I did go to your link and I am not a jw so I can or maybe should stay out of this. But I have a question. What is your point? Are you trying to say that if people have no proof that the stats might be inflated that they should put up or shut up?
Because as for time cards I know every jw I have talked to with their hair down admits that they put down time to fill the required duty. If it is not REALLY time SHHH! And for membership ya I bet they can keep it up. Imagine if you were born into a devout Republican party. You had to doorbell for all Republican candates regardless of what they were like they are Republicans damit! They are the one true party. If you ever voted for any other party or read any Liberal propaganda you would be subject to instantly being disowned by your family, your friends, even your children would no longer speak to you. Voting Republican is a given every year unless you want to loose all your "family." Imagine if you were found to be speaking friendly to someone with a liberal attitude that speaks out against the one true party "The Republicans" and then what if the Republican Party Police started stalking you and spying on you. It might keep voting republician up in the polls but I think that would be unethical. Forcing people to stay Jehovah Witnesses and do that organizations subjegated instructions is also unethical. That alone in my book dismisses any stats on them because of the way that they keep members in a constant state of servitude is unethical and it goes against the fundamental principals of the LORD, and the message of the Lord they claim to serve. Their numbers may be real but that does not mean that they are right.
Walter Kraemer is a German professor for statistics. He has written a book with the title "So luegt man mit Statistik" (How to Lie With Statistics). In the chapter "Die Illusion der Praezision" (The Illusion of Precision) among other examples he says on page 22: "According to the Jehovah's Witnesses Watchtower magazine of Januar 1st, 1996 244,591 Argentinians have participated at memorials of this religious community in 1995 (compared to 287,321 Germans, 21 Libyians, 2,262 Macedonians and 3,109 Cypriots).
(I guess not all nationalities are translated correctly by me.)
About all his examples he says: "These figures come along with much authority. But this is only a painted authority. If you scrape the paint you see the whole trick behind it."
I've joined this thread a little late, but I'll throw in my thoughts anyway : Agreeing with JT here------I think that the body count is truthful, and for that matter I think that all the other statistics that the Society reports on are truthful as well. And my reason for believing this is because of the number of Memorial partakers. Once again the number has gone up, and this looks real bad. There is no way that this number should be increasing, but, most years, it does. If I'm not mistaken, I believe that it has held at around 8,000 since the mid-seventies. It sort of shoots the Organization's belief of a declining and vanishing annointed remnant out of the water, don't you think? So------if they were going to lie about any of their stats, THEY WOULD LIE ABOUT THIS ONE. But they own up to the obvious contradiction and report it truthfully. Where the real problem comes in is the raw data that is sent in by the individual congregations. It is highly exaggerated, and sometimes downright false. A carload of people driving around on Saturday morning making not-at-homes and sitting inside McDonalds for an hour is not a carload of zealous kingdom proclaimers. It's just a bunch of people wasting their time. Also, at one congregation that I was in, I was the Ministerial Servant assigned to tally up the time reports for the Field Service overseer. I can tell you that I figured up time reports for people that I know never set foot in service. One was a bed-ridden sister who claimed 150 hours a month. Writing letters, I guess. Ridiculous. I knew of pioneers who would start their time by reading the day's text to their kids and keep it going so that by the time they hit the first door they already had 2 1/2 hours counted. And as a former pioneer myself, I knew all the tricks and I did what I had to do. I cheated. So while I think that the Society is basically honest in their reporting, it's the individual publishers and congregations that lie through their teeth.
