Posted by COMF [COMF] on April 02, 1999 at 11:53:08 {ppHCdFLRUM0vgA2d.KEIoRa3VCcycQ}:
In Reply to: *Known to be Untrue, Part 2 posted by Friend on April 02, 1999 at 07:04:25:
Hi, Friend!
You said:
As I said earlier, there are no absolute numbers of how many JWs were imprisoned during W.W.II by Nazi Germany.
How do you know this, Friend? They never said it. If the figures were guesses, then they should have said their numbers were guesses.
Let me ask you a question. If you knew for a fact that your neighbor was raping and killing...
I think was is the operative word here. These reports were all published after the war was over.
Would the count really even matter at that point?
Yes.
If you estimated too high or too low, would it be fair for someone to later accuse you of lying?
If I didn't state that my estimates were estimates, and if I continued to double them with each reiteration... yes.
Since the WTS more objectively researched the issue resulting in its own published statistics (1974 Yearbook, which is still an estimation), the WTS has been careful to point out just where other estimations come from and usually they refer readers back to there own estimations for sake of accuracy. To me, that is honest.
First of all, Friend, let's acknowledge that telling the truth one time does not make you a truthful person. Present-day honesty does not undo past dishonesty. Now, about being careful to point out where other estimations come from... since the 1989 Watchtower was published after the 1974 yearbook, and since in it they quoted an outside source, in harmony with your statement they will have noted the sources of his estimation and explained that it varies greatly from their own. Did they do so?
I see no hint of dishonesty in what you�ve presented but rather a normal and legitimate migration of information and sorting out of details as time went along.
Of course that is what you would see, since that is what you look for. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. They started out at 1000, doubled it to 2000, then doubled that to 4000, never once saying, "The reader should note that these are our guesses, not the result of any actual investigation." Then in 1974 we get a realistic figure: 635.
Please answer me back, Friend, and tell me how you see a "migration of information and sorting out of details" from 1000 to 2000 to 4000 when investigation revealed 635 as the figure. What information? What details?
COMF