LarrytheGOD said:

Mr7 said:

fantasyislander said:

EvilWhiteMale said:

neronava said:

Universaluv said:

neronava said:

rudedog said:

neronava said:

neronava said:

Universaluv said:

neronava said:

As George Carlin said "don't get offend if you relate. A Joke needs 2 key elements to work:
An exagerration and irony..."

I think I had both.
Nero

you forgot humor

fantasyislander said:

LarrytheGOD said:

RomeoMustDie said:

neronava said:

fantasyislander said:

neronava said:

EvilWhiteMale said:

...
[This message was edited Mon May 24 13:58:09 2004 by erikd]

Personally, with all due respect the whole JW thing strikes me as being a somewhat, well, (for a lack of a better word) fascist cult and so not-prince. But I guess as long as he (or any JW) is happy with it, good for them and may they all live a happy life.
But wether he will stay being a JW or not, I just hope he keeps making great music. I just have a gut feeling the JW thing thing does limit his expressiveness in some way these days, especially after hearing Musicology. Perhaps it has nothing to do with JW in itself, but still...:
On his Rainbow Children album he did sound very passionate and although I personally don't fully agree with all lyrics I thought it was such a relief to hear him make such passionate music after so many years.
But, after hearing the in comparison pale Musicology album I get the feeling the 'magic' from TRC all faded away. As if he decided to keep his beliefs private instead of sharing one of his major passions in his music. Which is cool. Lots of people still like Musicology so who am I to judge?
Personally I hope that he will leave JW but that's up to him. I just hope I'll like his next album better

erikd said:

erikd said:

erikd said:

Personally, with all due respect the whole JW thing strikes me as being a somewhat, well, (for a lack of a better word) fascist cult and so not-prince. But I guess as long as he (or any JW) is happy with it, good for them and may they all live a happy life.
But wether he will stay being a JW or not, I just hope he keeps making great music. I just have a gut feeling the JW thing thing does limit his expressiveness in some way these days, especially after hearing Musicology. Perhaps it has nothing to do with JW in itself, but still...:
On his Rainbow Children album he did sound very passionate and although I personally don't fully agree with all lyrics I thought it was such a relief to hear him make such passionate music after so many years.
But, after hearing the in comparison pale Musicology album I get the feeling the 'magic' from TRC all faded away. As if he decided to keep his beliefs private instead of sharing one of his major passions in his music. Which is cool. Lots of people still like Musicology so who am I to judge?
Personally I hope that he will leave JW but that's up to him. I just hope I'll like his next album better

So...how's everybody doing?

ekalb101 said:

I have no idea why Prince decided to become a JW, but if he thinks he's happy with it, that's all that matters I guess. But because he *is* so fickle, I think he'll probably get bored of it and wander off in another spiritual path eventually. I agree with what others have said though, it really does seem like he's limiting himself in terms of both his behaviour and his art because of it. Censorship is never a good thing.








I also kinda miss the uber-girlyness.

erikd said:

Personally, with all due respect the whole JW thing strikes me as being a somewhat, well, (for a lack of a better word) fascist cult and so not-prince. But I guess as long as he (or any JW) is happy with it, good for them and may they all live a happy life.
But wether he will stay being a JW or not, I just hope he keeps making great music. I just have a gut feeling the JW thing thing does limit his expressiveness in some way these days, especially after hearing Musicology. Perhaps it has nothing to do with JW in itself, but still...:
On his Rainbow Children album he did sound very passionate and although I personally don't fully agree with all lyrics I thought it was such a relief to hear him make such passionate music after so many years.
But, after hearing the in comparison pale Musicology album I get the feeling the 'magic' from TRC all faded away. As if he decided to keep his beliefs private instead of sharing one of his major passions in his music. Which is cool. Lots of people still like Musicology so who am I to judge?
Personally I hope that he will leave JW but that's up to him. I just hope I'll like his next album better

couldUB said:

erikd said:

Personally, with all due respect the whole JW thing strikes me as being a somewhat, well, (for a lack of a better word) fascist cult and so not-prince. But I guess as long as he (or any JW) is happy with it, good for them and may they all live a happy life.
But wether he will stay being a JW or not, I just hope he keeps making great music. I just have a gut feeling the JW thing thing does limit his expressiveness in some way these days, especially after hearing Musicology. Perhaps it has nothing to do with JW in itself, but still...:
On his Rainbow Children album he did sound very passionate and although I personally don't fully agree with all lyrics I thought it was such a relief to hear him make such passionate music after so many years.
But, after hearing the in comparison pale Musicology album I get the feeling the 'magic' from TRC all faded away. As if he decided to keep his beliefs private instead of sharing one of his major passions in his music. Which is cool. Lots of people still like Musicology so who am I to judge?
Personally I hope that he will leave JW but that's up to him. I just hope I'll like his next album better

Just a quicky, cuz we're gettin off topic. But I just wanted to respond to the fascist thing.

My dictionary says:

"Fascism a system of government characterized by dictatorship..."
We are only dictated to by Jehovah God through the pages of the bible.

"...belligerent nationalism..."
We are widely known for our neutral stand when it comes to politics and nationalistic practices, ie, pledging allegience to the flag, to the point of imprisonment if necessary.

"...racism..."
That couldn't be further from the truth. Check out http://www.raphaelbick.de...ohama2003/ for example.

"...and militarism..."
We are also widely known for the fact that we do not participate in any sort of warfare. Many of our youngsters around the globe have been imprisoned for refusing to step up for Military Service.

So I'm not quite sure what you mean.
[This message was edited Tue May 25 3:17:51 2004 by couldUB]

SensualMelody said:

Statistics of Jehovah's Witnesses Graphic Presentation of Jehovah's Witnesses Activities in the World 1988 through 2003.

The following charts are created based on the statistics published each year in the January 1st issue of The Watchtower. Data published from 1988 through 2003 were used.

This year's Watchtower statistics shows a continuation of the new trend that was started around 2001 when the downward trend of Jehovah's Witnesses' activities of the late 1990's in many developed countries reversed the direction to upward. Last year, there were rather suprising rebounds of publisher's number in USA, Australia, France, Canada, Britain, and Norway. This upward trend seems to become more consistent this year. Countries with consistent decline are only several. The list of countries with zero or negative growth has shrunk in 2003: Belgium, Britain, Finland, Hongkong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Zimbabwe. The overall numbers for the world show very slow increase or almost flat growth for the past several years. Publishers, Bible studies and service hours are very slowly increasing, but the number of baptism does not seem to increase in proportion.

Worldwide Statistics of 2003
Average number of publishers (shown in green dots scaled on the left axis) and the number of new baptism (shown in red dots scaled on the right axis)



Rate of increase over the previous year (shown in blue bars scaled on the right axis) and average number of publishers (shown in green dots scaled on the left axis).



Many wondered how much of the growth of Jehovah's Witnesses population is due to the natural population growth. This chart shows the estimated midyear population of the world and average growth rate. These data are borrowed from the US Census Buereau (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldpop.html). Comparison with the above chart suggests the recent growth pattern of JW population is nearing the asymptote of general population growth.



Total hours of field service (shown in purple squares scaled on the left axis) and the average hours spent by one publisher (shown in white circles scaled on the right axis).



Total number of memorial partakers (anointed) (shown in pink dots scaled on the left axis) and the number of memorial attendance (shown in blue dots scaled on the right axis).




Average number of pioneer publishers (shown in yellow round dots scaled on the right axis) and the number of baptism per one pioneer (shown in purple square dots scaled on the right axis). Note the increase in number of pioneers over the past two years, reflecting the recent policy change in time requirement. Yet their work is getting futile as a less number of people are baptized relative to the number of pioneers in recent years



Average number of Bible studies (shown in dark blue dots scaled on the left axis) and the number of Bible studies per one publisher (average Bible studies/average publishers) (shown in gray bars scaled on the right axis).



Where are Jehovah's Witnesses living in the world? - 2002
Top 30 countries where most publishers are counted in 2002.



Where are people converting to Jehovah's Witnesses in the world?
Top 30 countries where most baptisms are counted in 2002




Where are Jehovah's Witnesses growing and shrinking in the world?
Top 20 countries with largest increase in number of publishers.



Top 20 countries with largest decrease in number of publishers.



How many publishers does it take to convert a person to a Jehovah's Witness?
Top and bottom 20 countries of the ratio of one baptism to publisher. The higher the ratio, the more publishers are needed to convert a person to Jehovah's Witnesses. For example in Iceland, it takes for 145 publishers' work for one year to convert one person, whereas in Albania it takes for only 7 publishers. Note vertical the scale of the vertical axis is different between right and left chart.



How many preaching hours does it take to convert a person to a Jehovah's Witness?
Top and bottom 20 countries of the ratio of one baptism to hours. The higher the ratio, the longer hours are needed to convert to Jehovah's Witnesses. For example in Japan, it takes about 18,000 hours (!) of preaching to gain one baptism, whereas in Nepal it takes only 2000 hours.



How hard are publishers preaching in different areas of world?
Top and bottom 20 countries of service hours per each publisher. For example in Albania, one publisher spend about 400 hours per year on the average, whereas in Poland, one publisher spend only 120 hours.



What percentage of publishers are pioneers in different countries?

Thanks CeeJay, for helping everyone to appreciate just how busy and dedicated some human beings can be .