l think the real figure would be a real nail in the coffin for jw believers.lf the elders knew what l knew they would have a field day.many many jdubs live a double life.lovey dovey at the hall and totally different people at home and work.my guess is many dubs are schizophrenic and in need of help.with all the brain washing lm not surprised.what have others observed.
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Impossible to tell but irresistible to speculate. It depends on your terms and definitions too.
But are there large numbers of people sitting in KHs who have severe doubts or flat out don't believe a word of it but attend for other reasons? At least 10% surely, but probably not as high as 50%. Whatever the figure I bet there are more now than there has ever been before.
horrible crime in glasgow on thursday evening when a well loved muslim shop keeper asad shah was stabbed to death by at least one other muslim man.
mohammad faisal, a family friend, said a bearded muslim wearing a long religious robe entered mr shah’s shop and spoke to him in his native language before stabbing him in the head with a kitchen knife.. mr shah had posted the twitter message ‘good friday and a very happy easter, especially to my beloved christian nation’.
residents of shawlands in glasgow say he was well respected and had been known to hand out christmas cards to neighbours despite being of a different faith.. hundreds have turned out in a vigil near the crime scene....
Who says the Muslim faith is about love and peace, ?
Probably the victim, who was of course a Muslim, and apparently very kindly mannered.
sainsbury's has been forced to apologise after its jehovah's witness chef refused to serve a customer black pudding with his full english breakfast.alan mackay was stunned when he was told he could not enjoy the staple, made up of animal fat, blood and oatmeal, with his meal at the branch in arnold, nottingham.after receiving his incomplete dish the former police officer was told the black pudding would not be served because it was against the religious beliefs of the chef to do so....
If you dislike somebody because of what they are that is bigotry
If you object to what somebody does that isn't.
It's as if you've given this no thought at all. A Christian or JW could easily say: "I don't dislike anyone for being gay if that is what they are. If they practice sodomy on the other hand God will destroy them and I will tell them so."
I think many people would class that as bigoted. The distinction between being something and doing something cuts no ice.
paragraph 14: .
"this means that we need to examine our heart constantly to see if it is being enticed by worldly entertainment, associations, and styles of dress and grooming.
or the love of the world might involve efforts to attain “great things,” such as through the pursuit of higher education.
There was a particularly wacky WT about a decade ago that said if you go to university and pursue a respectable career you are guilty of supporting the current system of things and wishing it to continue.
perhaps this has been discussed in the past, but i can't help noticing that on many posts creation vs evolution seems to equal theist vs atheist.
granted, a creationist by defination would have to believe in a creator.
on the other hand, believing in evolution doesn't automatically make one an atheist, a small point perhaps, but i think it would be more accurate to say believer vs nonbeliever.. just sayin'..
Some argue that evolution proves there is a God.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_argument_against_naturalism
my wife and i had business to attend to out of town today and i had thought if we made it back home in time, we'd go to the memorial.
as it turned out, we didn't get home in time and we missed it, but we had a real good talk with each other on the way home.
we are largely successful faders and at the very least, i like to try and make the memorial.
morning warship - he was the only restraint and i'm not saying that lightly.
i know there are a dozen others here who were in bethel back in the early 2000's who know what i'm talking about.
he actually kept me thinking this was jehovah's org because of his sincerity as if the holy spirit was operating in him.
A second report of Swingle using the N word. This was the one I was thinking of actually.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/4825734497435648/my-bethel-experience-part-17
I don't know jookbeard. Ray Franz claims Barry was a swing vote who held back alternative service for over a decade doesn't he?
morning warship - he was the only restraint and i'm not saying that lightly.
i know there are a dozen others here who were in bethel back in the early 2000's who know what i'm talking about.
he actually kept me thinking this was jehovah's org because of his sincerity as if the holy spirit was operating in him.
Mostly I've only read good things about Sydlik and Swngle. There was a poster years ago who knew the Swingle family well and insisted they were good people who wanted a more liberal approach. Ray Franz of course famously quoted Sydlik as saying the WT needed some open the windows for fresh air and to lighten up in the 1970s. Swingle he said gave him a hug in the lift when he was being expelled.
But I do remember one thread that claimed Swingle could be racist and Sydlik could be a bully. Should be measured against all the good reports but maybe worth mentioning.
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/24043/about-dan-sydlik?page=1&size=20
Jack Barr I've never heard a bad word about ever.
anybody know where he is now?.
i have a friend who wants to get in touch..
I never met him but I never got the impression he was black. At least no one mentioned it. Maybe you are confusing him with someone else.
i have seen a few posts here, in various guises, in relation to whether watchtower is in decline.
plenty of people respond, but it is all fairly anecdotal, or "gut feel".
some of it has been wishful thinking.. as of late 2015, watchtower's numbers suggest it is still growing marginally, but there are various anecdotes on this site of publishers typically being older, and younger ones disappearing.
shepherdless firstly are you already aware that there have been two academic articles that discuss precisely the point about JWs' prospects for future growth? In the 1990s Rodney Stark wrote an article about why JWs "grow so fast" compared with other churches and he projected JW figures for the next 100 years or so on the basis of either 4% or 2% annual growth, producing a range of 27 million to 194 million by 2090. Both of those look very optimistic now.
http://www.oocities.org/rogueactivex/JWGrow-O.pdf
Then in James Beckford's festschrift the secularisation theorist David Voas wrote a really interesting article arguing that JWs may suffer a dramatic decline in membership in the near to mid term. He argued that once decline begins to set in within a sectarian movement it tends to proceed rapidly, likening it to declines in fish stocks which tend to suffer collapses in numbers rather than gentle declines. I made a thread about it at the time.
I think you are absolutely correct to focus on the age profile of adherents as an indicator of decline. Increasing age of membership is a well studied phenomenon in the UK in relation to declining churches such as Methodists, Anglicans and Presbyterians. Peter Brierley has collected data on church attendance, including age profiles and lots of other details for decades.
https://www.ministrytoday.org.uk/magazine/issues/43/352/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pulling-Out-The-Nosedive-Contemporary/dp/1853211680
David Voas, Steve Bruce and others have argued that secularisation proceeds as each succeeding generation rejects the faith of their parents. I reckon this is true for JWs as for other groups, they are just a little behind the curve. David Voas explains this sort of cohort analysis and what it means for church decline in this video.
It's been years since I attended meetings now so I can't give accurate local information. I can only say that from talking to people who still attend they remark on the total lack of young people. As far as I know there are only 2 teenagers in the congregation, no children, two couples under 40, a few single sisters under 40, and the rest over 40, with probably about half aged 57 or over.
