Posts by Jeffro

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

Jeffro

slimboyfat:

My point is that JWs are growing while most other groups are declining. You’ve given me the opportunity to prove that from census data itself, which demonstrates it even better than I impinged.

2.3% ‘growth’ in a period that the population went up 6.4% isn’t even keeping up with population growth. There are clear reasons already stated that people continue to remain JWs whereas others are more free to leave other denominations. Despite that significant pressure their actual ‘growth’ is paltry (and managed largely by popping out babies at a rate that can’t keep up with people leaving). Additionally, much larger denominations generally have a higher proportion of uninvested members whereas smaller denominations tend to mainly comprise a proportionally larger core of hardline members. Your simplistic comparisons with other denominations ignore the reasons behind the differences as well as the actual decline compared to population growth.

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

Jeffro

slimboyfat:

Jeffro you are the one who said other churches count attendees as members. This is not the case.

This is a misrepresentation of what I actually said. I didn’t say that other denominations only or specifically count attendees as members. I indicated that they don’t only count a subset of attendees in the manner that JWs do. I also showed that counting either all adherents or all attendees both give lower growth rates than the way JWs count ‘publishers’.

You now seem to be arguing that other churches have more adherents than members.

No, I didn’t say anything like that at all. I did suggest there are people who self-identify as a particular denomination but don’t attend services, but that isn’t in any way a remarkable assertion.

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

Jeffro

slimboyfat:

(Lots of duplicate posting)
Jeffro, according to the census numbers, do you think JWs are doing better or worse than other Christian groups?

Well, that was somewhat tedious. I haven’t argued that JWs haven’t had any growth nor that other denominations haven’t had poor growth. You are pushing your own separate narrative here (and you’ve done so in previous years), though JW growth isn’t what I would call ‘good’ particularly given the significant pressure that exists in the denomination to remain affiliated. In many secular countries, people have been leaving other denominations where there is much less pressure to remain members, which isn’t particularly surprising. But they aren’t running off to become JWs, and most JW growth is coming from inside their own ranks (i. e., having children), though Australia’s population grew 6.4% during this 2.3% ‘increase’ in JW numbers.

What I have consistently stated, and demonstrated, is that the JW membership as reported by themselves is skewed in favour of growth rate. If other denominations counted some subset within their ranks as the ‘members’ (though JW literature now avoids that term for legal reasons 😂 ) they too would yield higher growth rates.

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

Jeffro

slimboyfat:

I don’t know any religious group that defines membership as attendance.

I don’t know why you imagine this supports your position. 🤦‍♂️ The fact that many denominations actually count adherents rather than only regular attendees only further demonstrates why their reported growth rates are lower than those reported by JWs.

If xyz church has 100 adherents comprising 20 lapsed members and 80 regular attendees of whom 10 are young children, attendance would be reported as 80%. If 10 new people then join, their reported growth rate would be 12.5% if they count only attendees as members, but only 10% if they count all adherents as members.

If a JW congregation has 100 adherents comprising 20 'faders' and 80 regular attendees of whom 70 are regular publishers, attendance would be reported as 114%. If 10 new people then join, their reported growth rate would be 14.3%.

It is obvious that the JW method of counting ‘publishers’ inflates their reported growth rate.

I haven’t verified your assertion about census reported membership in New Zealand though this is an anomaly, not a trend. For example, in Australia from 2011 to 2016, JWs ‘rose’ from 0.4% to… 0.4% of the population, and then fell to 0.3% in 2021 according to official census data. But according to JW data they went from 0.266% of the population to 0.295% to 0.272% for the same years. The percentages for 2011 to 2021 well demonstrate that the JW-reported figures (increased) cannot reliably be directly compared to self-reported affiliation data (decreased).

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

Jeffro

slimboyfat:

As I recall your argument (feel free to provide a link) it leans heavily on the fact that the publisher number includes unbaptised publishers as well as baptised JWs.

No.

Your comparisons of growth rates between JWs and other denominations are invalid because most denominations count all attendees as members, which results in higher membership stats but lower growth rates. This is also the reason that secular surveys of JWs report higher membership numbers. And despite some cherry-picked relatively high secular growth rates for JWs for selected countries (though apparently, just New Zealand), that is not the norm.

I have previously provided examples of routine scenarios where the JW method of counting members demonstrably inflates their reported growth rate compared to analogous scenarios for denominations counting typical membership.

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

Jeffro

slimboyfat:

Your only argument boils down to the claim that the definition of “publisher” this year may be a bit more liberal than the definition of “publisher” last year

No. Not a valid representation of my position at all. I have explained the reasons previously and you either don’t understand, or you ignore the reasons why JW rates of growth seem higher than for other denominations because it goes against your narrative.

169

Are the statistics out yet?

by slimboyfat in

isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

or have they stopped publishing it?

did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

Jeffro

slimboyfat:

The JW numbers look “bad” … until you compare them with most other Christian groups which are in severe decline in the west. Compared with other Christian groups the growth of JWs bucks the trend of decline.

Apples and oranges, just like this time last year. The way JWs count membership inflates their growth rate at the expense of the stated number of members, as explained last year.

349

Who really is the Faithful and Discreet Slave?

by Godlyman in

if anyone were to come up to you claiming that they are the faithful and discreet slave, how would you go about proving them to be false, based upon scripture?.

estephan.

Jeffro

Disillusioned JW:

Vanderhove7 (and others): In the verse who or what is the household and what is the food?
If " the faithful and wise servant" "is every Christian to whom Jesus will say, “Well done my good and faithful servant!” at his parousia", then who are the servants whom "the faithful and wise servant" has been in put in charge of? Are the other servants (the ones at the receiving end instead of being the ones in charge) also Christians? If not, who are they?
Is the household each congregation of Christians (in the sense of the people who congregated together) or some congregations of Christians (in the sense of the people who congregated together)?
Is the food scriptural statements (such as explanations of scripture) made to people, whether done vocally or in writing? Is it the reading out loud of the scriptures to others? Is the food literal food which is fed to people hungry for literal food to feed their literal tummies?

No. It's a parable. It isn't necessary that each and every element 'means something'. (Especially in Protestant denominations there is a tedious tendency to insist that every little statement in the Bible has some 'greater meaning'.)

Household 'servants' were responsible for preparing meals. The original audience would understand that it is a typical function of the 'servant' in the parable to prepare meals for the household.

Notice also that the admonition in Matthew 24:49 is about beating fellow slaves (i.e. other Christians) rather than denoting any kind of leadership role over any separate hypothetical 'class' of 'domestics'.

16

Clever Misdirection

by TD in

jw
friends

i was looking at the (mostly) wrong answers to a riddle that's making the rounds on social media and thought it was a good example of how something simple (in this case, grade school math) can be distorted with words.

the riddle goes like this:.

i bought a cow for $800.. i sold it for $1000.

Jeffro

Fisherman:

As it relates to Bible prophecy, count the money (prophits) at the end of the day.

The only way this relates to 'Bible prophecy' is that both are examples of misdirection.

17

Will JWs throw you under the bus if you have a transfusion?

by Vanderhoven7 in

mark writes.

"if a person accepts a blood transfusion, the jehovah’s witness elders are required to “investigate” to see if the person is sorry for “cowardly” saving their life.

if the person doesnt beg and grovel to the elders for allowing the doctor to save their life (or that of their child) then the elders can take this as a sign that he/she has disassociated from the congregation - and tell the congregation to start shunning them.. if someone willingly takes blood, perhaps because of being under extreme pressure, the committee should obtain the facts and determine the individual’s attitude.

Jeffro

Will JWs throw you under the bus if

Regardless of how that sentence ends, the answer is generally ‘yes’.