Posts by shepherdless

6

Religion, a part of the American way of Life.

by Gorbatchov in

jw
friends

found this picture on the twitter account and it makes a wider perspective to me.. the jw religion is so part of the american way of life, just like the other religions in the us.. in the jw growth rate country's there is a market for this "better" life.

the religion makes it possible.. western europe had that marketing mix need after world war 2 and maybe a part of the cold war.. see the picture, and you know, the similarities with the jw religion, the change will be in details and not fundamental.. gorby.

.

shepherdless

Further to what SBF says, quoting from page 3 of the Pew Report of 12 May 2015:

[T]he percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% in... 2007 to 70.6% in 2014.

So in 7 years, the number of Christians in USA dropped by 10%. It is such a major change, that I am surprised more people haven't mentioned it. If that rate were to continue, USA will have a majority of unbelievers in around 20 years.

17

Evolution vs Creationism.

by Labate in

jw
friends

perhaps this has been discussed in the past, but i can't help noticing that on many posts creation vs evolution seems to equal theist vs atheist.

granted, a creationist by defination would have to believe in a creator.

on the other hand, believing in evolution doesn't automatically make one an atheist, a small point perhaps, but i think it would be more accurate to say believer vs nonbeliever.. just sayin'..

shepherdless

Landy,

My understanding is pretty much what Vidiot states. There was still the concept of "original sin" though, which may seem contradictory.

I have difficulty explaining it now, because I have not believed any of it for a very long time.

Edit: I did not see Landy's last post, before posting.

17

Evolution vs Creationism.

by Labate in

jw
friends

perhaps this has been discussed in the past, but i can't help noticing that on many posts creation vs evolution seems to equal theist vs atheist.

granted, a creationist by defination would have to believe in a creator.

on the other hand, believing in evolution doesn't automatically make one an atheist, a small point perhaps, but i think it would be more accurate to say believer vs nonbeliever.. just sayin'..

shepherdless

Landy:

So I'm not sure you can be a (proper) Christian and believe in evolution.

I was born into and grew up in a strict Catholic family, taught by priests and nuns, etc. There was never any objection to the concept of evolution. In fact, we were taught that it was an error to try to read the bible as a book of science, or as a book of history, or that there was an actual garden of Eden. All those stories had messages in them to tease out. Put another way, I was taught that to read Genesis literally, was to miss the point of the message of being a Christian.

So I have to disagree.

12

TheNew World Society in Action....

by Lostandfound in

jw
friends

back in the early 60s the phrase .

"the new world society..." was used a lot to promote assemblies and even congregations.

of course no new world has come but that saying appears to have been quietly buried along with any hope of a new world..

shepherdless

Landy - New Order were the renamed Joy Division after Curtis committed suicide

Actually it was the other way around. "Joy Division" became "New Order", one of the greatest bands of the 80s, but one of the most boring, live.

I think the phrase "New World Order" came from a HG Wells book.

13

Ekala Convention Hall To be Sold - Sri Lanka

by Sanath in

sri lanka has only one convention hall which is situated at 44, agaraduguru mawatha,ekala,ja-ela wp.

this was built on some where around 1990's.

now the sri lanka branch committee has decided to sale the property.what is the reason behind this??????????????

shepherdless

According to yearbooks, Sri Lanka had a respectable 3% growth last year, and 4% the year before.

WTBS must still be having cashflow issues. When a large corporation is having cashflow issues, the outer branches typically suffer the most. Sri Lanka is probably an outer branch as far as Brooklyn is concerned.

36

Estimating future growth or decline of Watchtower

by shepherdless in

i have seen a few posts here, in various guises, in relation to whether watchtower is in decline.

plenty of people respond, but it is all fairly anecdotal, or "gut feel".

some of it has been wishful thinking.. as of late 2015, watchtower's numbers suggest it is still growing marginally, but there are various anecdotes on this site of publishers typically being older, and younger ones disappearing.

shepherdless

I have just been looking more deeply into the Pew Report for USA. The figures are not as good as they seem at first blush. The median ages calculated in that report are for adults (those aged 18 or over), not the entire population. According to the report the median age for adults in USA in 2014 was 46 (compared to 37.6 for the entire population in 2015).

So the Pew Report median age of:

- 50 yrs in 2014 was really equivalent to a population median of around 41 or 42; and

- 45 yrs in 2007 was really the equivalent to a population median of around 36 or 37.

Those numbers in isolation would lead someone to predict continued growth after 2007, and flat growth or very marginal decline after 2014. That is not real news, unfortunately.

36

Estimating future growth or decline of Watchtower

by shepherdless in

i have seen a few posts here, in various guises, in relation to whether watchtower is in decline.

plenty of people respond, but it is all fairly anecdotal, or "gut feel".

some of it has been wishful thinking.. as of late 2015, watchtower's numbers suggest it is still growing marginally, but there are various anecdotes on this site of publishers typically being older, and younger ones disappearing.

shepherdless

Hi all, apologies for not getting back to this earlier. I haven't had a chance to even look at this website in the last couple of days.

Thanks for all of the various comments. Some brief comments back, on a few of them:

DOC - I agree that WTBS seems to be maintaining favorable statistics by making it easier and easier to be a publisher.

SBF - I was not aware of any of those publications and links. I will read them when I have the chance. They look really useful.

Ignorance is bliss - yes, you would count all attendees, including babies and toddlers.

Mephis - I read the Pew report when it came out, but I had not picked up on the median age of JW's in the USA going from 45 to 50 from 2007 to 2014. That is awesome! By comparison, median age in USA overall in 2015 was 37.6.

I will try to add a few more comments tomorrow.

36

Estimating future growth or decline of Watchtower

by shepherdless in

i have seen a few posts here, in various guises, in relation to whether watchtower is in decline.

plenty of people respond, but it is all fairly anecdotal, or "gut feel".

some of it has been wishful thinking.. as of late 2015, watchtower's numbers suggest it is still growing marginally, but there are various anecdotes on this site of publishers typically being older, and younger ones disappearing.

shepherdless

Hi OldHippie,

you are correct that there are a lot of factors involved. However, they can be dealt with. For example, in relation to Poland, the median age of the Polish population overall is 39.5 years. If i had the median ages for half a dozen Polish congregations, and I combine them, and get an overall median age of, say, 45 years, I know there will be a decline in Poland, irrespective of how many Polish citizens have moved, other factors, etc. I may even be able to estimate a rough rate of decline.

36

Estimating future growth or decline of Watchtower

by shepherdless in

i have seen a few posts here, in various guises, in relation to whether watchtower is in decline.

plenty of people respond, but it is all fairly anecdotal, or "gut feel".

some of it has been wishful thinking.. as of late 2015, watchtower's numbers suggest it is still growing marginally, but there are various anecdotes on this site of publishers typically being older, and younger ones disappearing.

shepherdless

Hi Sir82,

here is two of the paragraphs that disappeared, and now reinserted:

If you still attend Kingdom Hall, you could look around and try to estimate the median age of your congregation, which is the theoretical age that exactly half are older than, and half are younger than. There is mostly no need to know or guess anyone's actual age, or work out averages. Just start with your guestimate of the median age, and count those who are above and those who are below it. If the numbers aren't even, adjust your guestimate and count again. (I think it is easier in practice than how it may sound, reading this.)
If estimating the median age as described above seems complicated, you could simply count the ratio of attendees over and under the age of, say, 50. That would still be useful info.

36

Estimating future growth or decline of Watchtower

by shepherdless in

i have seen a few posts here, in various guises, in relation to whether watchtower is in decline.

plenty of people respond, but it is all fairly anecdotal, or "gut feel".

some of it has been wishful thinking.. as of late 2015, watchtower's numbers suggest it is still growing marginally, but there are various anecdotes on this site of publishers typically being older, and younger ones disappearing.

shepherdless

Hi nigget and wannaexit.

When I made my original post, some paragraphs mysteriously disappeared. I have reinserted them.