Posts by besty

46

Should doctors tell JW patients that there is disagreement about Watchtower's blood policy.

by Lee Elder in

this has been a controversial issue among doctors and medical ethicists.

i think it basically comes down to the fact that physicians have a responsibility to establish the presence of informed consent.

is it really possible for a person to give informed consent if they are not accurately informed?.

besty

Your post that you refer to above and your premise was debunked

no it wasn't - what actually happened was you got your ass handed to you.

11

Ever wondered which country in the JW Annual Report is most likely to reflect overall decline/progress of the WTS?

by besty in

a bit of spreadsheet fun - trying to ascertain which country is the bellwether for the wts.. my methodology was as follows:.

take the individual ar's from 2010 - 2016 and calculate an accurate (.00) ave pub increase/decrease for each country.

sort the countries into descending order by this value with the grand total row included in the mix.. assign the countries 5 places above and 5 places below the grand total 1 point.

besty

also this is just based on 2015 - would be better if all available years could be modelled to show trends over time

24

Money Grab started in India

by cognitivedizzy in

jw
friends

i don't know how the fellow who made the resolution from stage to send 80% of the congregation funds to the indian branch as an outright donation made it with a straight face.

and all the sheeples nodded like they understood the shit he were spewing.

i'm so mad at this cult .

besty

@theoldhippie link please, for your assertion.

38

Anthony Morris Says The Governing Body Is Not Dogmatic, But Simply Must Be Obeyed If You Want Jehovah's Blessing

by Brokeback Watchtower in

warning lots of compartmentalization going on, with huge leaps in logic and a whole lot of just beleive me because i say so.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhyfm-zikbq.

ultimatum stop the practice of shunning or lose your charity status.

by joe134cd in

just curious what would wt do if a government said reform your policy on shunning or you will lose your charity status.

we will also be monitoring your reforms and there will be consequences if not brought up to our standards.

besty

It will be interesting to see if the ARC push for female representation in judicial matters involving allegations of child sexual abuse, and the Watchtower reaction to that.

11

Ever wondered which country in the JW Annual Report is most likely to reflect overall decline/progress of the WTS?

by besty in

a bit of spreadsheet fun - trying to ascertain which country is the bellwether for the wts.. my methodology was as follows:.

take the individual ar's from 2010 - 2016 and calculate an accurate (.00) ave pub increase/decrease for each country.

sort the countries into descending order by this value with the grand total row included in the mix.. assign the countries 5 places above and 5 places below the grand total 1 point.

besty

I think different countries are on different trajectories because they are at different stages - some of the older, established JW stronghold countries are now past their peak and in decline, while for others it's a new religion with lots of scope for growth.

@simon definitely. although the countries listed in the OP 'should' be close to the meagre growth rates of the WTS globally, that being the point of the analysis :-)

if you were to use lower hours preaching per net new publisher as a proxy for 'enthusiasm' it would interesting to see if there is a correlation to higher growth rates...???

44

Governing Body Letter details things that "have never been done before." - Really?

by cappytan in

jw
friends

[note: copy/pasted this with permission from reddit.].

once each year, the governing body writes a direct letter to the congregation members included in the yearbook.

in his annual message to the catholic faithful (urbi et orbi) delivered on christmas day, the pope spoke about world peace, terrorism, and the refugee crisis.

besty

In their search for spiritual guidance, they discovered our website.

They do realise that exploring the Internet (beyond jw.org) for spiritual guidance is strictly forbidden ?

11

Ever wondered which country in the JW Annual Report is most likely to reflect overall decline/progress of the WTS?

by besty in

a bit of spreadsheet fun - trying to ascertain which country is the bellwether for the wts.. my methodology was as follows:.

take the individual ar's from 2010 - 2016 and calculate an accurate (.00) ave pub increase/decrease for each country.

sort the countries into descending order by this value with the grand total row included in the mix.. assign the countries 5 places above and 5 places below the grand total 1 point.

besty

A bit of spreadsheet fun - trying to ascertain which country is the bellwether for the WTS.

My methodology was as follows:

Take the individual AR's from 2010 - 2016 and calculate an accurate (.00) Ave Pub Increase/Decrease for each country. Sort the countries into descending order by this value with the Grand Total row included in the mix.

Assign the countries 5 places above and 5 places below the Grand Total 1 point. This is to reflect that these countries are very close to the Grand Total 'average' figure, but in reality are basically random small countries that will vary from year to year.

Look for 'large' countries eg more than 70k pubs within a range of about 0.7% of the Grand Total figure. Assign these countries a score of 3 points.

Maximum points for any country per year would be 4. Total possible points for the 6 years would be 24.

Total the points across the 6 AR's and the country with the highest points total is most like the global org. With me?

And the top 10 countries are: <drum roll pls>

Brazil 16

Chile 14

South Africa 14

Nigeria 13

Colombia 10

Peru 9

Zambia 8

Russia 7

Cuba 6

USA 6

So there you have it - if you want a quick clue on whats going on with the WTS keep your eye on Brazil, Chile and South Africa.

30

What are the economics of cart witnessing?

by slimboyfat in

on another thread shepherdless sketched out the past business model of jws and its demise.

until 1990 they were a straightforward publishing business with the tremendous advantage of free labour in production and free distribution agents.

since then they've been relying on donations for literature to keep the old model going.

besty

I think they must have had a ton of CO feedback in Western countries that knocking doors is a complete waste of time - they can also see for themselves the average hours preaching to create a new publisher is now 6x what it was in the early 1980's. http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/statistics.php

people that answer the door are not interested in an American jam tomorrow religion that is best known for child abuse scandals and wacky medical ideas. (see todays Google News search for jehovahs witnesses below this post for details)

Given that door to door is broken what else could qualify as low skill busy work?

Not that long ago every commuter in London would pay £0.50 on the way home to read the Evening Standard. So the publisher would have ad revenue, sponsorships, paid for product placements, joint ventures (eg Holidays) AND the reader would pay real money for it. It's now being handed out for free.

The WTS has much of the publishing overhead with none of the commercial benefits, and they are also giving away their material.

Good luck with that. They will have to go 100% digital and pump the flock for direct cash.

*Todays Google Search for JW news:

Jehovah's Witness pervert who got sexual kicks from strangling ...

Mirror.co.uk-16 hours ago

A Jehovah's Witness who got sexual kicks from strangling young girls went unpunished for years after his activities were covered up by the ...

Jehovah's Witness Ian Pheasey strangled children for sexual ...

Metro-1 hour ago

Explore in depth (3 more articles)

Story image for jehovahs witnesses from Reveal (blog)

Jehovah's Witnesses leaders say they don't protect sexual abusers

Reveal (blog)-21 Dec 2015

In the face of evidence that the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in Australia failed to report more than 1,000 allegations of child sexual abuse, ...

Story image for jehovahs witnesses from Daily Mail

Jehovah's Witnesses to make $1b from sale of New York ...

Daily Mail-13 Dec 2015

The Jehovah's Witness movement was founded in the 1870s by Charles Taze Russell who moved the Society's headquarters to Brooklyn, New ...

Jehovah's Witnesses could get $1 billion for NYC properties

Yahoo News-13 Dec 2015

Explore in depth (130 more articles)

Story image for jehovahs witnesses from Reveal (blog)

How Jehovah's Witness leaders are responding to child abuse scrutiny

Reveal (blog)-15 Dec 2015

Besieged by reports that Jehovah's Witnesses shield child sexual abusers from prosecution, the religion's top leadership appears to have ...

New York Real Estate: Jehovah's Witnesses Are Selling Their NYC ...

Realty Today-15 Dec 2015

Explore in depth (5 more articles)

Story image for jehovahs witnesses from West Virginia Public Broadcasting

December 24,1942: Reinstatement of Seven Jehovah's Witnesses at ...

West Virginia Public Broadcasting-24 Dec 2015

On December 24, 1942, the President's Committee on Fair Employment Practices ordered that seven Jehovah's Witnesses have their jobs ..

20

Statistics - Spreadsheets - Opinion

by berrygerry in

so, spent a fair bit of time on the stats.. the 2010-2015 numbers are available here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0bwv5uvzb3-67axpzavk0m0nttfe&usp=sharing.

also there are spreadsheets of: ratios, peak-pubs, and the best is a combo of ratios, peak pubs & average pubs.. you can play with these by "select all" and "sort" according to your preference.. if you would like any other combination, i would try to create it and post it for you.. of interest:.

as has been noted, the biggest standout of 2015 is the increase of only 18k in peak pubs while having 260k baptized.

besty

Hey Lurking Bethel Heavies - yes you!

My advice for 2016 is to continue battering the flock as this will improve morale. Hopefully all those lying apostates will quieten down about the ch*ld ab*se and money will continue flowing in.

Listen - if things get really bad you can always go with an actual end times date, you know- like an end times cult really outta have one.

Good luck and see you in 2017!

P