before i begin i just wanna say, im not proud of what i did, it was wrong but it happened now im just trying to do the right thing.. ok so im a "worldly" person and i meet a jw women at my job.
i had no idea she was married due to the fact that she hid her wedding ring.
i even ask if she was in a relationship and she denied it.
She sounds like a piece of work, and treats everyone pretty bad. Shame your life is inextricably linked to hers now.
She probably went back because of the shunning.
Insist your children don't get baptised until they're adults. If JW children delay baptism until adulthood they invariably put it off altogether. That's why the GB are desperate to get children baptised as young as possible.
this post is actually in answer to a question i got from jwfacts.
i think the issue was also raised on a recent thread.. first, some data from the 2011 and 2016 censuses:.
(a) 1,751,733 (7.5% of population) reported being in a de-facto couple on census night, but .
Shepherdless your presentation of the figures is very good and you obviously know what you are doing. My comments are intended to be supportive.
I wonder if you've come across a book called Sects and Stats by James R. Lewis. He's a religious studies scholar who uses census data to study small sects in anglophone countries. So very similar territory, except he doesn't discuss JWs. But his work may be helpful in terms of methodology.
https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/sects-stats/
When I read this book I was initially excited about applying his methods to JWs - until he said that the data are very expensive to access.
Also I suppose you know of the work of Ryan Cragun and Ronald Lawson on JWs, Mormons and Adventists.
Cragun is good with stats on Mormons in particular, and responsive to emails.
Plus there is that essay by David Voas on JWs, I will send to you if/when I find that book again!
In fact David Voas is a very interesting sociologist it may be worth you following up, because he supports the secularisation thesis in a particular form that is supportive of some comments you've made on the subject.
Years ago I had a conversation with scociologist Steve Bruce about religious decline and JWs in particular. He said that his latest work (this was around 2006) was in collaboration with David Voas and they were working with evidence that the mechanism of religious decline is largely the failure to transmit religious affiliation from one generation to the next. In other words, people who are accustomed to attending church/KH tend to keep on doing so. Religious decline is not usually a result of people leaving church en masse. Rather what happens is that, at a certain juncture, the children of the devout are not fully socialised in the church, so they don't continue affiliation as adults. Decline therefore results as the devout age and die, and their children don't replace them in the pews/KHs.
This may seem obvious actually, but it's the subject of much debate among sociologists. In fact even the very fact of religious decline is (amazingly) in dispute among some prominent sociologists.
Another excellent book on religous decline is Religion and Demographic Revolution: Women and Secularization in Canada, Ireland, UK and USA since the 1960s by historian Callum Brown.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Religion-Demographic-Revolution-Secularisation-Religious/dp/1843837927/
He argues for a cultural and gendered explanation of religious decline.
john mcenroe was challenged by npr reporter lulu garcia-navarro to amend his comments about serena williams in his new book in which he rates her as the best women's player of all time.
lulu suggested he should not call her the best "women's" player but simply the best player of all time.
mcenroe was taken aback and explained that the men's and women's tours were very different and that serena would be around 700th on in the men's game.
Strange times we live in when people are not allowed to say things that are obviously true.
Whereas it's become routine to accept the president of the United States will say things that are demonstrably untrue.
ever heard of it?
i have but never realized the full meaning.
this is the tactic the wtbs uses to control people.
Definitely!
"Did we say 1975? No you got carried away!"
2015: "don't approach the public when Witnessing on the carts."
2017: "brothers you are being too passive when witnessing on the carts!"
Gaslighting
when i first became a witness, i always found the teaching about jesus being the arch angel michael hard to swallow.
i did however believe that jesus pre existed as a master worker alongside god (the first of his creation).. but now everything is brought into question having watched anthony buzzard explain why jesus could not have pre existed as it is impossible to pre exist yourself.
also the fact that it all sounds contradictory to suggest, he was already alive millions of years before he was transferred to mary's womb to be born as a human - the son of man?.
Antony Buzzard, what a funny fellow. He's like a throwback to the nineteenth century interlocutors of Russell.
I take it you've seen the video of him arguing with two JWs.
this guy has to have the most courage of anyone i've ever seen or balls the size of basketballs.he actually gives a good talk and has tidbits scattered about throughout his public talk with hints,suggestions,innuendos of the wt organization.i never want to go in another kingdom hall again in my life but would have made an exception just to be in this audience.
lolnotice what's going on in the audience when they realize somethings up.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqqt0y1peuu.
It's very good and amusing, but just how many times is this video going to be posted? I'm sure I've seen four threads now, and maybe I missed others.
As someone commented on another thread, whatever elder mistakenly invited him as speaker probably got in serious trouble. Maybe even removed?
will they draw a new name out of a hat or do a kiss test i don't know..
Yes careful I agree "helper" status isn't a good stepping stone to GB.
I was thinking of this comment:
Go through the list of "helpers"....
I was wondering if such a list exists as it would be interesting in itself.
will they draw a new name out of a hat or do a kiss test i don't know..
Is there a public list of helpers?
we all know the rate of suicide is high among jw's.
my question is this- was there some subliminal messages that encourage this.
i was a born in and my entire life i would have these thoughts that could come out of nowhere,"kill yourself.
Ruby I know there is evidence that religious affiliation in general is good for mental health. I was asking about JWs in particular. I have access to academic journals so please cite away. Apart from a number of discredited older studies on JWs (Spencer, Montague, Bergman) the one by JW Rolf Furuli mentioned by Earnest is the only recent one I know. If there are more I'd like to see. I keep a database of all academic works on JWs as they are published.
we all know the rate of suicide is high among jw's.
my question is this- was there some subliminal messages that encourage this.
i was a born in and my entire life i would have these thoughts that could come out of nowhere,"kill yourself.
What's the evidence for saying the suicide rate is lower among JWs?
I don't think there is reliable data on the issue. In fact the WT discourages and obstructs collecting such data, which is perhaps indicative.
