Posted by Friend [Friend] on March 31, 1999 at 07:43:57 {ohFII14TUcBao8LWLRQ.OgnjR4Br/g}:
In Reply to: ****To Friend-why insult me? posted by J on March 31, 1999 at 06:08:27:
J
My main point is that the initial claim that more than 50% of JWs likely do not pay their bills is absolutely ludicrous. Such a claim goes against common experience with most JWs. Is it your experience that more than 50% of JWs likely don�t pay their bills?
I provided those statistics on bankruptcy simply for comparative purposes, nothing more. My point to Mary had to do with loose reading of experience verses some actual legitimate statistics. Bad debt is one thing and bad debt between close associates is another thing. The problem is that we feel not only a financial loss with bad debt from close associates, we also feel an emotional hurt. That emotional hurt oftentimes tends to over-inflate the experience(s). My provided statistics were nothing but an example of how you could legitimately compare financial experience. Those statistics could never be used to determine the percentage of bankruptcy amongst JWs or whether they pay their bills or not.
BTW, after a little more searching I found that that statistic of 1 in 20 was too high. More reliable sources indicate that the actual ratio is closer to 1 in 24. Nevertheless, my reason for using the statistic remains valid.
As for financial difficulties between fellow JWs, yes, that can be a problem. I have not questioned that some JWs take the view that you express. On the other hand, I contend that that is not the view that 99+% of JWs take. Like most, I have experienced bad debt with fellow JWs but it reflects less than 1% of the bad debt that I�ve personally encountered. If those bad debts had not been with JWs I�d hardly have remembered them as specific experiences. To illustrate my point, I have no idea of the religious preferences of any others with whom I have experienced bad debt. I do know though how much total bad debt that I�ve experienced and those few cases of bad debt with fellow JWs really stand out in my memory for reasons already given.
Did you notice that the initial accuser has not had the decency to acknowledge their false and slanderous accusation?
Your
Friend