first of all; i must admit that i'm not a huge fan of putting people in boxes like this, it is not an exact science.
but i still think the data can be quite interesting and i intend to collect it and share it in a structured way with you guys.
so without future ado here are the details.. link to test: .
Born-in.
I've always been an INTJ near as I can tell. Took the test for a job 6 years ago and was an INTJ then while an active JW. I suspect you'll get a lot of INTJs on here - we seem to be over represented on online forums.
100% introverted
27% intuitive
97% thinking
44% judging
70% assertive
The extremes in my introversion and thinking traits are what I blame my awakening on. I think the perfect JW would probably be ESFJ.
do you have feelings of hopelessness and fear for not having a religion?.
do you envy happy jehovah witnesses and living their lives carefree?.
i don't know if they're making similar arrangements in other parts of the world but below you will find the letter (and the translation attempt) they're sending to all the congregations in mexico and central america asking them to modify their september 21 and september 28 service meeting programs.. after watching jackson's gold apple watch and lett's pinky ring one can only assume they are a bunch of brazen, shameless and greedy bastards!.
the letter has already been uploaded at the spanish forum and you can find it if you click here or see the attached picture.. the translation "attempt" is as follows:.
august 1, 2015. to all congregations.
Yeah, that's why they are asking for "valubaubles"...just in case someone has a few pieces of old family heirlooms sittting around that they aren't gonna need in paradise.
While I'm sure that they'll take anything you'll give 'em that has any value, I suspect that the main reason for the use of that phrase is so they can claim that they're not asking for money but reinforcing the need to honor Jehovah and that some can only do this with their time (a "valuable thing" to be sure). I.e. they're pressuring for money but they do it in a way that anyone that feels uncomfortable about it will have a way to rationalize it.
https://baptistnews.com/ministry/congregations/item/30426-racially-diverse-nation-isn-t-mirrored-in-most-religious-groups.
seventh-day adventists and muslims about the same.
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And the racial trend, in 2007 whites were 48% now they are 36%, either many whites left or blacks and latino are getting new recruits.
I gave up looking for the official JW numbers to scale this properly, but regardless this definitely indicates that the cult is losing whites. For the demographics to shift this significantly, there would've had to been a 33% increase in cult membership in the US and all of that increase would've had to have come from non-whites. Obviously that didn't happen. More likely is that they lost a net of somewhere around 80k whites (I'm assuming a membership of roughly ~1million in the US) over that period of 7 years but made up for the loss with some growth in the black/latino groups.
I'd appreciate if someone where to check my math on that because it seems rather significant if they're losing over 10k a year from one race alone. It probably means that they're losing significant numbers in the other groups, but there's just more disadvantaged ones in the black/latino groups for the cult to take advantage of and replenish the flock. Even assuming that no blacks/latinos are leaving, this still represents some substantial churn.
tough to watch this whole video, the way he talks gets pretty annoying, especially after the rc hearings:.
http://tv.jw.org/#video/vodstudio/pub-jwban_201506_1_video.
go to around 8:20 where he gets into the pronunciation of jehovah.
Since WHEN in the jehovahs witness religion, has what is popular, well known and established mattered?
It matters exactly when it's convenient for it to matter. Just like the bible.
i don't know if gb member g jackson really meant the gb were 'god', with his 'guardians of doctrine' comment at the arc.
it's nice and conspiracy to think so, i suppose.
i honestly don't know.
I somehow doubt that this was intended to reinforce the conflation of the GB with god. Especially since the GB no doubt hope that none of the R/F were watching that exchange, and the term "guardians of doctrine" is not used in any literature so far as I can tell.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit, however, to learn that this is an inside joke among the GB - describing themselves as guardians of doctrine when they really mean god. These men seem to get a kick out of wielding power over others, and having a secret language by which they can flaunt that power while sounding relatively innocent to anyone who might hear wouldn't be unexpected.
i was baptised on 1st sept 1990, 25years ago today.
it is still a date with deep meaning for me.
i never dedicated my life to serving any man or any organisation, this was my choice - as a grown adult - to serve my god through jesus christ.
https://baptistnews.com/ministry/congregations/item/30426-racially-diverse-nation-isn-t-mirrored-in-most-religious-groups.
seventh-day adventists and muslims about the same.
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Actaully the black demographic had a 5% increase. Of course, I wonder how many of those are immigrants as well.
Crap, you're right. Even so the increase in the latino population is proportionally much larger. I wonder how these numbers track against the demographics change in the US as a whole, too. That might well have something to do with it, though I'm pretty confident that the US population didn't change nearly as much as the JWs did, so there's still definitely a lot of churn indicated.
i've been lurking on the board for almost a year now and i think i'm ready to come out of hiding (although, i'm so nervous as i type this).
i'm not ready to share everything about my story, but the basics are that i'm a born-in, elder's kid, baptized as a teenager because i was tired of hearing people ask me "all your friends are baptized, when are you going to get baptized?
", married an unbeliever (was df, but came back shortly after) and we have two kids.
Welcome!
I can definitely relate to the adrenaline rush of that first post and the paranoia that came with signing up on this site. That in itself really says something about this cult - the fact that almost everyone in your position relates a similar feeling of fear as a result of that first post really shows how controlling this cult is. When even anonymous speech is a frightening concept, something's wrong.
As difficult as this process is for anyone, it sounds like you're in a pretty good position, all things considered. Definitely keep learning and researching, but remember that there's no rush. Just because you're leaving one belief system doesn't mean you need to jump into going to another church or whatever. It seems that a lot of those that leave still have trouble with the concept that there's time. Armageddon isn't coming, and you have time to figure things out at your own pace.
I wish you nothing but the best on this journey.
https://baptistnews.com/ministry/congregations/item/30426-racially-diverse-nation-isn-t-mirrored-in-most-religious-groups.
seventh-day adventists and muslims about the same.
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There's a lot of churn in the cult, and it looks like they're losing members and replacing them with immigrants that make an easy mark, having left their entire social structure behind. Doesn't bode too well for the cult, but unfortunately there's always money to be made by exploiting the poor, so if they restructure some I'm sure they'll be able to manage this shift just fine.
It's not much to go on but since there's a comparable drop in the blacks and whites, this seems to indicate something that will probably be pretty obvious to most here - the largest factor at play here is social support. A quick google search turned a comparison of income by race (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104552.html) which if I'm reading this correctly shows that blacks tend to have a lower household income than both whites and hispanics. If income (which usually tracks reasonably close to education) were a huge factor then I would expect to see the demographics shifting towards blacks and to a slightly lesser extent hispanics. Since it's only shifting to hispanic, that indicates to me that this is more about immigration than education or income.
