by booker-t 42 Replies latest jw friends
You've got it all wrong, and have completely misinterpreted our interpretation. You've gotten ahead of God's organisation here on earth; we warned not to lean on your own understanding.... Now, listen to this new light from the FDS....
Wasn't that pretty much what they said last time with the prediction of Armageddon coming at the end of the Gentile times ????
Bull!
I know what they'll do with the 1914 doctrine when 2014 arrives. To quoth Def Leppard (with apologies):
Gimme all of you time - ev'ry little bit....Gimme all that you got - ev'ry bit of it....Ev'ry bit of your money - oh, c'mon work a bit....Never want it to stop...Yeah, but 1914, I just don't get it...Well, if you ain't gettin' it - Armageddon it! Ooh, not gettin' it? - Yes, Armaggedon it!
ok, no one has explained the significance of 2014. are the jws saying that this year is significant or what. I have to hear one thing about 100 years from the 1914 date. so please explain why that year(2014)has any meaning.
I sacasticly imposed this question on my mom who has been a devout JW since 1965 and she said that Jehovah is guiding the WT society so he will let the brothers at Bethel know what changes would need to be made.
One thing that really bothers me is this; to belive in God is awesome, I still do whole heartedly. To believe that God is awesome to have created the universe and everything in it, that's an awesome God. To send His own Son, self sacrificing awesome God? So HOW do current, long time JWs fall for the "New Light" crap? It makes God out to be a jerk who loves to screw around with His creations like they were toys. Like that bad kid on "Toy Story." I remember being 13 in 1973 and beginning to reject the date 1975 in my heart. I knew that the God who created and did all this could not be so horrible as to make newborn babies in 1973-74, only to plan on killing them in 1975 cause thier mommies and daddies were not JWs. I was young but something inside me screamed "NO WAY"
So here we are at another date problem. Knothead you can read the book "Crisis of Conscience" by Ray Franz to fully understand. If you have a PO Box I'll send you a copy. 2014 is 100 years after 1914. 1914 the year that they applied the Scripture "this generation will not pass away and then the end will come" so nobody lives 100 years. 1914 being when Jesus took the throne and is invisibly floating around in the outer atmosphere on a throne. He is just sitting and waitng for everyone to die that was born in 1914 so he can come and put Satan in jail and immediatly recreate the world into a Jehovah's Witness paradise and all us apostates will be dead and the birds will peck out our eyes and our flesh and then our bodies will just dissapear cause many JWs have told me that burying 5 billion dead bodies is not THIER idea of paradise.
Hope that helps
I personally think they have already accounted for that. The growth among the traditional north american english speaking population has almost stopped, while the foreign language (well, foreign only to english speaking people) groups are doing very well. All they will have to do is put more energy into the new groups who have not been around for all the 1914 crap, and then slowly phase that particular number out of the publications. As each new CD-Rom comes out, they will erase a few more places that mention 1914, until they have completely managed to remove that little embarassment from their printing. At which point, all of the people who were around for the 1914 doctrine will be dead, and they can pretend it never happened.
I mean, how many current witnesses do you know that have any idea what is in the old Russell publications?
November 22, 2005 Awake page 14;
Physics professor JW " I learned that Bible prophecy clearly indicates that God's Messianic Kingdom-a heavenly government that will in time rule over all the earth-was installed in 1914"
They then refere to the book "Knowledge That Leads To Everlasting Life" chapter 10. I haven't read that yet.
hhmmmmmmmmmmm what are they going to do?
This is a hard question given the precedent of the last decade or so.
Whilst they have maintained a stance of most of the old doctrines, e.g. 1914, the UN beast that will destroy Babylon the Great, the new Daniel book, etc. there has been little or no new light that has shifted them significantly. Yes, there was the generation change in 1995 but to be brutally honest most JWs would struggle to explain clearly what 'this generation' is.
The biggest problem is they have no theologians/theological direction and it easy is to work out why this is. Just think of what happened with Ray Franz. The more I have found out about Ray the more I realise that he wasn't a raging apostate but could have been a force for moderate change.
No GB member is going to in initiate major change; the whole system is such that you become a MS by towing the company line, you become an elder, CO, DO, Branch Committee member, GB member by doing exactly the same. All of us know that - we were taught never to do things other than the Society's way and to never ever to question the Society.
My guess is that over the next 5 years or so we will see a continuing of the major decline already seen in the developed world and even limited growth in the developing world. After that, they will carry on in some form as a very minor, slightly dotty, religious sect, much like the Plymouth Bretheren.
Eyeslice
Hello Knothead - like you I don't 'see' the 2014 thing. Adding 100 years onto 1914 just because ''no-one lives to 100'' is both ridiculous and incorrect. If anyone else threw this many numbers around the Dubs would be screaming 'NUMEROLOGY' and 'SATAN'.
They might reason that the presence of christ didn't start until 'the momentous year in which we took the name Jehovah's Witnesses' and then add the 120 years of Noah's preaching etc
They might change anything. That's what's so slipperily annoying about them.
Eventually they will just be a small insignificant cult. It's inevitable and unavoidable. I hope I live long enough to see the crumbling of the WTBTS, which WILL come ..... eventually.
By then people will be living to 125 so that give them an extra 25 year.
Actually they solved the problem in 1995 with the new generation teaching. A generation is now said to be an undetermined period of time, in other words, a generation can continue for 100's of years. They still try to say it will come tomorrow, but in 2014 they can point to the 1995 articles that show they never suggested it has to come within a life time.
I prophecy (with about as much holy spirit guiding me as guiding the WTS) that after 2014 there will be an increased rate of decrease of Witnesses in all developed countries. The only way they will survive at all is to totally stop mentioning 1914, move mainstream and just tell everyone they are the most loving brotherhood. With the Jehovah teaching they are different enough to survive as a religion in its own right. The other necessary change will be to make the bible actually apply to the great crowd, make Jesus their mediator and stop mentioning the Anointed 144,000.
