Posts by Jeffro

"The Scriptural basis for these adjustments will be shared with the worldwide brotherhood in the November 2023 JW Broadcast program. We know you will want to watch that program ASAP!"

I believe the internal conversation would have gone something a little like this:

Geoffrey Jackson: We have the statistics for this year's Service Report™, and just like the last few years, growth is nowhere near where we would like it!

Mark Sanderson: We need a new way to boost growth!

David Splane: Well, we already inflate the perception of 'growth' by only counting people who preach, rather than all adherents like regular churches.

Gerrit Lösch: Right, so we need to something else to get those report numbers up!

Gage Fleegle: Obviously. But some of the brothers might be embarrassed about reporting a low number of hours, or ashamed of lying about the specific number of hours they did. Or worried that they will get a shepherding call if they aren't placing literature.

Jeffrey Winder: Right! Let's just tell the brothers they don't have to report any of that anymore... just tick a box to say they preached. Even a lot of Inactive™ brothers might be okay with just ticking a box.

Stephen Lett: The number of Active™ Witnesses will skyrocket! When the 2024 report comes out, we can say "Jehovah is speeding up the work in the final days of the last days"!

Kenneth Cook: Good... good... but we still need an incentive for the ones who want to feel better than everyone else. Let's keep the reporting rules for 'pioneers' to report hours and literature. And we can keep the perception of interest by still letting everyone report their own children as Bible Studies™.

Samuel Herd: Huh... oh... that was a lovely nap! Did I miss anything?

83

Thought on “0 hours” reporting

by FFGhost in

so everyone knows the “big news” of this past weekend, no more reporting of hours, placements, return visits, etc.

beginning november 1, jws just tick a box indicating whether they “shared in any form of the ministry during the month”.. so there was a brief comment by a redditor that seems like a brief joke “throwaway comment” but after thinking about it….why not?.

the idea is, what is “any form of the ministry”?

Jeffro

Now that 'inactive' JWs can just tick a box because they mentioned their religion to their neighbour in passing for 3 seconds, they can be counted as 'active'.

Look forward to a significant 'increase' in the report for 2024. 🙄 But they have to release the report for 2023 first...

4

Changes to prophecy

by Rattigan350 in

the search feature is not easy to find things so i'll start a new topic.. the july 2022 w had this picture.. .

note that they say satan and his demons were cast out of heaven, about 1914. their math is getting fuzzier.. and there was a recent topic on here about the 1000 year reign.

this shows that it starts at armageddon..

Jeffro

Kosonen:

I believe the ousting of Satan from heaven is still a future event.

I suppose this is correct in the loose sense that 'it hasn't happened yet', but only because it is a fiction that will never happen.

Notably, there are no correct dates in the timeline. Even if it could be established that Jesus is accurately portrayed in the stories written about him decades later, he would have been born in 4BC, baptised 26AD, and died 30AD. Abraham is a fictitious allegorical character, but if he existed at all, then based on the Bible, it wasn't in 1943 BC. (The actual placement of Abraham depends on which interpretation is taken for the spurious '400 years of enslavement in Egypt' starting from either Ishmael teasing Isaac or after Jacob went to Egypt, though both versions result in inconsistencies, and neither arrives at 1943BC.) The concept of Satan being 'cast out of heaven to the vicinity of the earth' contradicts the Watch Tower Society's position that the 'spirit realm' is independent of any physical location in the universe. And that's all before we get to their beliefs about 1914 being nonsense.

33

Awake! No.1 2023, A United Nations Advertisement?

by EasyPrompt in

awake!

magazine no.1 2023 and united nations promotions.

page 3, "world meteorological association".

Jeffro

I note Journeyman used some obviously fallacious 'reasoning':

Here's what I mean. I count only one generally positive quote attributable to the UN. Most of the positive statements are from publications, not bodies like the UN or WHO.

He went on to quote statements perceived to be positive or negative in the article. However, quoting 'negative' statements made by the UN about things that are not caused by the UN, and concluding that the article is negative (or even 'not positive') about the UN is a false equivocation.

Whether or not it was the intention of the Watch Tower Society to 'promote the UN' is arguable. But regardless of the intention, the article does specifically attempt to raise awareness about issues of concern to UN bodies. And that was one of the requirements when the Watch Tower Society was previously affiliated with the UN DPI.

5

Current Member Stats/Numbers

by NotFormer in

i remember that the wt used to regularly publish their membership and memorial attendance numbers.

was that in the watchtower?.

how would i find the current numbers by country?

Jeffro

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=Jehovah%27s+Witnesses+by+country

14

Facts or Biasedness?

by Ardian in

the watchtower and awake have been listed as the most popular magazines.the figures are astonishing.

i am not sure whether it is based on reality or not.. source: https://tingtopten.com/2020/01/top-10-most-popular-magazines-in-the-world/.

i have seen the link on many social media networks.

Jeffro

FFGhost:

How can a single 16 page "magazine" (with maybe 6 actual pages of text after you take away the 2 inch margins and multiple photos and triple-spaced bullet points) be the "most popular"?

Indeed. The latest Public Edition not only has less than a third of the word count of the last 32-page edition (2012), but with all the whitespace and dumbing down, it’s less than two thirds of the word count of the first 16-page edition.

20

Did Isaiah even predict Cyrus' name 150 years ago?

by pokertopia in

did isaiah even predict cyrus' name 150 years ago?.

there were two types of prophets: individual prophets and court prophets.

for example, before ahab went to war, 400 court prophets predicted ahab's victory, but michaya, an individual prophet, predicted his defeat.

Jeffro

🤦‍♂️

20

Did Isaiah even predict Cyrus' name 150 years ago?

by pokertopia in

did isaiah even predict cyrus' name 150 years ago?.

there were two types of prophets: individual prophets and court prophets.

for example, before ahab went to war, 400 court prophets predicted ahab's victory, but michaya, an individual prophet, predicted his defeat.

Jeffro

Vidqun:

He was there as an eyewitness.

😂 No. He’s wasn’t. Ezra want even born yet in 539 BCE.

20

Did Isaiah even predict Cyrus' name 150 years ago?

by pokertopia in

did isaiah even predict cyrus' name 150 years ago?.

there were two types of prophets: individual prophets and court prophets.

for example, before ahab went to war, 400 court prophets predicted ahab's victory, but michaya, an individual prophet, predicted his defeat.

Jeffro

🤦‍♂️'What you have' is simply deference to your chosen religious tradition which is not supported by any direct evidence, and is contradicted by direct contemporary evidence.

The funny thing is, Ezra and Josephus both claim to quote a written decree, which not only isn't verifiable from any contemporary source, and contradicts the contemporary sources, but Josephus inserts a remarkable claim about Cyrus supposedly including mention of the 'prophecy' in his decree, which Ezra doesn't include even though he was much closer to the purported events. This on its own is a glaringly obvious clue to the fact that the claim inserted by Josephus (that Cyrus was supposedly aware of the 'prophecy' from Isaiah) was a tradition made up either by Josephus himself or after Ezra's time at the earliest.

Vidqun:

Lot of hearsay there.

No part of what I said was hearsay (unless you mean the claims made by Ezra and Josephus, but somehow I don't think so). I'm not sure you understand what the word means.