slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

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  26

  Age Appropriate Friends

  by Riley in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  we have a 25 year guy in our hall who is also a pioneer (which means he lives off his parents money), who likes to spend a lot of time with a 16 year old girl in the hall.

  it is usually in a group setting but he seems to gravitate toward her.

  he even has her auxilary pioneering , which is something i don't think any student trying to make the grades needs.

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  slimboyfat

  You could say something if you’re concerned - 16 seems too young for a 25 year old. She should finish school or be at least 18 before dating. There’s perhaps too little information to go on here. Other relevant factors might include where are the parents here? What country is this? Has he dated other sisters? Has she dated other brothers? How sure are you that he is interested in her? What does the phrase “has her auxiliary pioneering” mean? He put her up to it? How do you know?

  I don’t think it could harm if you expressed genuine concern reasonably. Why not talk to her parents rather than an elder? If you make it clear it’s genuine concern, and not some kind of congregational action, it might be received okay. Then again, maybe a relevant safe-guarder would be more appropriate than a parent, if any exist in the congregation.

  Do you have a trusted person in the congregation you can ask if they view the situation similarly, or if they have more information, or a different perspective?

  Maybe there’s a qualified person here who can give a better answer.
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  408

  Is Jesus the Creator?

  by Sea Breeze in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  that's what the word says.

  .

  colossians 1:16. for by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through him and for him..

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  slimboyfat

  Wasn’t Harnack a liberal though, which is enough to disqualify him for some. 😛
  I think Martin Werner cites Harnack in support of his view that the Jews were expecting an angelic messiah.
  Yes I’ve found the page and footnote here:

  Ad. v. Harnack, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, Bd. 1, 5. Aufl., I93I, p. 115.

  
  
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  88

  Annual Report

  by St George of England in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the latest report is now available for download on our favourite website!.

  george.

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  slimboyfat

  What do you mean, Sanchy?

  And vidiot, if you think JWs are the only ones who play on phones in church you’d be surprised. Some churches I’ve attended young people are habitually looking at other stuff on their phones, much more than in the KH. It’s funny how people assume any indications of distractions or exaggeration are peculiar to JWs when in fact you get the same in other groups, often more so.
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  408

  Is Jesus the Creator?

  by Sea Breeze in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  that's what the word says.

  .

  colossians 1:16. for by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through him and for him..

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  slimboyfat

  Generally, Adoptionism held an eternal Christ inhabited a human Jesus from baptism till moments before death.

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoptionism

  Adoptionism denies the eternal pre-existence of Christ, and although it explicitly affirms his deity subsequent to events in his life, many classical trinitarians claim that the doctrine implicitly denies it by denying the constant hypostatic union of the eternal Logos to the human nature of Jesus.
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  2952

  It's been a long 9 years Lloyd Evans / John Cedars (continued)

  by Simon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  uh oh, looks like the mega thread gave up the ghost, so while i investigate / fix it just continue the discussion here .... it's been a long 9 years lloyd evans / john cedars.

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  slimboyfat

  Comparing the latest bounce from his begging video with the previous one, I wonder if LE is familiar with diminishing returns?

  
  
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  88

  Annual Report

  by St George of England in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the latest report is now available for download on our favourite website!.

  george.

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  slimboyfat

  I wonder if the slower decline of JWs is due, in part, to the door-to-door work they did for so long.

  To be clear, JWs don’t have a “slower decline” than other churches. They are increasing while other churches are decreasing. That’s not slower, that’s opposite directions. And yes, door to door preaching must be part of the explanation.

  Another common mistake is to say that JW growth is below population growth. But that’s not true either. World population growth is now under 1% per year. Apart from a couple of years, JW growth has been consistently higher than population growth.
  

  I have been expecting JWs to start declining for decades, but it hasn’t happened yet. I still think they will probably start declining at some point, maybe within 10 years, everything else being equal. But then who knows what will happen in the world in general, with wars, climate change, AI, pandemics, and more, and what impact all that could have.
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  88

  Annual Report

  by St George of England in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the latest report is now available for download on our favourite website!.

  george.

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  slimboyfat

  Joe, active Mormons are as few as 20% of the official membership in many countries, and even that is taking “active” as a lower bar than JWs. Apply that to their worldwide membership and their active membership could be under 4 million. But it’s probably a little higher than that because activity rates are stronger in the US than elsewhere. Even so, there are far fewer Mormons than JWs worldwide. The most rigorous academic study of Mormons and JWs by Lawson and Xydias concluded that on a like for like basis there are 8.6 million Mormon adherents compared with 17.2 million JW adherents worldwide. That means that worldwide the JW community is around twice the size of the Mormons.

  See details in their article which is available online through a google search.

  Lawson, R., & Xydias, G. K. (2020). Reassessing the size of Mormons, Adventists and Witnesses: Using census data to test the reliability of membership data and accounting for the disparate patterns found. Review of Religious Research, 62(3), 413-437.
  
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  88

  Annual Report

  by St George of England in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the latest report is now available for download on our favourite website!.

  george.

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  slimboyfat

  That’s fair enough, Pew provides some evidence for that conclusion. It needs to be qualified because the number of JWs in the sample was very small and has a large margin of error. JWs rely on converts for growth to a greater extent than most churches, so this stands to reason.

  Groups that have a stable community identity, such as the Catholic Church in Catholic countries, and Mormons in Utah, have high retention because members are surrounded by other members and social pressure is to remain a member or to identify as a member even if inactive. For JWs, outside of a few communities, perhaps in places like Guadeloupe and Zambia, JWs are always a minority in larger society, so there isn’t that same pressure on that front.

  Mormons outside of the United States clearly have very low retention rates. It is common practice for missionaries to visit people for only six weeks before baptism. After baptism some new members never see the inside of Mormon church again. This is turnover on steroids and is the reason why the Mormon church ends up claiming 500,000 members in Chile while only 100,000 describe themselves as Mormons, even after missionaries have knocked on their door to try to remind them they were baptised as Mormons years in the past.
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  88

  Annual Report

  by St George of England in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the latest report is now available for download on our favourite website!.

  george.

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  slimboyfat

  Fair enough.

  Have you got any evidence for your other claim? Because it would be interesting information if there is evidence for it.

  JWs do also have a very high churn rate compared to other denominations
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  88

  Annual Report

  by St George of England in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the latest report is now available for download on our favourite website!.

  george.

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  slimboyfat

  What has that got to do with JWs growing while other churches are declining and your assertion that it is invalid to make this observation/comparison?

  You can say it’s invalid to state the facts all you like. JWs keep growing and most other churches keep declining whether you think it’s valid to point it out or not.