Posts by shepherdless

41

New study - JWs by far the least educated religious group in Canada, Australia and New Zealand

by slimboyfat in

the religion of the educated classes revisited: new religions, the nonreligious, and educational levels - james r. lewis .

the measure lewis uses to compare religious groups is what percentage of members of the respective religions have graduated from college.

the findings are similar to the results of the pew survey in the united states.

shepherdless

Further to Vidiot and DJS, I have wondered myself in the past whether the issue is whether low education is due to the cult or vica versa. IMO a desire for educational achievement is at least partially cultural, and the JW culture in relation to education is about as negative as it can get. However, I sense that the cult is a bit of a haven for those who want to hide. So my 2c worth: I think it is a bit of both.

Back to the original topic, here is a table I extracted from the 2011 census in relation to how JW's fare against other Australians in terms of education:

This is raw data I extracted directly from the ABS database a while ago. It doesn't compare JW's against other religions, but shows they are pretty poor on the academic front, compared to the average.
I will make some other posts in relation to Aust census data. I have a fair bit of info, but not in easily presentable form.

136

Sun,moon, earth and mathematics .

by atomant in

just thought id let you all in on some info i found on northeasttruth.com.

that magical moment where the moon blocks out the sun!

but only just enough to perfectly cover the suns disc, whilst still allowing us to see the corona of light and other electromagnetic forces radiating from it.. this only happens because the moon diameter is exactly 1/400th the size of the suns and is positioned at exactly 1/400th of the distance between earth and the sun!so, when we see it from the surface of earth, we are in the only place this can ever be seen, at the only time it could ever happen.

shepherdless

Minor correction to Giles's post: I think an earth year is 365.24 days, so there is an even less of a "numerical reciprocal relationship".

Also the ratio of Earth mass to Moon mass is 81.29, not 81, which blows away a whole heap of the "numerical pareidolia".

And on it goes, through the rest of the article.

41

New study - JWs by far the least educated religious group in Canada, Australia and New Zealand

by slimboyfat in

the religion of the educated classes revisited: new religions, the nonreligious, and educational levels - james r. lewis .

the measure lewis uses to compare religious groups is what percentage of members of the respective religions have graduated from college.

the findings are similar to the results of the pew survey in the united states.

shepherdless

And from that graph, it shows that Athiests (47.63%) are the highest educated ones...

That must be a typo, because the figure for "% of Adults" is only 25.66%.

Also, note the figures for "Pagan" are probably due to a few clowns. (Australian humor, perhaps.) Or perhaps they mistook "Pagan" for "Bogan".

41

New study - JWs by far the least educated religious group in Canada, Australia and New Zealand

by slimboyfat in

the religion of the educated classes revisited: new religions, the nonreligious, and educational levels - james r. lewis .

the measure lewis uses to compare religious groups is what percentage of members of the respective religions have graduated from college.

the findings are similar to the results of the pew survey in the united states.

shepherdless

Nathan,

I think your question is in jest, but just to clarify to lurkers, what I meant was the median age of JW's in Aust went up in 2011 compared to 2006, and also compared to the median age of the overall population. They are not individually getting older at a faster rate. There are just fewer young JW's coming through the life cycle.

I don't have the data with me at the moment, as I have it on another computer. I will pull it out and post it, but it might take me a day or so. One of the things I created was a breakdown of no of JW's per 5 year age group from 2006 and 2011, and given the censuses were 5 years apart, I could line the 2 data-sets alongside each other and see how many dropped out of each 5 year cohort. (The results were unsurprising, but interesting all the same.)

26

Can an atheist date jw?

by concernCitizen in

hey everyone!.

first of all, i'm not a jw, in fact i'm an atheist, or if you really want to be technical about it i'm probably something like an agnostic atheist or something.. but, my girlfriend is a jw, she seems very rational about it though, it seems to me that she believes in a lot of it but not exactly all, for instance she does understands and believes in the scientific age of the earth and evolution.. when we started dating almost a year ago she made it clear she as religious person.

i never saw that as a problem, it's not like i'm trying to convert her or she's trying to convert me.

shepherdless

The advice from posters such as "Witness My Fury" and "DJS" might seem blunt and harsh, but it is the best advice.

It is hard for an outsider to understand the grip the cult. You may think that if you use the right logical explanation, the right information, the right biblical interpretation, etc you can get her to see the cult for what it is. You will NEVER succeed with intellectual reasoning.

You would be better off doing some research on how cults control minds at an emotional level, and learning what you are up against.

If you end up marrying this girl, this will be your life. You will eventually find that you will not be able to attend birthdays or xmas functions any more. She will be gone 2 times a week to attend meetings. You will be under constant pressure to attend them yourself. Social ties with others become strained, because she can't attend so many things. Then you find that the only people who you can mix with together are the cult drones. You will start to notice that the cult drones are friendly in the way insurance salesmen are friendly; always looking to offer a product you don't want. Those cult drones will often be vacuous airheads, and you will notice that a lot of them depend on some form of social security to get by. And then if you have kids, it gets a whole lot worse.

Therefore, save yourself a life of misery, and walk away. It may be painful now, but you will really regret it later if you don't.

136

Sun,moon, earth and mathematics .

by atomant in

just thought id let you all in on some info i found on northeasttruth.com.

that magical moment where the moon blocks out the sun!

but only just enough to perfectly cover the suns disc, whilst still allowing us to see the corona of light and other electromagnetic forces radiating from it.. this only happens because the moon diameter is exactly 1/400th the size of the suns and is positioned at exactly 1/400th of the distance between earth and the sun!so, when we see it from the surface of earth, we are in the only place this can ever be seen, at the only time it could ever happen.

shepherdless

Spot on, Nathan. It reminds me of pyramidology.

The OP's article also contains some factual and mathematical errors.

41

New study - JWs by far the least educated religious group in Canada, Australia and New Zealand

by slimboyfat in

the religion of the educated classes revisited: new religions, the nonreligious, and educational levels - james r. lewis .

the measure lewis uses to compare religious groups is what percentage of members of the respective religions have graduated from college.

the findings are similar to the results of the pew survey in the united states.

shepherdless

Canada and Australia each have only just completed, or are in the process of completing a census. (The one in Australia has been a debacle.) So the book must be based upon the results of the 2011 census in each country. I think NZ had a census in 2013.

As a result, I suspect the data and book SBF refers to is a bit out of date.

A while ago, I managed to download a whole heap of data about JW's from the Australian 2011 and 2006 censuses. I have had a plan to get the data from the 2016 Aust census and produce a comprehensive and up-to-date summary, showing trends. It will be a few months away, because typically, it is a while before the results of a census are released.

I don't have the data with me as I write this, but from memory it not only showed JW's were way less likely to get tertiary education, they also earn far less and have slightly fewer children. They are also getting older than the overall population, and have around the same divorce rate as the general population. In the older age brackets, there are far more women than men.

In a side note, I read an old thread about the Aust census where people were puzzled why there were more JW's listed on the census than publishers listed in the yearbook. The answer is simple. Take out the JW's aged between 1 and 10 and the numbers almost match. (Take out JW's between 1 to 15 and there are too many publishers.)

7

The worldwide fear policy....

by The Rebel in

jw
friends

it seems the media heavily underline the dark side in everything.

yes there are really bad problems in the world and they need to be addressed.

but we also need to keep on the positive.

shepherdless

So do you also feel the news people and politically correct groups focus too much on the dark side of everything?

The main problem is that most "good news" stories are not newsworthy stories. Some simple examples:

- The decrease and eventually eradication of the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa was virtually unreported.

- Globally, Polio is at the lowest levels ever recorded. In fact, there has not been a single case reported in any of the last 4 weekly updates. But there has not been a single mention in any media, that I am aware of.

- Terrorism in Pakistan; yes one recent tragedy, but the last year, it has been pretty quiet. (Incredibly quiet by the standards of the last decade.)

36

Three graphs in connection with the Watch Tower's current financial situation

by slimboyfat in

a number of public statements by the governing body indicate that they are experiencing financial difficulty and they have appealed to jws to donate more money.

public information on the financial situation of the watchtower society is limited.

but what does the information they do publish indicate about their situation?

shepherdless

Thanks for the clarification SBF

Keinzelard, in answer to what I think is your question, it is not lack of money causing a lack of membership growth. Nor is lack of membership growth the primary cause of money problems. WTBTS seems to be facing 2 separate major problems at the same time. The first problem is that WTBTS traditional source of funds, selling bible literature, doesn't generate income any more. The second problem is that their proselytizing efforts are failing. The 2 problems are related, but it is not one causing the other.

36

Three graphs in connection with the Watch Tower's current financial situation

by slimboyfat in

a number of public statements by the governing body indicate that they are experiencing financial difficulty and they have appealed to jws to donate more money.

public information on the financial situation of the watchtower society is limited.

but what does the information they do publish indicate about their situation?

shepherdless

Excellent data!

The charts for "number of ordained ministers in branch facilities" and "money spent on special pioneers, missionaries and travelling overseer" seem to track well against each other. It is puzzling how one could increase only 35% and the other 113%, though. That would be over 7% p.a. inflation.

It looks like "ordained ministers" cost around $9000 p.a. on average when back in 2006 they cost $5,500 p.a.

Why is it necessary to have 27,000 "ordained ministers in branch facilities"? If I compare that to the Catholic church, I note that around the same number of priests serve the hole of Mexico and Brazil where there are around 320 million Catholics. And those priests do a lot of the work equivalent to what an elder might do at a Kingdom Hall. There are gross weaknesses in that comparison, but 27,000 seems a large number to look after a religion of 10 million.