative in most countries, and it's already below the population growth in many countries as it is.
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  slimboyfat

  Nonsense as long as they compare like with like how strict the measure is has no effect on the growth rate.