Indeed. Be that as it may, growth trends have been trending down. Unless the trend reverses, the org is set for eventual stagnation and perhaps contraction. It is already happening in a few countries.
Sanchy
JoinedPosts by Sanchy
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68
District Assemblies now being held at Circuit Assembly locations?
by ShirleyW ini haven't been to a kh in decades, so i get the google alerts for jws and i got one featuring a local news channel in brooklyn covering the assembly being held in flatbush, brooklyn.
i'm sure that venue is where the circuit assemblies are usually held, keeping in mind it's summer and that's when the district assemblies are being held.
why are they acting like they're so strapped for cash and now holding district assemblies in circuit assemblies locations ?.
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Sanchy
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68
District Assemblies now being held at Circuit Assembly locations?
by ShirleyW ini haven't been to a kh in decades, so i get the google alerts for jws and i got one featuring a local news channel in brooklyn covering the assembly being held in flatbush, brooklyn.
i'm sure that venue is where the circuit assemblies are usually held, keeping in mind it's summer and that's when the district assemblies are being held.
why are they acting like they're so strapped for cash and now holding district assemblies in circuit assemblies locations ?.
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Sanchy
Indeed the religion is still technically growing. When analyzing the data though, it is important to analyze trends as well as the raw figures. It helps paint a picture of what the future might hold.
The growth levels overall have been trending down for decades. Of particular interest is the slow to non-existent growth in developed countries that were once flourishing, such as Japan, and other European countries.
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District Assemblies now being held at Circuit Assembly locations?
by ShirleyW ini haven't been to a kh in decades, so i get the google alerts for jws and i got one featuring a local news channel in brooklyn covering the assembly being held in flatbush, brooklyn.
i'm sure that venue is where the circuit assemblies are usually held, keeping in mind it's summer and that's when the district assemblies are being held.
why are they acting like they're so strapped for cash and now holding district assemblies in circuit assemblies locations ?.
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Sanchy
I kThe article was obviously wrong. The religion declined for only a few years after 1975 after which a renewed focus on the "1914 generation not passing" helped many forget about the '75 fiasco.
Having said that, it seems the glory days of the religion growing at 4, 5 and even 6% are over. Now a days 1 to 2% is the norm.
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2018/19 new light
by Ray Frankz inhi guys, long time without paying a visit to this site.
today i returned to check a 'gossip' that is running around in brazilian exjw forums.. they are stating that is almost certain they will make a big change in their doctrine maybe this year yet in the annual meeting.
they say people in warwick were commenting on this.
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Sanchy
I'm sure there is added pressure for the GB to revise the 144k doctrine in light of the fact that the number of partakers has increased dramatically in the last few years.
I mean, they can only milk the "mental and emotional problems" excuse for so long.
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2018/19 new light
by Ray Frankz inhi guys, long time without paying a visit to this site.
today i returned to check a 'gossip' that is running around in brazilian exjw forums.. they are stating that is almost certain they will make a big change in their doctrine maybe this year yet in the annual meeting.
they say people in warwick were commenting on this.
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Sanchy
Haven't heard anything specifically like that though I've always thought that, sooner or later, they will have to revise the 144k doctrine.
Something along the lines of: "For some time, our publications have said that the 144,000 figure is literal. However, after careful consideration was given to the context of Rev 7, it became necessary to adjust our understanding. Does the number of anointed brothers of Christ really need to be exactly 144,000? Not necessarily blah blah blah...."
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Cognitive Dissonace on full display at JWtalk over evolution research
by Sanchy ina user over on the jwtalk forum recently shared a warning over his research on evolution in preparation for an assigned talk.
after detailing a couple of the tidbits that he learned of during his research, he went on to say:.
this i found to be useful especially when talking ot others in the ministry.. but and it is a big but.....
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Sanchy
From Cofty: Again this is predicted on the error that individuals adapt to circumstances by evolving. There is no intention in evolution. Random changes are selected if they give an advantage to the individual that hosts it. If resources are scarce then individuals who are better equipped to survive AND reproduce will leave more copies of their genes in the gene pool. If resources are plentiful selection pressure is less or even non-existent.
I had also wondered where the intention in evolution comes from. Thanks for the simple explanation Cofty. -
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Cognitive Dissonace on full display at JWtalk over evolution research
by Sanchy ina user over on the jwtalk forum recently shared a warning over his research on evolution in preparation for an assigned talk.
after detailing a couple of the tidbits that he learned of during his research, he went on to say:.
this i found to be useful especially when talking ot others in the ministry.. but and it is a big but.....
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Sanchy
Another response, this time from Bobby the apologist:
Evolution is allegedly about survival, right?
Our alleged animal ancestors had been "surviving" for millions of years without the ability to reason, without music, art, advanced intelligence, etc and so on. In fact, those traits and abilities are really totally unnecessary for survival, as all animals today are surviving quite well without any of the abilities we have as humans.
It just lends more credence to the Bible's account that we are a special creation, made in the image of God.The typical "Where did art and music evolve from?" argument. Said argument does nothing to discredit the theory of evolution and natural selection. Having said that, a simple google search provides interesting answers. For instance, I easily found the following regarding art and evolution from LINK:
Along those lines, the visual arts stimulate and promote human cognitive abilities in numerous ways. To start, physiologically, the eye captures physical data from a chromatic surface and, through a cascade of transductions, converts this data into the language of the brain—namely, electrical impulses, which travel to the brain and its visual cortices. Subsequently and progressively, “…a mental object, an inner representation of a painting or object, will take shape”7. These mental objects can be manipulated in the mind’s eye, a real-time mental workstation used for manipulating spatial and visual information. This quality of mental flexibility would have made the visual arts advantageous to our primitive ancestors, for the ability to simulate an event mentally and visually before it occurred would have led to better planned and calculated approaches to a variety of situations. For the first time in our species’ history, the cosmos could be framed in a painting for the viewer to contemplate. “For prehistoric man, the use of images probably testifies to a reflected vision of shapes in which the viewer is confronted with an organized image of his universe, an image of a relationship to objects that come into his field of perception”7. The creation of images reflects a method of organizing sensory data with the purpose of acting on the dangerous world of nature and defending man from all his threats3, a sort of rehearsal for strategic action in the hostile environment in which our ancestors lived.
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Cognitive Dissonace on full display at JWtalk over evolution research
by Sanchy ina user over on the jwtalk forum recently shared a warning over his research on evolution in preparation for an assigned talk.
after detailing a couple of the tidbits that he learned of during his research, he went on to say:.
this i found to be useful especially when talking ot others in the ministry.. but and it is a big but.....
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Sanchy
Doubter, are you an active JW?
EDIT: NVM, I remember you now. Apologist indeed.
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Cognitive Dissonace on full display at JWtalk over evolution research
by Sanchy ina user over on the jwtalk forum recently shared a warning over his research on evolution in preparation for an assigned talk.
after detailing a couple of the tidbits that he learned of during his research, he went on to say:.
this i found to be useful especially when talking ot others in the ministry.. but and it is a big but.....
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Sanchy
Speaking of dumbed down, if you read above where I copy/pasted some of the responses from that post, you will find that one of the comments claims that "good science" must be "easy to understand". Ironically the comment comes from a user named "ScholarJW"
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Cognitive Dissonace on full display at JWtalk over evolution research
by Sanchy ina user over on the jwtalk forum recently shared a warning over his research on evolution in preparation for an assigned talk.
after detailing a couple of the tidbits that he learned of during his research, he went on to say:.
this i found to be useful especially when talking ot others in the ministry.. but and it is a big but.....
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Sanchy
Here are some of the responses thus far:
From ScholarJW: The beauty of our publications especially those that deal with Evolution is the simplicity of the argument and its presentation and that is what you need in good science is that it should and must be Simple-easily understood by the 'man/woman' in the street. Most if not all modern-day textbooks on Evolution abound with complex mathematics/statistics designed to prove Evolution and mystify the laymen.
So science needs to be easily understood or else it isn't true?
The OP responded: I have had similar feelings in my long past when trying to reason from the scriptures with a Seventh Day Adventist. My inexperience led me and a fellow young pioneer, to exhaust our fund of scriptures only to realise later (after that empty feeling of frustration) that he was never going to be reasonable and accept the scriptures alone. Those feeling are not nice.
Ironic coming from someone that just confessed that he is "never going to be reasonable and accept" the evidence for evolution.
EccentricM wrote: He (Darwin) made the huge assumption adaptations lead to macro species changes and then made the guess that all things came from one cell and each species along the way birthed the other. When later fossil research was done, they found layers, and could piece together the order of apperance of life, but no mid-species transitions were ever found, only full species. As such they made the erronous claim that "certain species were the missing links"(?) despite having no evidence that was even the case, but said it was anyway.
Later with genetics they found.. oh, all life shares DNA, and so they say "aha, that confirms it, it's all true". What they did not consider is that we are all simply made.. from the same materials, hence, DNA (ingrediants) being the same, but no "lineage" like in direct human ancestry has ever been detected or studied.
If you bring up the current state of "statis of evolution" as well as living fossils as an argument, they shall say "not all life forms evolve if they don’t need to, hence why we have “living fossils”, life forms that have not changed at all for billions of years, and we have many of them". This idea I think seems to contradict evolution. Why? Because something does not change if it does not need to, it only adapts to it’s needs to survive.
So… why evolve in the first place? Was the first micro-organism in danger? Could it not survive in the sea by staying at it was? Evolving means to adapt and change in accordance to one’s enviroment, but if all life came from a single cell, which includes said enviroment, that means there was nothing to adapt or respond to in the first place, which should incur stasis.Pjdriver wrote: how does something with no intelligent maker make extremely complex changes because it “needs” to? Who told it it needs to? How does it know it needs to?
Anyone wanna take a stab at answering?