shepherdless

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Posts by shepherdless

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  19

  Alternative witnessing

  by Zyron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  those of us still attending meeting are actively encouraged to use out tablets or smartphones to direct people to jw.org.

  how about, after doing the standard presentation casually say to householder, you can also look at this forum to read of experiences of life as a jw as well as the official version?.

  obviously you need to be working by yourself or with a pimo jw..

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  shepherdless

  I probably should add something to my earlier comments.

  Many years ago, when I was at Uni, I did a bit of casual work going door to door doing market research; essentially getting people to fill out long surveys on the spot. We were given an extract from a number of extracts from street directories, and told what streets to do, within a period of a fortnight. This employer experimented, by, instead of paying an hourly rate of around $9/hr, it paid per completed survey. Well, of course, I planned my attack on each suburb to catch people at home, and pulled out every trick to get virtually everyone who opened a door to complete a survey.

  I was effectively earning about $80 to $100 per hour, which was awesome for me at the time. I would finish my territories early, and go back to the office and grab more territories that other people (not as pushy as me) had retuned, and do them as well.

  One thing I noticed was that I could only go in short bursts of a couple of hours at most. Once I got a little tired, and lost a little spark, doors were just closed in my face.

  After a few months, the market research company went back to paying hourly rates, and so I quit.

  The point is, JWs are door to door salesmen, and in my observation a lot of them are incredibly poor at it. I am not going to list what they should be doing (in case Borg spies are watching) but I can see why they fail so miserably.

  Even though my first post was partly a joke, I am serious that if you want to “spoil the sale” or make sure the householder will have no interest in the message or joining the borg, there would be no better method than the one I described in my first post.
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  19

  Alternative witnessing

  by Zyron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  those of us still attending meeting are actively encouraged to use out tablets or smartphones to direct people to jw.org.

  how about, after doing the standard presentation casually say to householder, you can also look at this forum to read of experiences of life as a jw as well as the official version?.

  obviously you need to be working by yourself or with a pimo jw..

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  shepherdless

  Sorry Carla, I am the wrong person to ask. I am not a JW.

  However, my observation is that a lot of them (but certainly not all of them) come across so cringy and awkward anyway, I wonder if any elder would notice anything amiss, even if you were paired up with one going door to door.
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  19

  Alternative witnessing

  by Zyron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  those of us still attending meeting are actively encouraged to use out tablets or smartphones to direct people to jw.org.

  how about, after doing the standard presentation casually say to householder, you can also look at this forum to read of experiences of life as a jw as well as the official version?.

  obviously you need to be working by yourself or with a pimo jw..

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  shepherdless

  Thanks Muddy Waters.
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  19

  Alternative witnessing

  by Zyron in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  those of us still attending meeting are actively encouraged to use out tablets or smartphones to direct people to jw.org.

  how about, after doing the standard presentation casually say to householder, you can also look at this forum to read of experiences of life as a jw as well as the official version?.

  obviously you need to be working by yourself or with a pimo jw..

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  shepherdless

  Surely the best “alternative” witness would be to just appear bored, unenthusiastic, going through the motions, and unengaged. If you want to go the extra mile, be cringy and awkward. In other words, just act like you are a member of a group that nobody would want to join, and with nothing interesting to say.
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  13

  A wave of momentum!

  by stuckinarut2 in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  it certainly has to be one of the most exciting times to live in as an awake ex witness!.

  the wave of momentum we are part of as thousands awaken from the hold of the society is a joy to be a part of.

  the internet helps us to see that we are not alone.

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  shepherdless

  I have been reading sites like this for about 3 years or so.

  Back then, JWism still seemed to have respectable growth globally (slightly higher than global population growth in percentage terms) and no visible money problems. Wow has it changed since then.

  As the age of the typical JW in western countries continues to rise, gradual decline is inevitable. I don’t want to go over previous discussion, but in any large population, once the median age goes over a certain level, future decline is inevitable, for decades. That is the position Watchtower is in.

  There is a mixture of opinions as to what extent Watchtower is in financial difficulties, but at the very least, financial concerns are a major distraction for those in charge, and a limitation on options to address the decline.

  It is a good time to be monitoring this religion.
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  64

  Why is there such a 'high turnover' within the Jehovahs Witnesses?

  by UnshackleTheChains in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i happened to come across a time article in 2008. it was basically talking about the high turnover in american faiths.

  it mentioned the jdubs and highlighted the following point.. an even more extreme example of what might be called "masked churn" is the relatively tiny jehovah's witnesses, with a turnover rate of about two-thirds.

  that means that two-thirds of the people who told pew they were raised jehovah's witnesses no longer are — yet the group attracts roughly the same number of converts.

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  shepherdless

  Gee, it looks like I may be getting dragged into an argument of some sorts. I prefer to not be involved.

  I will just respond to JP’s question. Sorry to be slow to respond.

  JP: In the interim, I've a couple of questions for you so I know what to share. Are you familiar with the concepts of:

  • Cognitive Dissonance?

  • Confirmation Bias?

  • Asch Conformity Experiment?

  • The work of Leon Festinger?

  Also, what do you mean by "street-wise"?

  Dealing with each in turn:

  1 and 4. I only became aware of Leon Festinger and cognitive dissonance around 3 years ago, via a Theremin Trees video. It was an eye-opener. I realised I used to observe cognitive dissonance long before, but never had a name for it. An extreme example: years ago I remember shopping with a girlfriend and selecting a shampoo brand. Girlfriend overruled me and picked another and said this one has a nicer advert. (Yes, there was a very nice and moving romantic advert running for that other brand at the time. It was a crap product.) I consider that an extreme example of emotion clashing with and overriding intellect.

  2. I think most people who have been reading sites such as these will be familiar with confirmation bias.

  3. I don’t know what the Asch conformity experiment is.

  What do I mean by street-wise? Some people are naturally (or brought up to be) suspicious or looking for motives for the behaviour of those that interact with them; particularly those that approach them. Street wise people sense and dislike being love bombed, for example.

  Actually, I think we are slightly at cross purposes. I was thinking more about someone walking away after early contact with the cult, where as (in retrospect) I think you are referring to someone inside, who eventually works out it is not the truth. Hence your reference to moral integrity, which I didn’t initially understand.
  
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  20

  It's been a GREAT week for me!

  by dubstepped in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  so as some of you know i have a podcast called this jw life.

  i put my story out there in 9 parts, and i've had lots of great experiences so far and met lots of nice people and i've made new internet friends, even some in person.

  this last seven days though has been soooooo cool!.

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  shepherdless

  Well done!
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  26

  Darwin's lack of evidence

  by Half banana in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  while making bread this morning and between answering the door and phone calls, i listened on steam radio to the programme in our time with melvyn bragg.

  his panel of experts explained how the discovery of thousands of bird fossils has revolutionised our perception of avian evolution.

  i recall watchtower literature smugly presenting darwin’s admissions in his origin of the species that the geological evidence for bird evolution is “imperfect” in fact missing.

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  shepherdless

  But don't confuse evidence with interpretation and conclusions.

  More importantly, don’t confuse bald assertions with evidence.
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  64

  Why is there such a 'high turnover' within the Jehovahs Witnesses?

  by UnshackleTheChains in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  i happened to come across a time article in 2008. it was basically talking about the high turnover in american faiths.

  it mentioned the jdubs and highlighted the following point.. an even more extreme example of what might be called "masked churn" is the relatively tiny jehovah's witnesses, with a turnover rate of about two-thirds.

  that means that two-thirds of the people who told pew they were raised jehovah's witnesses no longer are — yet the group attracts roughly the same number of converts.

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  shepherdless

  Hi jp, I have no research, apart from anecdotal observations. Nevertheless, your points 2 and 3 seem spot on to me. I also agree that intelligence (whatever that means) is not a significant factor.

  Could you expand on what you mean by point 1? Also, if you have any easy links to publicly available relevant scientific data, I for one would be interested to see it.

  Anecdotal observation and intuition suggests to me that another important factor is how “street-wise” a person is. I don’t know how that can be measured.
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  50

  The wonder of scientific research

  by amicabl in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  this has possibly been brought up before however here goes.. constant reference is made by many posters to scientific research as being the only way to prove something factual that would otherwise have to be taken on faith.

  there actually seems to be "faith" in scientific findings.. my experience over many years is that most scientific research is fake.

  nothing oftencomes of the big announcements made to raise more money.. money, prestige, pride, human error, suppositions etc., are rife amongst the scientific community.. i realise that there have been many advances over hundreds of years but humankind is in a mess, although very different to even a century ago.. the medical profession now has vaccinations for everything, antiviral drugs etc.

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  shepherdless

  Slidin fast quotes Ben Goldacres’s book, which is brilliant.

  For a comical expose on the pseudoscience of the cosmetics industry, the following episode of “The Checkout” is very very good:

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bicx6Txo2jE