by Clam 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
acquital,
Welcome! You are correct, however they do give the actual numbers for both years. You can use these numbers in a formula to solve for percentage difference. There are calculators available online that will do this for you if you supply the numbers.
Respectfully,
AuldSoul
Just a thought, We all know how they have changed their history to hide things. A good example is the 1979 wt. Where in the bound volume it says something different than the original magazine. My thought then is even if they were to print the dfing's, would it REALLY be accurate????? Any thoughts on this perspective??
Hi Aquital, welcome to the board.
Ticker
Hi folks, Ticker, AuldSoul & Clam. Thank you for welcoming me!
What I wanted to point out is the fact - and IronClaw goes in my direction - that nobody of us is able to proof the numbers given by the watchtower zombies.
Anyway, I am not wild anymore about any numbers of them. I was pioneering for a few years, worked part-time and moved even to a town, "where the need is great". Advantage: I live still in this aerea and I get never in touch with any "brother & sisters". Uaaaahahahahahaha! Sorry, but this little joke is neccessary.
Relieved greetings from
acquittal
There is always the question of how many active witnesses (reporting time) are actually inactive?
What exactly classifies someone as "inactive"? Just wondering because as I have said before, my husband was disfellowshipped in 2000 (before we met), but most of the people that were raised in the JW religion (his age group) are inactive. I know of five or six for sure. And that's just one congregation in this area. There are about four Kingdom Halls in my area alone.
"inactive" - not turning time into the congregation (secretary) for 6 consecutive months.
Welcome to all the newbies, like candyseaching and aquittal, it is great to see some many coming here.
Like blondie said, if you dont report for 6 months you are inactive, if you miss one month you are irregular. However the figure i used were just the gross totals in the report from one service year to the next, so doesnt really follow the definition. The figures supplied by the WTS is just based on how many reports they receive each month. It probably includes many reports from people that dont witness but dont want to get in trouble, like i did for several years. Likewise some people go to meetings but dont report.
I do think though that the report is interesting to watch as the number of 6 million is statistically large enough to have relevance to at least show constant patterns. Off the top of my head in 2004 (or it may have been 2003) there were 27 countries with 0 or negative growth. In 2005 it had grown to about 80. That shows a very negative trend for the organisation.
The 85000 that got d/f includes a large proportion of fornicators. However I imagine the other 90000 that have stopped reporting includes a large number of apostates, faders, those that have trouble with their faith etc.
Aquittal - In my congregation there were once 28 regular pioneers, most raised as JWs. A lot of them hated witnessing, so would turn up for field service, go out for an hour then claim to be going on calls, but really just went home.
If you stick around JWD for a while you will get a lot of relief. Within six months of leaving I am the happiest and calmest I can remember being in my life. For the first time i feel like life has meaning.
Hi acquittal, welcome to the forum!
Of course, you realize that the WTS does not classify every DF'd person as an apostate, just those who verbally and otherwise attack the WT doctrines.
Blondie this is so true. I was disfellowshiped for apostasy - a relatviely rare event in good old "apathetic" New Zealand where the vast majority who are disfellowshipped have fallen to the sins of the flesh in one form or another. Anyway, in the first few months on the "outside" I was amazed by the number of other disfellowshipped JWs who refused to speak to me.
Why?
I approached a couple who had been disfellowshipped for "fornication" - hey, ours is a small community and it was common knowledge - and I expresly asked them: "How come you're not talking to me, yet you're no longer in the organisation?"
This was their answer in a nutshell, with all niceties stripped away:
Because, although we sinned by commiting sins of the flesh, we actually still believe it's the truth and may even go back some day. By contrast, you no longer accept that it's the truth so you are worse than us.
That was when I first realised that, in the JWs eyes, to be disfellowshiped for sins of the flesh is one thing, but to be disfellowshipped for apostasy is the absolute very lowest of the low.
