Posts by OneEyedJoe

10

When will JW Land Peak?

by thedepressedsoul in

id like to start off by saying that if you look at history, every big businesses, organization etc... eventually peaks.

people think microsoft is peaking due to competition.

people are saying religion in general has peaked.

OneEyedJoe

Depending on the numbers you look at, it could be argued that they peaked in 2011, since they've never achieved that number of memorial attendees since.

They're definitely making changes so that the numbers look better. The reduction in hours to aux pioneer has surely increased both hours and pioneers. The ones who might have been doing 40 hours a month are now pushing just a little bit harder to hit 50 so they can get the title (or at least they're counting their time differently so they can do it). Same thing with the "special" months when you're allowed to aux for the low price of 30 hours. I see them changing to 30 hours permenantly, claiming the "success seen during the special campaigns." Then look for them to tout the momentous increase in the number of aux pioneers. This might even yeild a temporary increase in total number of hours worked.

There will continue to be growth in undeveloped countries, but there's probably already a slight decline in the US and UK, they're just changing the stats to hide it by consolodating branches and such.

The most important statistic has almost certainly peaked: donations.

46

Fudging the Numbers: Is the WTBTS in decline?

by Coded Logic in

it's no secret that the wtbts has a cash flow problem.

over the past three years they have closed 20 of their 116 branches.

they have sold off most of their properties in and around ny (including some kingdom halls), drastically reduced the # of printed pages for the watchtower and awake magazines, reduced the printing of books and other materials, increased the number of single page tract campagnes, installed cc machines at their assembly halls, and are now seizing of controll of property assets from local kingdom halls using renovation projects.

OneEyedJoe

Another factor at play is the age at which people are getting baptized. This year I saw, for my first time, a 6 yr old get baptized. I don't think there's anyone who's forgotten the stance on infant baptism (even though they haven't talked about it in a while) so they're running out of younger kids to get baptized in order to pump up the numbers. I predict a drop in baptisms in the next 5 years or so as they run out of younger and younger kids to baptize. The baptisms have already declined significanly, and it's only going to get worse. Of course the R/F won't notice, because if there's a decline they only print this year's numbers, and even 100k baptisms sounds good as long as you don't mention that it was 300k not too long ago.

Another thing that's already been mentioned is consolidating branches. If the R/F compare numbers from a couple years ago for the US, to now it appears to be a huge increase. The problem is that a few years ago, the US was only the US (and I think excluded Alaska) but now its the "US Branch territory" which includes several new places. It seems like it might be difficult to keep up the consolidation of the numbers without people noticing, but there doesn't seem to be an end to what the R/F will swallow. Maybe in a few years Mexico and Canada will be in the "US Branch Territory."

They definitely seem to have declining contributions. Also, because the "growth" in developed countries comes almost exclusively from born-ins coming of age, the best they can hope for is a lagging growth in contributions - that 6yr old that got baptized this year isn't going to be making any meaningful contributions for another 10 years. But as we know, fully 2/3rds of kids eventually leave, and that's probably without ever making any significant donations. So 2/3rds of the growth they're reporting is really just kids filling seats they're not paying for. Those seats indirectly cost money...without those kids taking up space, they'd likely be able to consolidate more congregations and sell off a few more KHs. Not to mention the money towards utilities to operate the extra KHs that means donations that aren't getting sent in to 'mother.'

They're definitely not in a great place. That said, they can probably last a good while longer, so as much as I (and I'm sure many others here) would love to be able to just wait until they crumble around me so that I don't have to make an exit, that's probably not a viable option. I'm not waiting 20 (or even 5) years for them to implode.

13

A catholic court ordered to attend jehovah's witnesses kingdomhall???

by EndofMysteries in

i just saw this news piece, http://www.onenewsnow.com/legal-courts/2014/08/25/catholic-workers-ordered-to-attend-jehovah%e2%80%99s-witness-services#.u_uee_ldv8e.

the ninth u.s. circuit court of appeals has issued a ruling that workers at a home for the disabled must attend a jehovahs witness worship service with patients who wish to attend.. in 2009, california instructed san gabriel/pomona regional center to have staff escort a jehovah's witness patient to services, but two catholic employees objected and sued on the grounds that their faith requires they only attend catholic services.. brad dacus, founder of pacific justice institute, says it's an interesting case.. we have the rights of employees under title 7, which requires reasonable accommodation for the sincerely held religious beliefs of employees, he says.

in this case, arguably that would mean not requiring these particular employees to have to sit in and attend a jehovahs witness church service.. the attorney says employers should do everything they can to meet employees faith needs, but also cannot forget the needs of the disabled in this situation.

OneEyedJoe

I just sent an email to their board liaison urging them to protect their employees by preemptively educating them on the JW's methods of indoctrination and use of undue influence.

8

THE REASON JW.ORG is a strawman tool of evangelism

by Terry in

if everybody watches what you do--they will notice all your mistakes.. the same is true of religions and religious leaders.. http://theevangelists.blogspot.com/2011/04/hall-of-shame.html.

too much exposure proved disastrous for jimmy swaggert, bob tilton, rev.

haggard, peter popoff.

OneEyedJoe

Yep, they're definitely trying to put on a good show, while continuing to insulate the R/F from the public with passive preaching carts and tract campaigns where you don't talk to anyone for more than a few seconds.

20

A STRANGE thing happened on the way to the Psychiatrist...

by PaintedToeNail in

jw
friends

he's gone apostate!

as some may remember, when i started my fade, my husband freaked out and thought i was going to leave him.

he wanted to see someone about our marriage.

OneEyedJoe

Yeah, it's amazing how the pressure from the organization can get you to say things that you don't even believe yourself. I had a number of doubts as far back as I can remember, but if anyone else brought them up I'd always tow the company line with the canned responses. It's not until those doubts hit critical mass and explode that anything externally noticable happens.

I think I've mentioned it before, the system seems designed so that thinking people will have this type of sudden explosion where they've been holding in a growing number of doubts until it's suddenly too much. That drives them to actions that seem sudden to everyone around them because of the fear of talking about your doubts. That sudden action then serves to reinforce the "mentally diseased" label that they love to stick on appostates. When a thinking person finally explodes and either speaks out, DAs or gets DF'd, the fears of the appostates are only reinforced to the R/F. It strengthens the image that not only are these people mentally diseased (what else could explain such a sudden shift in their thinking?) but also that it's contagious and to be avoided.

Congrats to PTN, though, for the role you may have had in saving this man's life from being further wasted in the cult.

37

6 branches subsidize the rest of the branches.

by hoser in

jw
friends

i went to the meeting this morning and we had some guy from overseas bethel give the public talk.

6 countries subsidize the rest.

he said in some countries all the donations that they get from contributions don't even pay the electricity bill for the branch buildings so money has to come in from these 6 richer countries.

OneEyedJoe

The last time the CO was around, about 10 minutes of one of his talks was essentially about how congregations "in western countries" sometimes don't contribute enough even to pay for the cost of their literature, while congregations in poor african countries are giving their last cent to pay as much to the org as they can. "How sad a situation it would be if those poor brothers in africa where subsidizing our magazine costs" he says. He never stated that it was a problem locally (I did an accounts audit not long ago, and I'm quite certain it's not). It was all sort of implied in a way that it seemed to be designed to give the impression that we weren't giving enough while not actually giving any information about how much we should be giving, or how much was currently being given. Clearly the goal was to get everyone to give more, regardless of whether they were already pulling their weight or not.

I've also noticed that when I was in poorer congregations, they would frequently name a dollar amount as a per-publisher monthly figure to give us an idea how much to donate, but in the congregations in better neighborhoods, they've never done this. Instead, they just make this type of generic plea for more money and throw out hypotheticals about what that money may be used for. My guess is that in the poorer congregations, most aren't pulling their weight, so the average figure is above what most are giving. In the better off congregations, they can't name a figure, because most are already giving more than that so they might actually reduce how much they get if they say how much is needed.

Another option, is that they per-publisher figure is more effective in congregations that have more large families (these also tend to be the poorer congregations) because there's probably a tendency for those folks to translate per-publisher to per-person and therefore donate for their young kids too.

When you start to see how things get treated differently from place to place, you can really see how money-grubbing the cult is.

27

public WT november 2014

by fastJehu in

since many years the nov public wt has only one color and no picture on the front cover.. very strange.

so the design department saves time and can go from door to door ...... .

download: http://download.jw.org/files/media_magazines/42/wp_e_20141101.pdf.

OneEyedJoe

Hmm, the interracial thing may not be universal. I've definitely met more people in the "world" that are in interracial marriages than in the JWs. I can only think of a handful of interracial couples, and only one case in my 30 years in the org of a black/white couple. It's certainly not due to a lack of diversity in the congregation, either.

27

public WT november 2014

by fastJehu in

since many years the nov public wt has only one color and no picture on the front cover.. very strange.

so the design department saves time and can go from door to door ...... .

download: http://download.jw.org/files/media_magazines/42/wp_e_20141101.pdf.

OneEyedJoe

Hmm, the interracial thing may not be universal. I've definitely met more people in the "world" that are in interracial marriages than in the JWs. I can only think of a handful of interracial couples, and only one case in my 30 years in the org of a black/white couple. It's certainly not due to a lack of diversity in the congregation, either.

20

A STRANGE thing happened on the way to the Psychiatrist...

by PaintedToeNail in

jw
friends

he's gone apostate!

as some may remember, when i started my fade, my husband freaked out and thought i was going to leave him.

he wanted to see someone about our marriage.

OneEyedJoe

Where's the conflict of interests? There probably isn't another doctor better suited to help your husband.

Just goes to show that it's just a ticking clock for how long inteligent/educated people can keep up the mental acrobatics necessary to stay in this cult.

5

jw apps spying on us?

by purrpurr in

jw
friends

hi everyone i'm back from the hell that was twickers.

i have a question, there's a ton a jw related apps available for download.

is it possible for these apps to be able to spy on the user once downloaded on to the tablet or phone?

OneEyedJoe

Most likely not. But personally, if I get found out by some spyware that the cult included in some app, I'll be perfectly OK with it. It'll demonstrate the level of control the cult aspires to have, and I think it will help to wake up my wife.