Buffered stats

I laugh every time I see Family stats. Let's go to an old example of their bullshit stat compilations:

When a weekly radio show like MWM was broadcast so it could reach a geographical area which comprised a population of 1 million, and the program ran for 20 weeks in that area, the stats would say that 20 million people were witnessed to. The homes responsible for putting the show on the air were actually instructed to put such numbers on their reports. These were then compiled into the glorious stats which Berg used to show how successful the radio program was.

Such hogwash. Such overkill. Such false delusions. Such lies.

At their very best Berg would say 1 million people heard the message 20 times. Still hogwash. Still misuse if statistics.

If 2 homes in the area got the show on 2 different channels for 20 weeks, the stats would have been 40 million people witnessed to. WOW! Oh double WOW!

Never mind the overlaps in the reports of the 2 homes. Never mind that the potential number of people (right age, owns a radio, likes that station, likes la-la nicey-nice music a la MWM, understands an English DJ, able to receive that station, etc) for listening to the radio might only have been maximum 10s of 1000s... and nevermind that they had to turn on the radio at the right time and not switch channels, etc, all of which brought the true stats down to even less people.

Never mind the fact that most people who wrote in had NO CLUE what they were getting into - they thought they were joining a club ("CPO 220.. CPO 220.. CPO 220 Athens Greece") for fun to get something free (Oh yeah, besides a free poster, salvation is free according to Family doctrine), getting a chance to have a penpal, getting a chance to practice their English, a chance to talk to some supposedly big stars they thought they were supposed to know. (Yeah everybody in the 80s knew who J. Spencer was... Right!)

The point isn't that we weren't actually friendly. We were. It is that there was this major deception going on, false representation, false marketing, tricking people into writing and then calling them "Sheep", etc, and all these false glorious stats which showed how well The Family of Love was doing... and we all went a long with it.

We paid for that the radio show with our tithes. We hit the streets long hours selling stuff, some of our kids worked as slave labor, and our women had to prostitute themselves... And all the while, Berg and The Family of Love lifted up this glorious new wonderful "ministry" which was full of "sin in the camp", where the folks who lived it up in comparative luxury, had swinging orgies and incest, and practised child abuse.

Is The Family really that different today?