by ILoveTTATT 13 Replies latest jw friends
I made a graph of the new members from 2012 to 2013 in all countries that had positive growth, and graphed them against the country's GDP per capita.
The GENERAL trend is, as expected, less growth the more money there is in a country. But there were some unexpected results. Any idea what could have made the trends shown?
Hmm, having trouble reading this. I assume the 'y' axis is GDP? Is this adjusted for differences in national population? I would assume you'd want to chart a country's % of growth, not absolute numbers, as this favors larger countries. I'm a bit confused :-/
X is GDP, Y is change in publishers from 2012-2013.
Absolute numbers does not necessarily favor larger countries. Phillipines = 96M, Mexico = 120M, Brazil = 198M
The trend is obvious if you take the data as a whole...
It shows a strong correlation between income and growth. Though there are a number of countries where that is not the case in Asia.
To make it a fair comparison you need to have number of publisher increase against country population, as a percentage. The percentages will be very small, but it will make the comparison more meaningful. As it is, the US looks the same as Brazil, but with almost twice the population it is only half the growth rate.
US has huge immigrant populations, huge assured income programs, declining public education standards, climbing wealth disparity, and is of course ground zero for the cult, so bears a location/heritage bonus.
An annoying OP. Please tell us where you sourced your stats from - the official end of year report is customarily featured in their yearbook which is not yet available. Just list the source - thanks.
Hi ILoveTTATT, Have you tried to plot new members versus internet penetration and new members versus a country's minimum wage? Try the following Wikipedia links for quick sources and you can use the references to confirm the numbers:
I think that you might discover that the WTBTS grows more in countries where people are poorer and there are fewer internet users.
Peace be with you and everyone, who you love,
Robert
It's not the Internet - few people in the world know of this forum. It serves a good role in helping those recovery from cult abuse, but it is not what is causing numbers to drop.
The reality is that people in the more modern West are less religious, less inclined to look to the Bible, but will sooner try medicine. The USA is somewhat an exception, with it's strong Bible belt, and people far more emotional about god - Europe is very different! For example, most Britons are somewhat atheist, so all those American presentations in Our Kingdom Ministry never worked, for example, you ask someone "Do you pray the Lord's Prayer?", and they ask what that is; children grow up with no knowledge of what is in the Bible. No one goes to church, they are becoming nightclubs or hotels. If a referendum was carried out, I expect people would happily abolish religion; Islamic terrorists are not currently helping with the image of religion.
The result then is that people are less inclined to religion, but instead turn to things the Watchtower warns of: vices like drink, drugs, lots of sex, therapists, university, and plenty of materialism. This is the competition! All of this distances them from the organisation more so, as there is not religious basis to prey on. China is also athiest, but the people have no recent painful history of religion, as does Europe, but have been so shielded of religion, so naive, that the curiosity makes them easy victims as JWs leap in and show them what the Bible actually says.
On the other hand, much of Africa is poor, where people have more of a respect for the Bible. They are less educated, so easier to take advantange of and mislead, and they don't have the distractions of materialism, so other than to get drunk, the Bible is a great hope for the future, a dream to cling to.
However, there are anomalies. Despite somehow gaining create progress in Japan despite the Shinto religion, the JWs have had little success agaisnt the strength of the Muslim religion, it being a fascist regime that dominates people. There has also been little progress agaisnt Hindiusm.
I can explain the Shintoism bit. Shintoism isn't really a religion at all, in the modern sense of the word "religion". It's a holdover from the old days of animistic beliefs (that there's a god in everyday objects in nature, or even manmade objects). Its survival into the modern age is probably due to the time capsule effect that Japan underwent during their many years of isolation.
There's no doctrine, no holy book. For the average Japanese, Shintoism means "those fun festivals we have each season where we throw beans and stuff"; it's just a set of cultural traditions and nice, neat little temples. The concept of religion is about as foreign to Japan as it is to China. Of course some Japanese are Buddhist, which might present more resistance to Christians preaching the Bible, but Japanese are simply naively curious when Witnesses come around to talk to them about "Ehoba".
Ok so the data came from the 2013 yearbook, and wikipedia for the GDP per capita.
I am having fun with Excel and all this data...
Some math:
(Average 2012 - Average 2011) = Change in averages
ΔAve/(Number of baptized) = Retaining Efficiency
(Number of hours preached)/(Number of baptized)/ΔAve = (Number of hours preached)/ΔAve = Number of hours to convert AND RETAIN a new convert.
This, divided by 2000 hours/work-year, would give the number of work-years to convert and retain another person as a JW.
The top 5 most inefficient?
In order,
Austria - 592 years per extra person
Puerto Rico - 211 years
Armenia - 189 years
Central African Republic - 155 years
Serbia - 85 years
