The Latest "Peoples Magazine" on Occults

by new boy 23 Replies latest jw friends

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  steve2

  My mistake, newboy. I had thought your OP was quoting an article or link - given it was in bold. Now I realise it was your own view.

  On the issue of the suicide rate among JWs compared to the general population, there have been several threads on this topic. I won’t repeat in detail the main points discussed except to note that discussions need to make a distinction between anecdotal evidence and well conducted surveys (preferably involving what’s called “representative sampling”. Also, even if it were established that suicide among the ranks of JWs was higher than the “general population”, any sound research doesn’t just follow “obvious” explanations (for example, that JW teachings and practices in some way causes that higher number of suicides). Alternative explanations could include the following: Among the ranks of JWs, many dkready have ore-existing mental illnesses including depressive outlooks or that the JWs minority status makes followers vulnerable to stress caused by being outsiders from wider society.

  i guess my main point would be there is a difference between anecdotal accounts of suicidality (based on personal observation) and more comprehensive research.
• 

  2+2=5

  Alternative explanations could include the following: Among the ranks of JWs, many dkready have ore-existing mental illnesses including depressive outlooks or that the JWs minority status makes followers vulnerable to stress caused by being outsiders from wider society.
  

  Most men who commit suicide don’t have any known mental illness.

  One factor that would come into play is occupation, for men working in construction the rate of suicide is much higher. I expect the JWs would over represent in these jobs compared to the general population, certainly in Australia they do. So we should probably expect a slightly higher rate, at least in Australia.

  But like Steve said, virtually impossible to know with so many factors.
• 

  Nathan Natas

  Occults?

  WTF?

  I never knew there was a plural form of adjectives!

  This is better than 4 years of AWAKE!
• 

  Nathan Natas

  "New boy, can you provide the link or reference?"

  ...and don't give us none of that unreliable 'dictionary' stuff!
• 

  Vidiot

  new boy - "...all of the cults mention above are no more, except for the Watchtower Bible and Truck society..."

  Credit where credit's due... the Org had enough presence of mind to deliberately avoid looking freaky and "cultish"...

  ...at least until JW Broadcasting, anyway.
• 

  sir82

  Newboy would benefit from an introductory course on probability & statistics.
  
• 

  Vidiot

  The way my elder dad talked about it when I was a kid, I thought when he said "occult" (he pronounced it slightly wrong), he was saying "O cult".

  For years I thought he'd meant an actual cult named "O", and was confused, 'cause I'd never heard it mentioned anywhere on the news.
• 

  kramer

  I have been attending 40+ years and don’t know anyone who has committed suicide, this is therefore statistically robust evidence that suicides don’t happen in gods organisation
• 

  Simon

  Really so you want proof that more Jehovah's Witnesses kill themselves every year then in the general population.

  Yes, if that claim is going to be made, it needs to be based on more than "I think" or (probably more accurately), "I hope" ...

  I can only offer you the information I personal know.

  Right ... so wishful thinking? Extrapolating our personal experience to the population of the planet ... some margin of error there y'know!

  Fact according to the internet one person out of 7,280 will kill themselves this year.

  Really irrelevant to the discussion - there are so many factors involved, which apply to JWs?

  Fact, I have know eleven Jehovah's Witnesses or ex-Jehovah's Witnesses (some of whom couldn't live with the guilt of leaving that organization) who have taken their own lives.

  Wow, that seems high. I only know of a couple of suicides (one JW when I was in, one when I was out). I'm not sure either could be put down as being caused by the WTS in the same way that Jonestown deaths clearly could.

  Fact: Just because someone happens to be a JW when they kill themselves doesn't mean that was the cause. They might have worked at McDonalds, is that also the cause?

  I have met over 900 Jehovah's Witnesses that I have known personally. So personally judging by these numbers it looks like you are seven times more likely to kill yourself if you have had some kind of contact with that organization.

  There are so many flaws with this argument, I don't know where to start.

  1. No one "personally knows" 900 people, that's BS IMO.

  2. It's really irrelevant because there are other factors involved - you could be in a group that has a cluster of suicides for other reasons, that's why more analysis is needed than taking two numbers and the two numbers need to be as large as possible to cover the population.

  I don't know of that many incidents of suicide among JWs just as I don't know of many that die refusing blood - there tend to be cases reported and they are not as common as some seem to wish they were.

  I don't need to know their names but how many people do you know that have killed themselves that have been associated to that organization?

  1 who was currently in, 1 who was out.

  But to do proper analysis you would need to know the names to make sure that 100 people referring to the same 1 person is recorded as 1 and not 100 when doing the math.
• 

  Simon

  I expect the JWs would over represent in these jobs compared to the general population, certainly in Australia they do.

  Then you'll easily be able to point to a reference for such a statistic ... right?

  Or is it just one of these "surely it must be so!" claims that you just wish were the case? (for some macabre reason)