What does the Catholic church think of JW?

by Halcon 70 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  slimboyfat

  ChatGPT gets facts wrong and claims certainty while doing it.

  An example of media coverage of the former pope’s Jw cousin here:

  https://jwtalk.net/uploads/converted_files/145934=8022-PopesCousin2005-08-21.pdf

  I was basing my comments on the size of JWs in Italy on the publication quoted below, and while it’s true that the Romanian Orthodox Church has now overtaken JWs because of immigration, they are still much bigger than other Christian groups such as Pentecostals, Waldensians, Mormons and so on.

  Today, of all the Christian churches and denominations in Italy, Jehovah's Witnesses are the largest Christian community after the Catholic Church. Although the Witnesses make up less than 1% of Italy's population, this percentage represents a quarter of a million active adherents or "publishers" -making Italy the country with the largest number of Jehovah's Witnesses in the whole of Europe, and the fifth largest in the world (after the United States, Brazil, Mexico and Nigeria).

  https://www.cambridgescholars.com/resources/pdfs/978-1-4438-9446-3-sample.pdf

  A fuller comparison can be found here.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Italy
  
• 

  Jeffro

  ChatGPT gets facts wrong and claims certainty while doing it.

  It can. But I separately verified what it said, which I specifically covered at the end of that post.

  And the newspaper, conveniently not showing the actual source, reads like a tabloid piece. It also seems it is more likely the ‘example’ rather than ‘significant coverage’.
• 

  TonusOH

  TTWSYF: simple, just another protesting church.

  That was the impression I always got. Starting with Rutherford, the WTS made it pretty clear that all other Christian denominations were false, so they didn't specifically target the Catholic church. I always assumed the Catholic Church lumped them in with every other Protestant group.
• 

  slimboyfat

  ChatGPT said: “ There is no widely available documentation or media coverage to verify this story.”

  That’s wrong, it was in the Canberra Times (clipping linked above), described as a “compact” broadsheet not a tabloid, and can still be found, including the clipping, on many sites. I don’t trust the news on most things these days. This article has a photo of the woman wearing a JW convention badge and direct quotes. I guess they could have staged the photo and made up the entire story, but it seems more likely that the pope did happen to have a cousin in Australian who was a JW and this was the woman in the photo, which in itself is not terribly remarkable. So yes, ChatGPT is completely misleading in this reply as in many others. If you “separately verified” what it said you clearly did a lousy job.

  I remember seeing her interviewed on broadcast news at the time, either BBC or Sky and I can’t find any video of that now. You can believe it or not, the ChatGPT response remains wrong either way.

  The broader point is clear, yes JWs have a significant presence in Italy, the second largest Christian church in Italy (until it was overtaken by the Romanian orthodox church as a result of immigration) and the Catholic Church is cognisant of them, including a previous pope Benedict who was related to a JW. Your response is a mixture petty nitpicking or simply wrong.

  Also you misquoted me. I said “some media interest” which you changed to “significant coverage”.
• 

  HereIam60

  In error doctrinally...thereafter wide variety of thoughts...saveable....damned....crazy...
• 

  Jeffro

  That’s wrong, it was in the Canberra Times (clipping linked above), described as a “compact” broadsheet not a tabloid, and can still be found, including the clipping, on many sites

  It can be found on a smattering of JW related forums. I checked. The story tracks back to one lady’s unverifiable claim.
• 

  slimboyfat

  What's your point? It was in the media, it's documented and available to anyone who searches, ChatGPT was wrong and you failed to verify. End of.

  ChatGPT didn't say the media report was questionable. It said there was no media report at all, there's a difference.

  As I say, it's possible (though unlikely) the story was a complete fabrication, or indeed (your latest iteration) that the woman exaggerated or lied (although there is nothing intrinsically implausible about the pope having a JW cousin) but that's not the claim that was originally made.
• 

  Jeffro

  What’s ‘In the media’ is a single tabloid-style piece that explicitly attributes the anecdote to ‘Brzakovic’ without any verification of the claimed details. Your standard of evidence is abysmal. Additionally, a Google search for pages consisting both "brzakovic" and "ratzinger" returns a total of 6 results, none of which are news sites.

  GPT said there was no widely available media coverage, which is correct, and it was also correct that what is available is unverifiable. Your claim that “GPT … said there was no media report at all” is simply wrong.
• 

  slimboyfat

  No, your obfuscation is abysmal.

  ChatGPT / your verification claimed

  "There is no widely available documentation or media coverage to verify this story"

  This is false the media report is linked above. End of story.

  Plus you give no apology for misquoting me as claiming "extensive coverage". I won't hold my breath.
• 

  Jeffro

  Yes, a photo of a newspaper article in one single newspaper that can’t be found online is not ‘widely available media coverage’.

  Also you misquoted me. I said “some media interest” which you changed to “significant coverage”.

  There is no functional difference between ‘widely available media coverage’ and ‘significant coverage’. You claimed that it was given wide coverage. It wasn’t. My reply to your incorrect claim was accurate.
  

  Plus you give no apology for misquoting me as claiming "extensive coverage". I won't hold my breath.

  At no point did I use the term ‘extensive coverage’.