The "30 Other Lands" in the Worldwide Report - revealed!

by cedars 116 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cedars

  slimboyfat - please can you humour me with the scriptural reasoning you refer to as the "dragnet parable"? I'm not familiar with that. If it's commonly used, I will study it for possible inclusion in my article. It sounds contradictory of the idea of all men from all backgrounds being equal before God. But then, since when did the Society's reasoning need to make sense?!

  In saying that JWs "punch above their weight" I obviously don't refer to the political influence of the organization. I refer to their aspirations of being the only people to be saved when God intervenes at Armageddon. The publications lead one to the false assumption that Witnesses are far more populous than they actually are, making such a distinction appear almost merciful. Yes, the 0.01% statistic was recently touted in one of the publications, but it wasn't dwelled on at any length. When you pour over the Society's statistics (as I have done quite extensively recently) only then do you see how small the religion really is. 0.01% is almost nothing, just as 99.9% is almost everything.

  Cedars
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  slimboyfat

  The Watchtower produces exact figures and ratios, so I think accusing them of overstating their size is a non-starter.

  Of course they overstate their importance in my opinion, but that's another issue.

  They used to teach that the dragnet was Christendom and that at the time of the end the good fish were separated from the bad fish, hence the preaching work focused on Christian lands. I am not sure what the current teaching is. See the June 15th Watchtower, 1992.
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  cedars

  The Watchtower produces exact figures and ratios, so I think accusing them of overstating their size is a non-starter.

  Yikes slimboyfat, are we talking about the same religion?

  Surely you agree that it's possible for a religion to publish its figures but "spin" them to make them sound bigger than they actually are? Here's one example right out of the 2012 yearbook (page 56)...

  "Long ago, in a prophetic vision, the apostle John saw a vast and numberless crowd "out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues." These people were identified as survivors of "the great tribulation" into God's new world. (Rev. 7:9,14) The figures and experiences in the pages that follow show not only that the great crowd is being gathered but also that it is growing ever larger. Does this not strengthen your faith in the certainty of Jehovah's promises?"

  The above quote is from the page immediately after the worldwide report in the 2012 Yearbook, which was the nearest publication on my desk that I could grab in answer to your post. Please don't make me go into my Watchtower Library and pull out a great long list of examples of the Society making itself sound bigger than it actually is!!

  I'll look into the dragnet thing, thank you.

  Cedars
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  breakfast of champions

  As far as putting a spin on their numbers, consider how they did this just this past year: by incorporating "Hawaii" into the "United States" they gave the US numbers a bump. It would have been a measly 1.something% increase if they hadn't. I suspect they do they same throughout the world.
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  cedars

  Ok, I've gone back and crunched the numbers again. Here is a revised map showing countries that, despite being listed on the report, show a publisher presence that is virtually non-existent in comparison with the population density:

  

  The eagle-eyed among you will note that the red area (lands under ban) has grown since the last image. This is because I've discovered a new country that isn't mentioned in the worldwide report - Mauritania! How I could have missed such a massive country is beyond me. Anyway, the discovery means that I now give up completely on guessing the identity of the Society's mysterious "30 Other Lands", because there are in fact 33 as shown above, all with populations of 300,000 (The Maldives) upwards.

  The lands in orange denote countries with less than the global average ratio, i.e. 0.01. Of the countries listed under this category, Bangladesh and Pakistan are the countries where you are least likely to encounter one of Jehovah's Witnesses, with publisher ratios of 0.0001% (1 in 1,062,086) and 0.0005% (1 in 193,526) respectively. India has a relatively impressive ratio of 0.0027%, or 1 in 36,906.

  Of course, all this means I need to go back and update the figures in my article - but hey, it comes with the job!

  Cedars
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  cedars

  I should just point out that the ratios provided above may be slightly different to those printed in the Yearbook. This is because I used the average publisher figures rather than the peak publisher figures to figure out the publisher/population ratio. I already had the data for the average figures typed into a spreadsheet, and I wasn't in the mood to spend an hour or so typing in the peak figures just to match the Society's ratios perfectly!

  Just thought I should set that matter straight...

  Cedars
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  breakfast of champions

  When Jehovah looks down on the earth, he sees your highlighted area as a huge bullseye.
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  cedars

  Thanks breakfast. I don't know what you mean by "bullseye", but if a vengeful God was looking for a part of the Earth where there are few JWs on which to park a passing meteor, he could do worse than target the areas in red and orange! I'm not sure how that scenario corresponds with the God of love and mercy depicted in the new testament, but you should ask the Governing Body - not me.

  Cedars
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  jookbeard

  wonderful work Cedars I'm going to print that off photo it onto my iPhone and save it. I thought Sudan was definitely under ban? what is the grand total of population of the 2 sections and what is the probable amount of jw's between them?
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  darthfader

  Very interesting information. I wish I would have had this when speaking with my Father a couple weeks ago. I love those ratios.