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Jehovah's Witnesses - Once Again the Fastest Growing Faith in the U.S.
by davidl7 99 Replies latest jw friends
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mkr32208
No they don't, it's a ridiculous statement, they only count members coming in they don't subtract members going out, so if 1,000,000 people get dipped and or have babies that get dipped and 950,000 leave the REAL growth is not a million it's 50k that's why the witnoids have been at 7-8 million total members since the early 80's. If this was even HALF right they would be at 50 or 60 million by now. I would postulate that a 'real' growth of 50k a year is about right in total.
Remember folks, there are lies, damn lies and statistics!
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White Dove
Personally, I figure that where there is growth, there must be retention, but there isn't much retention.
So, how could there be growth?
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peacefulpete
Personally, while I shiver at the new lives being damaged, it can only help in the evolution of the sect into a mainstream religion.
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OBVES
The fact they are increasing 2% or 4 % would not be surprising if we are nearing the very end of the endtime era.
Jehovah's Witnesses are right at this time the only church organization that has good standing before God of the Bible.
They can hold on fast to the date 1914 AD as it is one of the most important dates in mankind's history .
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factfinder
Witnesses only count PUBLISHERS. If you do not turn in your fs reports you are NOT counted as a witness.
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free2beme
Math is a funny thing and not always what it seems. For a religion of 100000 in a country, it is much easier to reach 4% then a religion of 1 million. Basically, think about that.
Also, lost of Mexicans are Witnesses and crossing the border daily to attend KH here. Seriously, a lot!!!
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dozy
The lesson for the churches is that religious groups like Mormons , JWs , Scientologists etc which have various outreach & evangelical programs will have success & grow , albeit somewhat slowly. Whatever we feel about the efficacy of the JWs door-to-door preaching model , there is no doubt that it does have an effect. Europe , which is a much more secular & non-religious society , is a slightly different matter , but can still lumber on with zero growth.
In most countries , the number of JWs has reached such a critical mass that makes it just slowly snowballs along. In business terms , it is like an old family business that although badly run has gained sufficient goodwill from customers over the years that it can more than hold its own. Enough young ones stay because of numerous social & family connections and the occasional convert just adds to the mass , more than offsetting deaths & the occasional defector , delivering a steady 2% annual rise or so. This has been the situation for the last 130 years and I honestly don't see any change in this situation (barring a catastrophic black swan event) for decades.
I remember a Bethelite telling me that basically the Watchtower was aimed at motivating the 20% or so of "true believers" (as he termed them) without alienating the rest of the congregation and the writing committee were careful to try to keep the rhetoric sufficently bland to avoid annoying them so much that they were extremely upset. Most JWs are in a comfort zone and do very little while staying nominally an active member of the group. If you look at the figures , the number of regular pioneers continues to rise , whereas the number of aux pios has declined sharply. This illustrates the two track situation where approx 20% of JWs are enthusiastic & very active and about 80% just plod on. Meeting attendance in the UK is about 70% according to the CO. Most JWs know that as long as they attend enough meetings and show their faces a couple of times a month in the ministry then they will be OK.
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WTWizard
If the toilet paper dollar were to grow as quickly as this religion is nominally, and have as little substantial value to back it up, I would be safe to go deep into debt to buy gold and silver with the knowledge that hyperinflation would quickly wipe out that debt. What is to back up the witlesses' numbers?
As I see it, there is plenty of nothing to back up those numbers. You get 7.5 million witlesses. How many of those are turning in fake time slips? Even in the United Tyranny of America, plenty of fake time slips and time slips turned in under parental coercion are making up a sizable number of that. You get witlesses spending more time at Starbucks than in the territory, and still counting 3 hours for the morning. During my last few years of field circus, I have seen plenty of times where we spent more time roaming hospitals and/or nursing homes than anything else. Or, a few times driving across town, the person not home, and reporting a full hour of field circus. I have seen whole streets worked where you are lucky to find 2 people at home. And those 15 minute time slips?
Even among pio-sneers, April is going to be backed by nothing more than toilet paper. They are required to report only 30 hours during that month--when I was in, it was 60 hours (and they actually did work door to door). And, among that 30 hours, I suspect much of that is going to be fake. Additionally, how much of that time is wasted in stores and coffee shops? If this is the spiritual dollar, I would rather be in "silver and gold".
As for their 7.5 million, that is every bit as much as real as the stock market surge since 3/2009. When you have Osama Obama buying the stock market with MY tax dollars, the Fed printing money to inflate the nominal value of your stocks, and fake confidence in the toilet paper dollar, of course you are going to get nominal growth. However, in gold the stock market is DOWN since then. And, if the fake support is taken away, the stock market is in for a major crash (possibly 99%, measured in gold) even discounting inflation. This 7.5 million witlesses is no more genuine, and in "gold", it is probably closer to 180,000-200,000 if that. A far cry from 7,5 million.
(And in "silver", it is even worse.)
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punkofnice
The 'growth' that they always talk about.......oooOOooOoh, it's the growth! Proof positive it's the 'trooOOooOOOOth' and not a destructive cult!
I must go back, resume being an Elder, give the grovelling body lots of my hard earned cash and do more in the organization or die at Armageddon (subject to overlapping).
..........no not really
..........................and if I do please shoot me!