Converted...
baptised 1993
woke up 2015
duped for 22 years
Survey: How long were you in the cult vs what year you were baptized
by ILoveTTATT2 155 Replies latest jw friends
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Lostwun
Born in
Baptized in 2004 at age 16
Completely faded in 2015.
11 years a slave
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ILoveTTATT2
Thank you!
Please keep answering if you haven't!
I was told by a friend that my premise is wrong, and I have thought about it and will solve the problem.
The graph will ALWAYS be linear because the maximum number of years one could have spent in the borg increases linearly...
i.e a person who was baptized in 2000 and came out in 2015 stayed in 15 years.
A person who was baptized in 1999 and got out in 2015 stayed in 16 years.
17 for 1998, 18 for 1997, etc.
So the maximum number of years in possible increases linearly, and obviously changes each year.
So to fix that and see true results I need to compare the number of years in to the maximum possible years in.
i.e. If a person was baptized in 1950 and only stayed until 1958, it is obvious that the WT held them a lot less stronger than a person who stayed until 2000, i.e. 50 years out of the possible 65.
If I take the difference, and still there is a downward trend, then that factor will be removed.
The other factor that people have mentioned is lack of access to the internet or death of those baptized in earlier decades compared to now. The thought is that most of the answers will be of people who access the internet and are exJW's, which will be the younger generation.
I beg to differ. I have had lots of responses from people baptized in the 70's, 80's, and 90's.
Yet another factor mentioned was that people from the 2000's may yet come out. That may be true, but the data is showing that there is less variability in the responses of the people baptized after 2000. This means that the data has even more of a predictive power than in previous decades, and the difference in years between in and out IS shortening significantly.
The average for the people in the 50's to the 90's is around 20 years, the average post 2000 is less than 10 years.
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Simon
I think the issue of lack of internet or death of those who left earlier isn't the biggest issue, it's whether people are still concerned with JW / ex-JW issues 20+ or 30+ years after leaving to even be aware of the survey.
There's no way to account for it, you just have to be aware that it may show up in the chart and be a possible explanation for a trend or gap.
People leaving more recently are not only more likely to be internet-aware but also more interested in jest-left-the-JW's issues.
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ILoveTTATT2
Yes Simon, and yet we have quite a few who were baptized in the 70's, left in the 90's, and are still on JWN. -
fulano
Raised
1974
2001
27
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Oubliette
the average post 2000 is less than 10 years.
Well it would have to be, wouldn't it.
It's only 2015.
(2015 - 1999) / 2 = 8.
What did you expect?
Also, you're only asking people that have left to participate so you are automatically excluding everyone still in. Although, discounting for the slight decreasing trend in baptisms over the past decade or so, we would expect the average length of time people have been "in" the religion since 2000 to be about the mathematical mean also, but for the opposite reason.
It would be more meaningful to know what percentage of active JWs have left at any given time. The way the WTBTS reports data makes it extremely difficult to know this.
There was a very detailed discussion about this general idea about 4 years ago back before SLIMBOYFAT left (welcome back) and everyone here was still on speaking terms with Cedars.
As I recall, this was one of the first threads where Cedars got his knickers in a knot because people were calling him on his flawed statistical analysis:
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The discussion really gets interesting around page 7.
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Oubliette
Paul Grundy has done some pretty impressive work on this subject, and without all the drama of, well you know, that other guy:
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mrquik
1. Raised
2. In ministry school at 9. Baptized at 16.
3. Active for 50 years.
4. I win........
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Nathan Natas
1) raised, beginning at age 7
2) 1964 age 14
3) 1973 age 23
Time in: 16 years
Spent years wandering in the wilderness, expecting to die anytime I heard a thunderstorm (metaphorically speaking)
joined JWN 15 years ago, found some meaning in service to other XJWs. I am personally responsible for the desolation of The Watchtower Bible & Tract Society. I have eaten lizard-on-a-stick.
all dates and times are approximate and not provable with Bible-based chronology.