Shock Poll: 39% of JW's Do Not Beleive in Absolute Moral Standards
by Sea Breeze 2 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
Journeyman
Presumably, this is data only from the USA, so although it covers the single largest national population of JWs, it still only reflects 14% of the total (based on the 2022 service year report of 8.7m publishers worldwide and 1.2m in the USA). Even so, there were indeed some surprises in that data.
The Belief in absolute standards of right and wrong one I can understand somewhat if you take into account the number of things which are said to be "conscience matters" or which differ according to context.
For example: If you ask "Is it wrong to kill a person?", then a JW might say "it depends", meaning that it depends on 1) whether it's God or man doing the killing, 2) whether the killing was done in the past by, say, Samson or David or one of the ancient Bible characters (good), or in modern times by some other random person (bad), etc, etc.
So potentially lots of 'wriggle room' there.
However, two other answers surprised me more:
Under Marital status among Jehovah's Witnesses:
The percentage who said they were "living with a partner" jumped from 1% to 5% between 2007 and 2014. That must have caused a few headaches for bodies of elders!
The most surprising figure for me though, is under Belief in Heaven among Jehovah's Witnesses:
Only 46-50% said they believe in heaven? I wonder if that's down to how the question was asked or interpreted?
I can understand a JW answering "No" if they think the question is asking whether they believe in a place where they will go after death to play a harp and sit around on a cloud or whatever, but if that many really intended to say they did not believe in, or do not know if there is, a realm where God and other spirit beings live, I find that very surprising. I'd want to see exactly what the question was for that one.
-
joe134cd
It was that exact question of the divorce rate amongst Christian groups. That was the first pivotal moment that started waking me up. It was 18 months after this question was raised with me, that I attended my last meeting.