slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

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  76

  Front row seats watching the collapse of watchtower

  by Indoubtbigtime in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i’m a pimo ministerial servant and i won’t fade because i want to keep my front row seats watching what happens next few years.. my predictions are that this current governing body will slowly die off and the current younger helpers will be the next gb.

  they will eventually have new light that they were wrong about 1914 and the overlapping generations.. the new light will be something on the lines of the last days are now because of king of north king of south pushing each other etc etc.

  they will do their very best to burry old literature and try to change the past trying to make it sound like they were right all along just as they have done for 150 years now.

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  slimboyfat

  Well I used to think that, but personally I think society itself has better chance of collapse than Watchtower in the near to medium term. And for that spectacle we may well have front row seats whether we like it or not. The two may be related too, inasmuch as Watchtower and other apocalyptic religions may benefit from societal disruption, only caveat being, if societal disjunction becomes too severe then the Watchtower variety of apocalypticism may be too tame and conformist to meet the needs of widespread dissatisfaction with the current ‘system of things’.
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  169

  Are the statistics out yet?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

  or have they stopped publishing it?

  did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

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  slimboyfat

  Sanchy my argument was that JWs are growing in comparison with other churches that are declining. (Which Jeffro tried to contradict by discrediting Watchtower figures and then selectively quoting census figures.) It was never my argument that there is “no reason” for the fact that JWs are growing while other churches are declining. Their preaching activity is definitely one important reason. Somebody else mentioned disfellowshipping that keeps people in line. That’s definitely a factor too. Wars, economic turmoil and other crises are also factors that affect all religions, and apocalyptic religions are likely to benefit from more than others. That’s likely a significant factor too in countries where that applies.

  My own observation is that most churches have suffered a significant loss in membership and attendance due to the pandemic, the exceptions being Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists who have grown slightly.
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  169

  Are the statistics out yet?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

  or have they stopped publishing it?

  did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

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  slimboyfat

  All I have argued in this thread is that JW growth is better than other groups. It’s this point you contradicted me on on page 3

  The JW numbers look “bad” … until you compare them with most other Christian groups which are in severe decline in the west. Compared with other Christian groups the growth of JWs bucks the trend of decline.
  

  To which you replied

  No. Not a valid representation of my position at all. I have explained the reasons previously and you either don’t understand, or you ignore the reasons why JW rates of growth seem higher than for other denominations because it goes against your narrative.

  Now you’re saying something else. Fine. My point is that JWs are growing while most other groups are declining. You’ve given me the opportunity to prove that from census data itself, which demonstrates it even better than I impinged. So it wasn’t entirely unproductive.
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  42

  Have you ever been on a congregation picnic?

  by LostintheFog1999 in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  were you ever on a congregation picnic?

  i was on several occasions.. the arrangements were often announced from the platform after the closing song and prayer by the last elder up on the platform.. sometimes it was included in the service meeting announcements as "on saturday we're meeting at 10.00am at the kingdom hall for field service, and after field service for anyone who wishes, especially for the younger ones, we will be having a congregation picnic meeting at the beach carpark on seaview road.".

  well, according to the new elders manual you won't be hearing those words again.

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  slimboyfat

  For some reason, I read this thread heading as saying: “have you ever seen a congregation panic?” and expected an unusual story to follow. A couple of times it’s caught me now. 😂
• 
  169

  Are the statistics out yet?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

  or have they stopped publishing it?

  did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

  1. 
  2. 
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• 

  slimboyfat

  Jeffro you are the one who said other churches count attendees as members. This is not the case. I asked for an example, you supplied none. You now seem to be arguing that other churches have more adherents than members. Possibly, I don’t know, because ‘adherent’ needs to be defined in order to be compared. Different churches use different measurements, and they call their measurements different things.

  The point I am making, and that you originally objected to, is that JWs are doing better than most other churches. This is clearly the case whatever measure you use. You disputed this by claiming that JWs don’t present accurate growth figures, and then you referenced the relative decline (compared to the population as a whole) of JWs in the Australian census numbers between 2016 and 2021 to make your point. Great! That’s something concrete we can work with. Lets compare all the churches using your preferred data from the Australian census. Here are the results.

  Anglicans down from 3,101,200 to 2,496,300 a decrease of 604,900 or 19.5%

  Baptists up from 345,100 to 347,300 an increase of 2200 or 0.6%

  Catholics down from 5,291,800 to 5,075,900 a decrease of 215,900 or 4.1%

  Churches of Christ down from 39,600 to 35,900 a decrease of 3700 or 9.3%

  Jehovah’s Witnesses up from 82,500 to 84,400 an increase of 1900 or 2.3%

  Mormons down from 61,600 to 57,900 a decrease of 3700 or 6.0%

  Lutherans down from 174,000 to 145,900 a decrease of 28,100 or 16.1%

  Eastern Orthodox down from 582,800 to 535,500 a decrease of 47,300 or 8.1%

  Pentecostals down from 260,600 to 259,800 a decrease of 900 or 0.3%

  Presbyterian and Reformed down from 526,700 to 414,900 a decrease of 111,800 or 21.2%

  Salvation Army down from 48,900 to 35,400 a decrease of 13,500 or 27.6%

  Seventh-day Adventists up from 62,900 to 63,700 an increase of 800 or 1.3%

  Uniting Church down from 870,200 to 673,300 a decrease of 196,900 or 22.6%

  Or to put that in descending order from the group with the highest growth to the group with the largest decrease:

  Jehovah’s Witnesses + 2.3%

  Seventh-day Adventists +1.3%

  Baptists +0.6%

  Pentecostals -0.3%

  Catholics -4.1%

  Mormons -6.0%

  Eastern Orthodox -8.1%

  Churches of Christ -9.3%

  Lutherans -16.1%

  Anglicans -19.5%

  Presbyterian and Reformed -21.2%

  Uniting Church -22.6%

  Salvation Army -27.6%

  Jeffro, seriously, according to those numbers, are JWs doing better, or worse, than other Christian groups? Straightforward answer please.
• 
  169

  Are the statistics out yet?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

  or have they stopped publishing it?

  did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

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  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  Duplicate post
• 
  169

  Are the statistics out yet?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

  or have they stopped publishing it?

  did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  Jeffro you are the one who said other churches count attendees as members. This is not the case. I asked for an example, you supplied none. You now seem to be arguing that other churches have more adherents than members. Possibly, I don’t know, because ‘adherent’ needs to be defined consistently in order to be compared. Different churches use different measurements and call their measurements different things.

  The point I am making, and that you originally objected to, is that JWs are doing better than most other churches. You disputed this by claiming that JWs don’t present accurate growth figures, and then you referenced the relative decline (compared to the population as a whole) of JWs in the Australian census numbers between 2016 and 2021 to make your point. Great! That’s something concrete we can work with. Lets compare all the churches using your preferred measure from the Australian census. Here are the results.

  Anglicans down from 3,101,200 to 2,496,300 a decrease of 604,900 or 19.5%

  Baptists up from 345,100 to 347,300 an increase of 2200 or 0.6%

  Catholics down from 5,291,800 to 5,075,900 a decrease of 215,900 or 4.1%

  Churches of Christ down from 39,600 to 35,900 a decrease of 3700 or 9.3%

  Jehovah’s Witnesses up from 82,500 to 84,400 an increase of 1900 or 2.3%

  Mormons down from 61,600 to 57,900 a decrease of 3700 or 6.0%

  Lutherans down from 174,000 to 145,900 a decrease of 28,100 or 16.1%

  Eastern Orthodox down from 582,800 to 535,500 a decrease of 47,300 or 8.1%

  Pentecostals down from 260,600 to 259,800 a decrease of 900 or 0.3%

  Presbyterian and Reformed down from 526,700 to 414,900 a decrease of 111,800 or 21.2%

  Salvation Army down from 48,900 to 35,400 a decrease of 13,500 or 27.6%

  Seventh-day Adventists up from 62,900 to 63,700 an increase of 800 or 1.3%

  Uniting Church down from 870,200 to 673,300 a decrease of 196,900 or 22.6%

  Or to put that in descending order from the group with the highest growth to the group with the largest decrease:

  Jehovah’s Witnesses + 2.3%

  Seventh-day Adventists +1.3%

  Baptists +0.6%

  Pentecostals -0.3%

  Catholics -4.1%

  Mormons -6.0%

  Eastern Orthodox -8.1%

  Churches of Christ -9.3%

  Lutherans -16.1%

  Anglicans -19.5%

  Presbyterian and Reformed -21.2%

  Uniting Church -22.6%

  Salvation Army -27.6%

  Jeffro, according to the census numbers, do you think JWs are doing better or worse than other Christian groups?
• 
  169

  Are the statistics out yet?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

  or have they stopped publishing it?

  did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  There's always different reasons for numbers. Some years ago JWs we're growing in Norway. Reason many JWs moved to Norway cause there was more job opportunities. Puerto Rico was other way around. Many moved to mainland and numbers of JWs was staggering. Either way you cut things. Only reason watchtower is not dropping massively in numbers are the strict DF rules. Remove DF arrangements and oh boy the drop they gonna have.

  1. Other religious adherents move around too, this is hardly unique to JWs. (Hundreds of thousands of Polish Catholics moved to the UK in the past 20 years, for example)

  2. A JW who moves to Norway, Puerto Rico etc., by definition has moved away from somewhere else. So while they are added to the Norway or Puerto Rico count, they are subtracted from the count in whatever country they came from.

  Movement between countries, obviously, is no explanation for the growth in JW numbers worldwide, overall, unless we posit extra terrestrials.

  Edit because I’ve run out of posts:

  I don’t know any religious group that defines membership as attendance. Can you give an example? It’s not true of the groups I am familiar with. In fact many groups, such as Adventists and Catholics, maintain separate datasets for membership and attendance, precisely because they are not the same thing. Others don’t regularly publish attendance figures (though these may be gathered internally) such as the Church of Scotland which only publishes membership statistics not attendance numbers. When independent counts of attendance are conducted (see the work of Peter Brierley) they show that attendance at Church of Scotland churches is well under half the membership count.

  I don’t know where you are coming from with this mistaken assumption that other groups count attendees as members.
• 
  169

  Are the statistics out yet?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

  or have they stopped publishing it?

  did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  Have you got any explanation why the New Zealand census confirms that JWs are growing compared with other Christian groups? Or why censuses in general produce higher JW figures than the annual report, and have done for decades?

  As I mentioned, even if inclined to reject Watchtower figures altogether (not a reasonable position in any case) census returns alone show that JWs have better growth than most other groups, and in fact most other groups are declining rapidly.

  As I recall your argument (feel free to provide a link) it leans heavily on the fact that the publisher number includes unbaptised publishers as well as baptised JWs. But as everyone knows, JWs have always done this, it is nothing new. You didn’t give any compelling reason why this measure would give an increased rate of growth for any length of time. Plus, as I pointed out above, if somehow it did produce an inflated measure of growth over time the publisher count would drift above other measures of membership. This has not happened, as census returns show.
• 
  169

  Are the statistics out yet?

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  isn’t it about time they released the report for the service year?

  or have they stopped publishing it?

  did they released selected figures at the annual meeting as they usually do, such as the memorial attendance or record number of pioneers?

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  As I explained last year Jeffro, it’s simply impossible to inflate the “growth rate” for long periods of time without the two measure drifting apart from one another. If the growth rate was consistently overstated for many years you would end up with JWs claiming a lot more members than other measures produce. This has not happened, ever.

  Or look at it another way, and ignore Watchtower figures altogether and what do we find? As with the latest New Zealand data, they show that JWs are growing while almost all other Christian groups are declining. The only other Christian group with any significant growth in New Zealand is the Seventh-day Adventists. The Baptists are remaining about level, and most other groups are declining heavily. These data are derived without looking at Watchtower’s own figures at all.

  Plus there are aspects of the Watchtower report that are likely to be highly accurate, such as number of congregations, which can be independently verified, and the number of baptisms, which is likely to be accurately recorded, and is not subject to change in definition of what “baptism” means.

  Your only argument boils down to the claim that the definition of “publisher” this year may be a bit more liberal than the definition of “publisher” last year, and granted in some individual years this is probably the case, such as when the 15 minute rule was introduced in the early 2000s. Over the long term, however, the number of members that JWs claim remains much lower than the number of self identified JWs in national censuses, and often by significant amounts. Some countries, especially in South America, have close to double the number self identified JWs compared with the Watchtower “publisher” count. This is in stark contrast with Mormons who often claim twice, three times, even four times as many members in their official count compared with census results.