slimboyfat

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Posts by slimboyfat

• 
  94

  American democracy in crisis

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  okay cut to the chase.

  the united states has got a problem.

  hillary clinton is so unpopular that practically any republican who ran against her would probably have beaten her.

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  slimboyfat

  If you want to let Trump in by accident and precipitate the end of civilisation, I guess Green or Libertarian is the way to go.

  Vote for the crook not the fascist.
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  15

  The UK WTS companies' accounts documents for 2015 are currently available to download and here's information plus links

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the uk wts companies' documents for 2015 are currently free to download from the uk government's companies house website.

  the person who sent me this information said that it appears they are testing a new form of the website, so access to documents may in the future revert to a pay per file system.

  therefore, he advises getting copies of documents as soon as possible, as he doesn’t know when the testing phase will finish.

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  slimboyfat

  Removing money from local congregations may improve finances at headquarters in the short term, but I suspect the loss of congregations' financial autonomy will result in lower donations.
• 
  94

  American democracy in crisis

  by slimboyfat in

  1. social
  2. current

  okay cut to the chase.

  the united states has got a problem.

  hillary clinton is so unpopular that practically any republican who ran against her would probably have beaten her.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  Okay cut to the chase. The United States has got a problem.

  Hillary Clinton is so unpopular that practically any Republican who ran against her would probably have beaten her.

  Trump apparently doesn't want to win and is making fun of the whole process. There's no other reasonable way to interpret his behaviour, unless he is actually insane.

  So what does America do now?

  This is madness.

  https://youtu.be/6MubunsD-7g
• 
  15

  The UK WTS companies' accounts documents for 2015 are currently available to download and here's information plus links

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the uk wts companies' documents for 2015 are currently free to download from the uk government's companies house website.

  the person who sent me this information said that it appears they are testing a new form of the website, so access to documents may in the future revert to a pay per file system.

  therefore, he advises getting copies of documents as soon as possible, as he doesn’t know when the testing phase will finish.

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  slimboyfat

  Can anyone give a general assessment of their financial standing from this information? I find it hard to make sense of it. In particular they had a lot of money coming in last year. Was that the raid on Kingdom Hall funds? Is there a trend in donations up or down that can be discerned apart from atypical fluctuations.

  I notice they mention litigation as their major risk.

  It's hard to believe they're not facing a financial crisis.

  1. They've largely lost their main source of income - book publishing.

  2. Their members are increasinly badly educated, poor, and disinclined to give large donations.

  3. They face mounting legal costs.

  I would go so far as to say that, all things considered, if they manage to avoid a crisis in these circumstances, they should be regarded as strategic geniuses.
• 
  15

  The UK WTS companies' accounts documents for 2015 are currently available to download and here's information plus links

  by AndersonsInfo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the uk wts companies' documents for 2015 are currently free to download from the uk government's companies house website.

  the person who sent me this information said that it appears they are testing a new form of the website, so access to documents may in the future revert to a pay per file system.

  therefore, he advises getting copies of documents as soon as possible, as he doesn’t know when the testing phase will finish.

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  slimboyfat

  Lots of intersting stuff there, thanks.

  Trying to understand all the financial information but not really succeeding.

  I notice that all the directors have as their occupation "minister of religion" apart from Milton Henschel who was listed as "executive" amd Stephen Albert Hardy who was listed as "writer".

  When in the statement would it give the amount of money spent on litigation?
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  41

  New study - JWs by far the least educated religious group in Canada, Australia and New Zealand

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the religion of the educated classes revisited: new religions, the nonreligious, and educational levels - james r. lewis .

  the measure lewis uses to compare religious groups is what percentage of members of the respective religions have graduated from college.

  the findings are similar to the results of the pew survey in the united states.

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  slimboyfat

  Thanks shepherdless. The information about the average age of JWs getting older is very interesting because increasing average ages of religious believers are strongly correlated with decline.

  And an increase in average age of 2.3 years after only 5 years is pretty huge.

  Having said that, the average age of severely declining churches in the UK such as the Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians tends to be in the 50s or older.
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  13

  Lowell Goddard - ‘treated sex abuse victims with contempt’

  by darkspilver in

  1. watchtower
  2. child-abuse

  full page width headline along top of page 14 of the uk's observer newspaper (sunday 14 august 2016) states.

  judge ‘treated sex abuse victims with contempt’lowell goddard accused by lawyer of walking off inquiry before ruling on victims’ applications.

  remainder of article appears to be the same as online version that is now available at:.

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  slimboyfat

  The British establishment at its finest.
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  41

  New study - JWs by far the least educated religious group in Canada, Australia and New Zealand

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the religion of the educated classes revisited: new religions, the nonreligious, and educational levels - james r. lewis .

  the measure lewis uses to compare religious groups is what percentage of members of the respective religions have graduated from college.

  the findings are similar to the results of the pew survey in the united states.

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  slimboyfat

  The census figures are a bit old (2006, 2006 and 2011) but still very informative. I've got a book by James Lewis on the demography of NRMs called Sects and Stats. He says that getting access to the more detailed information in census returns can be tricky even for academics, and expensive. It should be possible to get the figures for earlier censuses and track JW education over time. But it might cost to access the information and the information might be difficult to extract.

  Unfortunately the UK census returns are totally useless when it comes to JWs because it tends to lump them together with other groups under "Christian".

  Census results in many countries consistently give higher numbers for JWs than the Yearbook numbers. At the same time there are always far fewer Mormons in the results than the Mormon church claims. (They claim 146,000 members in Australia for example, while the census shows 52,000, a pretty huge and fairly typical LDS discrepancy)

  It's also interesting to note that the Canadian census results show stagnation and decline in JW numbers even as the Yearbook numbers continue to climb. It may be that while the official number has grown, there are fewer "cultural" JWs now than in the 1980s.
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  49

  Dissenters in Watchtower History: Differing Departures

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. scandals

  i'm reading an excellent book about defectors from the mormon church called differing visions: dissenters in mormon history.

  through a collection of essays from many academic authors it looks at the life stories of dissenters and reasons for departure, as well as analysing the impact of their dissent on the church itself.

  fascinating stuff and makes me wish there was a similar volume looking at the key dissenters from jws/watchtower and the impact they had.

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  slimboyfat

  careful I'd be interested to follow up this defector from Taiwan!

  I heard there was a huge breakaway in the Philippines too.

  Lots of really interesting suggestions here from everyone.

  I've learned a lot about Joseph Booth and Elliot Kamwana in the past few weeks - really fascinating stories.

  Just a weird addition, but I read the other day how the inventor of Dungeons and Dragons was a JW. I wonder if he'd be worthy of inclusion,

  Or president Eisenhower for that matter, although I don't think he ever really embraced the religion of his mother at any stage.
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  41

  New study - JWs by far the least educated religious group in Canada, Australia and New Zealand

  by slimboyfat in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  the religion of the educated classes revisited: new religions, the nonreligious, and educational levels - james r. lewis .

  the measure lewis uses to compare religious groups is what percentage of members of the respective religions have graduated from college.

  the findings are similar to the results of the pew survey in the united states.

  1. 
  2. 
  3. 
• 

  slimboyfat

  The Religion of the Educated Classes Revisited: New Religions, the Nonreligious, and Educational Levels - James R. Lewis

  The measure Lewis uses to compare religious groups is what percentage of members of the respective religions have graduated from college.

  The findings are similar to the results of the Pew Survey in the United States. However they are based on census results of the whole population and are therefore not extrapolated figures or subject to margin of error as the Pew Survey was. It's therefore a much more robust evidence base for demonstrating that JWs are the least educated religious group in Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

  Only 6.3% of Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada have completed college, compared with 20.9% of the general population (Catholics 17.7%). In Australia 5.33% of JWs have graduated from college, compared with the national average of 14.5% (Catholics 19.09%). And in New Zealand the respective figures are 4.94% and 14.17% (Catholics 18.7%).

  The only other religious group that comes anywhere close to JWs in lack of education is Satanism is New Zealand. But they are a relatively small religious group (just over 1000 members) and marginally more adult Satanists than JWs have a college degree.

  Members of all other religious groups are significantly more likely than JWs to have completed college. This indicates a high level of obedience among JWs to the leadership's direction to avoid higher education. Especially when you consider that of the few JWs who have gone to college, many may have done so before conversion, indicating that only a tiny percentage of those who are brought up as JWs manage to go to college while remaining in the religion.