shepherdless

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Posts by shepherdless

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  34

  cleveland ohio RC notes

  by nowwhat? in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  peak attendance 7100. baptised 38 mixed bag of old and young.

  youngest age 10. saw no brothers with beards.

  better than average .50% growth.

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  shepherdless

  Thanks nowwhat.

  0.5% baptisms is a little higher than typical in recent times. Do you happen to know the attendance for last year? The reason I ask is that I have read a suggestion or two of lower attendances at some RC's in USA, this year.
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  24

  Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  time for some more stats, for your interest and comments.... it has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for jws are lower than virtually any other religion, in australia.

  rather than repeat that exercise here, i set out some detail about the gap between jws and ordinary australians.. 1. jws typically earn much less.

  here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing jw incomes against other australians.

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  shepherdless

  Yes, Steve, when I came to write up a summary, I wrote 2 figures in the wrong spot.

  Figures should read:

  • 2016 Aust median income: A$662
  • 2011 Aust median income: A$577
  • 2016 JW median income: $A420
  • 2011 JW median income: $A411

  I should add that I did find a chart in a publication that indicated nominal wages increased by 2.8% p.a. over that 5 year period. 1.028^5 = 1.148, ie a 14.8% increase, which is very close to the 14.7% I calculated.

  Hopefully, I didn't make any more mistakes.
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  24

  Aust census: incomes: JWs falling further behind?

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  time for some more stats, for your interest and comments.... it has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for jws are lower than virtually any other religion, in australia.

  rather than repeat that exercise here, i set out some detail about the gap between jws and ordinary australians.. 1. jws typically earn much less.

  here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing jw incomes against other australians.

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  shepherdless

  Time for some more stats, for your interest and comments...

  It has been well documented in the past that, as a group, incomes for JWs are lower than virtually any other religion, in Australia. Rather than repeat that exercise here, I set out some detail about the gap between JWs and ordinary Australians.
  

  1. JWs typically earn much less

  Here is a bar chart of income brackets, comparing JW incomes against other Australians. Note that the blue bars are longer than the gold bars at the bottom, and shorter at the top.
  

  
  

  From the data behind that chart, I calculated median incomes as follows:

  • 2016 Aust median income: A$577
  • 2016 JW median income: A$420

  In other words, the typical JW income is 3/4 of the income of a typical Australian.
  

  2. Comparing 2011 Census

  Doing the same exercise for the 2011 census gives:
  

  • 2011 Aust median income: A$662
  • 2011 JW median income: A$411

  These figures would indicate that over the 5 year period:

  • Aust median income increased 14.7%
  • JW median income increased only 2.2% (but see below)

  3. How is the disparity occurring?

  The above numbers give the appearance that JWs are not only well behind other Australians, but that the gap is widening dramatically. However, first impressions can be deceiving. To do a real comparison, you have to strip out the following effects:
  

  • JWs are now typically significantly older than the typical Australian;
  • As I explained on an earlier thread, that age difference widened significantly between the 2011 census and the 2016 census; and
  • For JWs over the age of 20, women dramatically outnumber men (relevant because women typically have lower incomes).

  One may also wonder, given Aust's high immigration rates, whether immigration is a factor. I can answer that it does not appear to be a significant factor. I will leave the explanation for a later date.
  

  4 Allowing for the age and sex factors

  To remove the above age and sex factors, I downloaded the income data again, but for males only, in separate 5 year cohorts. I then calculated individual median incomes for each cohort. After that, I repeated the exercise, but first filtered the data for those who reported themselves as JWs.
  

  It was time consuming and mind-numbing. don't try it yourself; unless you have a lot of Panadol on hand.
  

  I then used the resultant data to produce the following chart:
  

  
  

  The graph speaks for itself. Young male JWs actually earn slightly more. I suspect that is because they skip tertiary education and get a head start in the workforce. Not long after that, they fall behind their "worldly" colleagues. It could be because they are burnt out, or lack workplace social skills, but I suspect it is more because they lack the qualifications to achieve in the workforce, beyond the menial jobs.

  Whatever the reason, it is clear that male JW's typically earn significantly less compared to other Australians. Combining all males between ages 20 and 69, I calculated JW males typically earnt 17% less, which, over 49 years (20 to 69) amounts to A$390,000.
  

  One possibility that occurred to me was that the chart could be an indication that perhaps younger male JW's were getting less dragged down by the religion. To test this, I repeated the whole exercise for the 2011 census results. The 2011 data shows the same story, as set out in the combined chart below.
  

  
  

  One good thing I noticed comparing 2011 data and 2016 data, is that the number of male JW's aged between 20 and 69 decreased from 26,482 to 25,055. That is a 5.4% decrease, compared to a 3.6% decrease for JWs overall, in the same period.
  

  Also, I calculated that back in 2011, male JW's ages between 20 and 69 typically earnt 23% less compared to other Australians. So it seems that 2016 was an improvement. Perhaps that is an indication that they are becoming more "worldly".

  Conclusion:

  1. 2016 census data shows that JWs earn significantly less than other Australians. This is true, even when allowing for age and sex factors.
     
  2. At face value, comparing 2011 to 2016 census data suggests that the income discrepancy is getting worse. When removing distorting factors (ie that JWs are ageing and predominantly female), the income discrepancy is not increasing, and is perhaps decreasing.
     

  Notes:

  1. I do my own calculations of "median income". I have used the same method each time, so if I am out slighly in one, it should be out by the same amount in all.
  2. I only deal with nominal incomes; no adjustment for CPI (inflation).
  3. I am an amateur. I don't analyse stats in my "day job".

  
  
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  17

  The Witneses reckon that they are the only ones going door-to-door!

  by Bungi Bill in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i just had a visit from two guys who are engaged in a door-to-door campaign in the area, preaching "the gospel", and offering, to quote "the best news you are ever going to hear".

  this was at 3:30 pm local time, an hour at by which all jws would have long called it a day.

  while these two didn't identify themselves with any particular church group, it was quite obvious that they were neither jws or lds.

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  shepherdless

  While these two didn't identify themselves with any particular church group...

  That seems to be a tactic used by the Seventh Day Adventists. You ask them what their church or denomination is, and you get silly responses like "there is only one church" etc. They have tracts etc that don't identify their denomination. It seems to be a marketing trick to outsiders to pretend initially to be some sort of pan-denominational Christian organisation. Just their version of "theocratic warfare", I guess.
  
  
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  46

  10 years on.....

  by snare&racket in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was a window cleaner, i was at the time unemployed, homeless.

  i had no education to be proud of (high school one a two b's rest c's) i was a jehovahs witness.

  i had been a pioneer.

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  shepherdless

  Brilliant!
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  13

  Aust Census: JW's and Divorce Rates

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  this post is actually in answer to a question i got from jwfacts.

  i think the issue was also raised on a recent thread.. first, some data from the 2011 and 2016 censuses:.

  (a) 1,751,733 (7.5% of population) reported being in a de-facto couple on census night, but .

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  shepherdless

  Thanks for the compliment, sbf.

  I am not as well read as you presume. I just don't get much time to read books; I don't even watch tv these days.

  I haven't seen the book, Sects and Stats, but from the table of contents it looks like the author focuses on "longitudinal data" (ie same data measured at different times) which I think is the most useful approach to understanding trends etc.

  i sped read the Cragun and Lawson article. Some excellent observations there, using the figures Mormons, SDA and Watchtower publish.

  I read some extracts of David Voas, some time ago. He made some excellent points about why religion generally is in decline, that I have to agree with, and backs it up with data. I agree decline is generational. From memory, he is the one who uses the Atlantic fishermen analogy, to describe JW's. I don't agree with that analogy, as I think the ordinary publishers are the "catch" not the fishermen.

  Like you, I have also read somewhere that decline itself is not accepted by some "experts". That is bizarre. My explanation for such people is that those that are intellectually proud tend to be more vulnerable to "confirmation bias" than the average person. We were living in a time when one of the greatest events of human history is happening around us; the unshackling of society from the chains of religious superstition. There are very credible stats from USA, South Korea and Aust in recent times (some of the more religious of the advanced countries) each showing religion in decline at the rate of about 1% per year.
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  78

  Can you prove Jesus existed outside of Bible (so called) evidence?

  by punkofnice in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i thought i'd done a thread on this before but can't find it.. so.

  did jesus actually exist?.

  without using the bible i'd like to see obvious proof..

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  shepherdless

  Just to respond to one of Fisherman's arguments, the concept of "Anno Domini" (ie calculating years starting from the alleged birth of Jesus) was invented by Dionysius Exiguus in about 525 AD. Before that, the Julian calendar and other calendars were based on names of Consuls or other rulers, and the number of years they had been in power.
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  13

  Aust Census: JW's and Divorce Rates

  by shepherdless in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  this post is actually in answer to a question i got from jwfacts.

  i think the issue was also raised on a recent thread.. first, some data from the 2011 and 2016 censuses:.

  (a) 1,751,733 (7.5% of population) reported being in a de-facto couple on census night, but .

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  shepherdless

  Sorry to take so long to reply, sbf.

  With statistics from censuses in general, there are lots of complicating factors to consider. When we see graphs, and tables of numbers, we may naturally tend think that the production of the data was as reliable, accurate and uniform as the reassuringly organised method of its display. Unfortunately there is lots of room for skewed data and misleading comparisons to arise.

  Absolutely. I am only an amateur, and I am learning a lot. I have seen glossy charts and data elsewhere, and I now know how dodgy that data can be; particularly if there is a political agenda.

  The format of the census may differ from year to year...

  For the "religion" question, the only change (and it was a big one) was to move "no religion" from bottom to top, as shown in the following:

  Extract from 2011 form:

  
  

  Extract from 2016 form:

  
  

  Christian groups lobbied heavily against this change before the census, but lost, because the logic of the census form elsewhere is that the most common answer should be at the top of the list.

  they initiatiated a campaign to contact and encourage all inactive Mormons to identify as Mormons...

  That happened in the Aust census as well. There was a Christian group that asked people to record themselves as Christian, to counterbalance the increase in Islam.

  The UK census is pretty useless at counting JWs because...

  Yes, I agree. I read that link. I didn't check the form but it sounds like the main fault with the UK form is that you can just select "Christian". You can't do that on the Aust form; see above. And yes, the author of that article doesn't understand JW's.

  * * * * *

  As a general comment from me, there were always going to be problems with the interpretation of the religion vs divorce statistics. I realised a few as I was attempting the task. Others have pointed out a few more. I think the stats are still useful, but only as a broad guide.

  I plan to do a few more, when I get the time, (eg income, education levels etc) which should be more straightforward and less open to interpretation.
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  28

  When do you think the 7 clowns will add more members to the exclusive GB club ?

  by Chook in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  will they draw a new name out of a hat or do a kiss test i don't know..

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  shepherdless

  I think there have been studies that show committees of more than about 8 or 9 people don't function very well. I can't imagine they would be too keen on adding any.

  Another factor is that (according to Ray Franz) any decision requires a two thirds majority to pass. If so, a committee of 7 would require support from at least 5. Adding another GB member would make it even harder (6 out of 8). If the GB is to have any hope of carrying out much needed reforms, they would be better going to 6 ( or perhaps 9) members.
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  27

  How to convince someone to leave.

  by Smiruk in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey everyone, long time lurker, first time poster.

  i'm currently in a jehovah's witnesses household, which is very deep into the "truth".

  i woke up a few months ago, and i haven't told my parents yet.

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  shepherdless

  Welcome, and well done at working it all out, smiruk!

  It is great to see so many young ones reaching out, for facts, logic and evidence.

  You ask a question about how to wake your parents up. (Or that is how I interpret your question). It is very difficult to do so. That video that you put up gives you an understanding of the psychology, and what you are up against. Another good video (arguably better) is "bending truth" by Theremin Trees, which goes further into the psychology.