Posts by Jeffro

20

240 'Lands'

by Jeffro in

jehovah's witnesses are purportedly 'active' in 240 'lands', quite a remarkable feat for a planet with only about 200 sovereign states (206 if you count all that are recognised by at least one un member, of which jws are present in 166).

more than half of all jws worldwide are in just 10 countries.

over 90% are in 45 countries.. to achieve this mathematical miracle, various places that are not separate countries are counted as 'lands'.. tahiti is counted as a separate 'land' though it is part of the society islands, which is part of french polynesia, which is part of... france.

Jeffro

Did they use to count the channel islands as separate lands? When did they stop?

Either the late 1990s or early 2000s if memory serves correctly. But it may have been in the service reports that used to appear in The Watchtower.

20

240 'Lands'

by Jeffro in

jehovah's witnesses are purportedly 'active' in 240 'lands', quite a remarkable feat for a planet with only about 200 sovereign states (206 if you count all that are recognised by at least one un member, of which jws are present in 166).

more than half of all jws worldwide are in just 10 countries.

over 90% are in 45 countries.. to achieve this mathematical miracle, various places that are not separate countries are counted as 'lands'.. tahiti is counted as a separate 'land' though it is part of the society islands, which is part of french polynesia, which is part of... france.

Jeffro

Jehovah's Witnesses are purportedly 'active' in 240 'lands', quite a remarkable feat for a planet with only about 200 sovereign states (206 if you count all that are recognised by at least one UN member, of which JWs are present in 166). More than half of all JWs worldwide are in just 10 countries. Over 90% are in 45 countries.

To achieve this mathematical miracle, various places that are not separate countries are counted as 'lands'.

Tahiti is counted as a separate 'land' though it is part of the Society Islands, which is part of French Polynesia, which is part of... France. Ten other 'lands' are also overseas constituencies of France.
Britain's external territories make up nine extra 'lands'.
The Northern Mariana Islands belong to the United States, but are counted as three separate 'lands'; four other US dependencies are also listed as separate 'lands'.
The former Netherlands Antilles are part of the Netherlands, but make up six separate 'lands'.
Two extra 'lands' each are squeezed out of Denmark's and Portugal's territories.
The Federated States of Micronesia is counted as four separate 'lands'.
If Saint Kitts & Nevis is satisfied with one seat on the UN, how happifying it must be to make up two separate JW 'lands'.
Even Mauritius gets two separate 'lands'.
Norfolk Island is part of Australia but is a separate JW 'land'.
Though they are 'not involved in politics', the Watch Tower Society recognises Kosovo, Palestine and Taiwan as separate 'lands'. If they ever want legal recognition in China, Taiwan will probably have to disappear from the list first.

The 'logic' employed is not always clear:

Hawaii used to be counted as a separate 'land' but for several years, this has been 'reinstated' as part of the United States (along with Alaska which also used to be reported separately). It is not clear whether these unruly states had been disfellowshipped or 'disassociated by their actions'.
JW literature has reported that there are members on Easter Island (Chile), but this apparently is not a separate 'land'.
The Watch Tower Society seems unfamiliar with the English names for East Timor and Ivory Coast.

The Watch Tower Society reports that they also preach in 30 "other lands", though there are 33 UN-member states not included in their report. Of course, if they have trouble in those countries, there's plenty of other ways to 'increase' the number of 'lands' in which they're 'active':

Resume counting Hawaii as a separate 'land', and extend this 'logic' to Easter Island (Chile), Tasmania (Australia), Tokelau (New Zealand), and other islands as deemed necessary.
Resume counting Alaska separately, and extend this 'logic' to Åland (Finland) and Kaliningrad (Russia).
Count Britain as four separate countries (though this would reduce their statistics for 'Ireland', which they think includes Northern Ireland), and resume counting the Channel Islands as separate 'lands'.
They've already set several precedents for hiving off Tobago as a separate 'land' from Trinidad. While they're add it, count Barbuda as separate to Antigua.
Do some 'prison witnessing' on Christmas Island (Australia). Maybe send a sacked 'Bethelite' to Cocos Island too.
Send a sacked 'Bethelite' to freeze to death in Svalbard (Norway).
Separate Bosnia & Herzegovina into separate 'lands', and add Srpska to get three 'lands' from one country.
Grant 'recognition' of Azad Kashmir, Nagorno-Karabakh, Northern Cyprus, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transnistria and Zanzibar. (Cyrenaica, Kurdistan, Somaliland and Western Sahara are in places that are somewhat less friendly and wouldn't do them much good.)

33

Creative day 7000 years, is this correct and how did the Org come up with this idea?

by Crazyguy in

any body know?

Jeffro

ttdtt:

They have kinda backed away from that, admitting the creative days may have been "many thousands" of years long.
Kinda.

Kinda is right. They don't still directly claim that the so-called 'creative days' were 7,000 years each, but nor has it ever been explicitly disclaimed. They now refer to the collective 'creative days' as 'many thousands of years', but never refer to them as millions or billions of years (though they apply such terms for the imaginary period between the fairytale-ish 'in the beginning' and the 'first creative day').

42

2016 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

by wifibandit in

the 2016 yearbook is now on the official site.

pdf.

it has been added to the archive of all prior yearbooks.

Jeffro

The increase in peak publishers is 0.2% - the lowest since 1979.

38

New Word Coined In April 2016 WT!

by Naoscillator in

and the word is... .

canaanitelike!.

here it is in context, just in case you're curious about how to use this new word.. article: being faithful leads to god's approval.

Jeffro

w07 5/15 p. 9:

Jehovah detests literal human sacrifice, one of the wicked practices of the Canaanites.

18

Can't Understand Why This Is Allowed

by mariet in

i moved to roseburg, oregon.

the jehovah's witnesses are allowed to set up a display and man it right outside of the local library, and they are there every day and hour the library is open.

i am [redacted], the director of the douglas county library system and wanted to respond to your website email of december 11, 2015. i have consulted with the county attorneys office about your concern about jehovahs witnesses use of the front porch of the library building in roseburg, and my understanding of the law is as follows.. .

Jeffro

just fine:

Would they allow hate speech? Because that is what the message about the LGBT community is from the witnesses.

Unless they are actually saying things about the LGBT community on the library porch, that is entirely irrelevant.

125

Watchtower purchases CoC copyright for undisclosed amount!

by the girl next door in

now what is your stance?

Jeffro

OrphanCrow:

Thirdly, an underlying principle that is part of the establishment of the copyright laws is such that the protection of ownership of "creative material" would stimulate more creative projects/endeavours. That is one of the primary purposes of copyright.
Fourthly, the publication of "fact" is not creative.

Your understanding of what constitutes "creative material" is incorrect. Though facts are not specifically subject to copyright, the manner in which facts are expressed are subject to copyright. Whether a work purports to be fictional or factual is irrelevant.

14

Watchtower Web Domains

by Petraglyph in

jw
friends

i did some reverse domain lookups to see what web domains were linked to watchtower.

i did reverse lookups on the hostmaster address, building address, and phone number.

i've sorted and deduplicated the results.. bethelres.org.

Jeffro

Petraglyph:

jw2020.org <-- I wonder why they feel the need to do this?

The 2016 domain name indicates that these year-based domain names are for information about special conventions in the given year.

14

Watchtower Web Domains

by Petraglyph in

jw
friends

i did some reverse domain lookups to see what web domains were linked to watchtower.

i did reverse lookups on the hostmaster address, building address, and phone number.

i've sorted and deduplicated the results.. bethelres.org.

Jeffro

LevelThePlayingField:

I have often wondered why they have mirrored other websites to go to their JW.Org site anyways. Like the ps8318 site.

ps8318 = Psalm 83:18. It's not particularly surprising that they have registered domain names based on some of their favourite Bible verses as redirects to their website or as placeholders for future sites. (Hence hag27, heb412, isa4310, lu2343, mr1310, mt1016, mt1130, mt2414, mt711, pr221-22, pr2711, pr418, ps8318, re213-4, zac823.)

10

Did Jesus attend a "worldly celebration"?

by Westenddave in

hello community,.

my question in a nutshell is whether there is justification in celebrating worldly holidays, such as the 4th of july in the usa?.

let's look at a parallel.

Jeffro

Diogenesister:

Jeffro is this why the Jews don't consider Daniel a prophet and actually its said these are "writings" or stories ( historians say pure fantasy and not historical) because the Maccabees were not god approved as such? Just wondered. It certainly seems that the Millerites and end time lot like the JWs are the only ones who set any great store in Daniel, is this not so? Do let me know if anyone knows anything please?

There is broad consensus among scholars that the book of Daniel was written by anonymous authors in the middle of the 2nd century BCE, and there are no references to it earlier than that period. The Jews considered the prophetic canon to be closed by the beginning of the 2nd century BCE. The first six chapters appear to be adapted from older folk tales, and as explained in the article I linked, re-worked to fit the theme of banning and subsequent restoration of Jewish worship under Antiochus IV. Chapters 2-6 were not even originally written in the same language as the rest of the book. Chapter 4 doesn't even claim to be written by 'Daniel', but is instead supposedly narrated by Nebuchadnezzar (but it borrows from an older tale about Nabonidus).