New study - JWs by far the least educated religious group in Canada, Australia and New Zealand

by slimboyfat 41 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  jwleaks

  Just finished reading the article and have highlighted the key findings below. The 3.3% for total JWs doesn't surprise me as too the 5.33% of JW adults.

  The recent 9 August 2016 Australian Census has two interesting questions that when the stats are crunched will reveal the current level of JW education, or lack thereof, for the next generation.

  24. Is the person attending a school or any other educational institution.

  If you mark yes go to question 25.

  25. What type of educational institution is the person attending?

  [there is a box that can be marked "University or other higher educational institution."]

  Will be interesting to eventually find out how many JWs are currently seeking higher education and what the age groups are. This should be very revealing when compared against the national average, other religions and the below stats from the 2006 census.

  As a group Jehovah's Witnesses have the lowest education levels but is there evidence that they are becoming less and less educated? Time will tell. The stats won't lie.
• 

  stuckinarut2

  And from that graph, it shows that Athiests (47.63%) are the highest educated ones...

  So, just watch to see how the GB will spin that to PROVE that attending higher education erodes ones faith in God..."see, the stats don't lie: education causes people to question ancient fairy tales"
• 

  shepherdless

  And from that graph, it shows that Athiests (47.63%) are the highest educated ones...

  
  

  That must be a typo, because the figure for "% of Adults" is only 25.66%.

  
  

  Also, note the figures for "Pagan" are probably due to a few clowns. (Australian humor, perhaps.) Or perhaps they mistook "Pagan" for "Bogan".
  
  
• 

  dropoffyourkeylee

  Surely there are more religious denominations than the 25 shown in this list. Maybe the last one 'No Religion' is a catch all that includes others not listed. Even so, it is clear that JWs are the least educated, not counting their reading of the Awake magazine!
• 

  slimboyfat

  The census figures are a bit old (2006, 2006 and 2011) but still very informative. I've got a book by James Lewis on the demography of NRMs called Sects and Stats. He says that getting access to the more detailed information in census returns can be tricky even for academics, and expensive. It should be possible to get the figures for earlier censuses and track JW education over time. But it might cost to access the information and the information might be difficult to extract.

  Unfortunately the UK census returns are totally useless when it comes to JWs because it tends to lump them together with other groups under "Christian".

  Census results in many countries consistently give higher numbers for JWs than the Yearbook numbers. At the same time there are always far fewer Mormons in the results than the Mormon church claims. (They claim 146,000 members in Australia for example, while the census shows 52,000, a pretty huge and fairly typical LDS discrepancy)

  It's also interesting to note that the Canadian census results show stagnation and decline in JW numbers even as the Yearbook numbers continue to climb. It may be that while the official number has grown, there are fewer "cultural" JWs now than in the 1980s.
• 

  Vidiot

  I suppose the real question is...

  ..."are they uneducated because they're JWs, or are they JWs because they're uneducated?" :smirk:
• 

  DJS

  There is obviously a strong correlation between education and family income. The higher the level of education the higher the level of family income. So the dubs also likely have the lowest family incomes in these countries, as they do in the US. As expected. So the Dark Lords may effectively keep the poor and stupid trapped, but they will continue to lose the smartest and most capable. And let's hope the Dark Lords can't continue to get blood out of these turnips.

  The higher one's education attainment level, the less religious they tend to be.

  There is also a correlation between intelligence and religiosity - of any kind. The higher one's IQ the less likely he or she is religious, and vice versa. There is a strong correlation between fundamentalist religionists and lower intelligence, in US studies. It is likely the same situations exist in these countries.

  And before some of you theists whine, we have posted empirical, scientific data in support of the above statements many, many times. You too can Google scholar it.

  There is also a strong correlation between stupid people and obesity. But I digress.

  
  
• 

  polish clarinet

  another question : among the college graduated witnesses, how many have used these years to learn to think by themselves? How many have taken a real benefit of this high education?

  I know several young college graduated witnesses who hare absolutely uable to thing by themselves and only repeat what other (and uneducated people) have taught them!

  So it's often a waste of time, for a well indocrinated witness to go to college!
• 

  Downtowner

  In words of one of the most famous expressions, "no s### Sherlock!". Next thing the media will tell us is we can see stars at night.

  Lol btw the sarcasm is to be taken as humorous.
• 

  DJS

  Yes, pc, a correlation isn't a cause/effect. Having said that, dubs with a degree are more likely to leave the DarkTower sooner or later. In addition, college grads make more $ and have about half the rate of unemployment, which will help the individual dubs and their families but sadly provide more $$ available for the DarkLords.

  From a recent CNN news article: