Posts by TheOldHippie

88

Annual Report

by St George of England in

the latest report is now available for download on our favourite website!.

george.

Jeffro stated, " It seems they don’t understand that presenting a growth rate where there is no previous value would actually be an invalid division by zero and so growth should be left blank or otherwise similarly noted for new entries. (And Monaco apparently wasn’t counted as one of the 33 ‘other countries’ before, which hasn’t changed.)"

There HAS been a previous value, there have been JWs in Monaco for decades, so the unchanged number of "other countries" just means that a new country has entered the group.

The 1980 YB stated about Monaco that " The small independent principality of Monaco on the Mediterranean seacoast comes under the jurisdiction of the France branch. As you may know, this is the home of the famous Monte Carlo gambling resort. Although house-to-house witnessing among Monaco’s 27,000 inhabitants is forbidden, publishers from the French Beausoleil Congregation have regularly preached there. By 1978 there were seven active Witnesses in Monaco."

88

Annual Report

by St George of England in

the latest report is now available for download on our favourite website!.

george.

TheOldHippie

Slim, in stead of writing about the "real growth" for which I am ridiculed every year, I will rename it "new faces in the congregations".

Some years ago, the WT stated some 1 per cent were df'ed in a given year, and 1 per cent left for other reasons. And in any given population, 1 per cent die within a year. That sums up to 3 per cent. So from 2023 to 2024, there was a loss of - to be utterly exact - 258,751. The growth was at 203,082. That means there were 461,833 new faces. Not all of these were new faces, as the report itself stated that 65,816 former publishers returned. So the number of new faces or names in the registers of publishers was 396,017 or 4.6 per cent. Better than your observations among other Scottish groups.

44

2023 Yearly Report UNDER the Microscope

by raymond frantz in

https://youtu.be/pi7sn2rnrke?si=lnvklqct6nuayv2q.

branches of jehovah’s witnesses: 85 (= down one from 86 from the previous year and quite possibly they are referring to the hong kong bethel that closed down recently).

number of lands reporting: 239 ( =the same as 2022).

TheOldHippie

As always, there is one thing that you tend to forget - that people die, Rounding off and making it easy, one per cent of a given population die during a year. Some years ago, the WT stated one per cent were df'ed during a year, and one per cent "quit". Three per cent in all. Just for the sake of calculation, we can use that number. So of the 8.7 or something million publishers, some 250,000 "die or quit" during a year. If you therefore have a 0 per cent growth, that "in reality" means a 3 per cent growth, because you have substituted those who left with new ones. So a growth of 110,000 or 1.3 per cent "in reality" is a growth of 360,000 new ones or 4.3 per cent. Not bad.

Just saying. So don't forget the "die or quit" group. Slimboy has shown by means of The Church of Scotland what the figures would have been like without this substitution.

29

BREAKING NEWS | Highlights of 2023 Worldwide Service Year Report

by Drearyweather in

breaking news | highlights of 2023 worldwide service year report.

on november 15, 2023, the service committee of the governing body shared highlights of the 2023 worldwide service year report with the bethel family.

the following exciting increases were announced: baptisms: during the 2023 service year, 269,517 persons were baptized.

TheOldHippie

Journeyman, my friend, you say that

"...note what the GB used to report on, but no longer do. And the figures they used to break down that they now aggregate. ....Notice, for instance, that there is no mention in the 'highlights' of how many Memorial partakers there were in 2023"

Correct, but if you had bothered to read the whole statement, you would have seen that the rest of the report is scheduled to be published in January. I know it is a tough thing to read more than a couple of sentences at a time, but if you had done so, you would have seen why the figures you long for, are missing.

Happy journey, hope to see you.

9

Mental health treatment

by kidchameleon43 in

i'm actually not a jw, but i've always been curious about the religion since it always had an esoteric vibe to it.

i was raised catholic, but more than half my life i've struggled with my faith, and therefore, i've defaulted to the agnostic position.. i'm sorry, let me get to my question.

i've struggled with mental illness for most of my life.

TheOldHippie

Why don't you refer to the latest magazine discussing it, the public Watchtower no. 1, 2023? You find it on wol.

44

Need help - the Revelation Climax book

by ozziepost in

is it an original from the graphics department?.

anyone know?.

TheOldHippie

TD, I think you are making two misrepresentations.

First, the Stern is not the sort of soft-porn magazine you seem to be try to make it look like. It is a common weekly family magazine, on the right side of politics, and deals with queations in society, television programs, new books, trends etc. You probably have found one of the more special photos.

Second, the WT did not steal the picture from Stern, but they both bought it from a stock or whatever it is called, where thousands of photos are available for magazines, newspapers etc. I remember a few years back, when the WT had a picture of Santa Claus on the front page, and a big newspaper in my country had the same picture. Neither had stolen it from the other, but both had bought it from such a stock.

Und ich sehe also gar kein Problem darin, den Stern zu lesen..........

33

Does the Governing Body already know that Jehovah (the name) came from Babylon the Great?

by Chevelle in

i'll start by stating the obvious... according to the watchtower, the catholic church is a huge part of babylon the great which is led by satan and his demons.

raymundus martini, a catholic monk (who "represents" babylon the great to some extent), woke up one day in the 13th century and decided to alter yhwh so it can be easily pronounced.

hence the spanish-ish version of yhwh was created... jehova... (sounds something like this in spanish: heh-o-va).

TheOldHippie

Beth Sarim, "I thought the Borg didn't make it possible to reference certain older material."

Very wrong, it is all there for the world to see, at wol.jw, WTs 1950 onwards and most of the other publications including Aid from around 1970 onwards.

773

Breaking News: Anthony Morris III no longer serving on the Governing Body

by WingCommander in

jw
friends

this has been announced on the jw's official website, in the "jw news" section.

this is not a joke.

anthony moron da turd is out as a gluttonous body member!

TheOldHippie

vienne, I have bad news and I have good news.

Bad news, you stated that "Some books were quietly dropped as quickly as possible." There is only one book which is not to be found in the app or .org, and that is the Commentary on the Book of James, which by the way was not a Franz but a Dunlap product. Even the Ezechiel book with its comment that the work is to be completed within the end of the 20th century, is there.

But I also have good news. I have just completed reading the "Separate Identity", volume I, and it was a very interesting and refreshing book. Although somewhat difficult to follow at times for a European not too familiar with the various American groups of the 19th century, it was - to quote myself - a very good book. I have ordered volume II from amazon.co.uk where it is far cheaper than at amazon.com, and look forward to receive it.

773