In the early 70's a sister told me that her son was so upset that he would never marry and have children. I guess he looked forward to a single eunuch's life in Paradise. Last I heard he had 6 kids and God only knows how many grandchildren. I guess he got over being upset.
You will never grow old in this current system of things... - Awake, May 22, 1969 p. 15
by cappytan 101 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Esse quam videri
Because all the evidence in fulfillment of Bible prophecy indicates this corrupt system is due to end in a few years. Of the generation that observed the beginning of the “last days” in 1914, Jesus foretold, “ This generation will by no means pass away until all these things occur.” – Matt 24:34.
From Rutherford's time the Watchtower heavily overused the word 'evidence'. A good way to manipulate a naive and susceptible mind to believe your statement. Imagine that, "...all the evidence...". Now let's add some more weight to this "idea".
" Of the generation that observed the beginning of the “last days” in 1914, Jesus foretold,.."
What right thinking person is going to argue with that statement? This is the very generation that Jesus was foretelling about. No need to think about it further.
"...ALL THE EVIDENCE ...INDICATES...".
Strange language. The word 'indicate' has the thought of 'kinda leaning in that direction', HOWEVER, 'evidence' proves it beyond any doubt. It seems that the Watchtower writers were kind of leaving themselves an out. " We only said it 'indicates ... the system was due to end.. We did not say it PROVES IT."
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3rdgen
daringhart13,
Of course, a lot of us feel stupid for believing that lie but we were born to parents and grandparents who "inculcated/mentally regulated" our minds from birth. I and many others trusted our parents to have our best interests at heart. Besides, we have learned the effects that b.i.t.e. mind control has on people.
Something else to consider about that time: 1963 JFK was assassinated, The Vietnam War was raging and we were seeing the bloodbath play out in living color in magazines and television. By the end of the 60's Civil rights, Watts riots, Malcomb X, MLK and RFK ALL assassinated over and over again in front of our eyes in the news programs every night on TV. Add to that the HUGE growth in the borg which seemed to fulfill the prophesy that "ten men will take hold of the skirt of a Jew". It seemed to make sense at the time.
So no, I won't accept that I was that stupid. I was lied to.
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DesirousOfChange
FLIPPER: I try to look at my glass of life as half FULL instead of half EMPTY.
At my age, I have to look at my glass as 1/4 full (optimistic) or 3/4 empty. Unfortunately, I poured that top 3/4 of the glass out slaving away for false promises.
Doc
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Finkelstein
You will never grow old in this current system of things... - Awake, May 22, 1969 p. 15
Self marketing propaganda expressed by the likes of Fred Franz, the leading bible theologian for the WT Corporation at the time.
Lying corrupt fear mongering by god's solemnify chosen earthly publishing house.
Kind of warms the heart doesn't ?
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Finkelstein
Unfortunately people don't expect lying misleading corruption out of religious institutions.
Its all inspired on truth and religious virtue.
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steve2
3rdgen, I'm in the same boat: Jw grandparents, Jw parents.
And, yes, given the sociopolitical events that rocked the world in the 1960s, and the ever present threat of nuclear war, it sure "felt" like things were heating up to an imminent "end".
As with terrorism in today's world. the 1960s provided fertile soil for those raised in pressure cooker, apocalyptic-steeped environments. How could the end not have come before the 20th century ended???
Trouble is, all of us inside the organization - and indeed any of the mushrooming end-times religions at that time - lacked the ability and preparedness to see beyond our soothing vision of a wicked world destroyed and its paradise replacement.
Talk about the willfully blind leading the willfully blind. Were we gullible? YES.
Were we willing to be led by men we fervently believed were dispensing spiritual food in due season? YES.
We were willing to do this whilst simultaneously mocking churchgoers who succumbed to their leaders. WE WERE UNINTENTIONAL HYPOCRITES.
In that regard, I DO hold myself responsible for ignoring contrary evidence, ignoring the rumblings of a few scattered doubts here and there and ignoring the incontrovertible evidence that we submitted to the religious rulings of a bunch of older white men in Brooklyn New York (they then did not have token input from other ethincities in those days).
That I eventually woke up, whilst my grandparents and parents died faithful to a lie speaks volumes about the role of willfulness in maintaining a belief system "for better or for worse". We lambasted householders who nailed shut their wilingness to listen to us whilst nailing shut our willingness to see we were exactly the same.
What a toxic trap.
What separates me from my grandparents' generation and my parents' is this: A burning desire for a secular education beyond the basic one provided all school-age children. Maybe my eventual freedom was initiated by an urge to really be sure of all things and hold fast to that which is proven to be "fine".
The Watchtower speaks more than a grain of truth when it intones against the dangers of higher education. Such education deals a fatal blow to religious gullibility; but contrary to what the organization implies, the "danger" of higher education is to any sort of religious claims.
We become rightly skeptical of "invisible" claims of truth - and, as time passes, and we look back of the babblings of the Watchtower and assorted religious warblings of too-many shades to iterate here, we can be astonished at the sheer magnitude of our willful gullibility and its shameful hypocrisy to boot.
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3rdgen
steve2, I agree with you 100%
Believe me, I claim WILLFUL ignorance as well as a measure of selfishness wanting to live in paradise. There is blame to go around and around.
The reason I made my post is I don't think people who believed what was said in that 1969 article were/are necessarily stupid. Our natural intelligence was not fostered or rewarded. We were directed to be "sheep like" as the gold standard for faithfulness. And the pressure from family? INTENSE As I was reading that article my much older brother was being shunned and disinherited by the family simply for not getting baptized!
All that being said I am mad at myself for being too stubborn and lazy to research my own religion as an adult.
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Magnum
daringhart13:The funniest thing about this....that as anyone was reading that sentence, they would have realized it was a lie........with each passing second staring at the page....... the reader was getting older.
They are so embarrassingly stupid.
I disagree. You're missing the point. The article said "You also need to face the fact that you will never grow old in the present system of things." It did not say that people wouldn't age or that time would not pass as they read the sentence. Of course they'd age a few seconds as they read the article. But the sentence didn't say they wouldn't. It said they wouldn't grow old in the present system or become old people or that there was not enough time in the present system for them to become old. Again, the article wasn't saying that they wouldn't age as they read the sentence.
Also, who are you saying is stupid - those who read the material and believed it? If so, I disagree with that, too. As 3rdgen said in her last post above, things were different then. They were different in the org and in the world.
I think that if anybody is stupid, it's JWs today who have access to so much more info than JWs did back then. Also, JWdom today has nowhere near the dignity, seriousness, (apparent) scholarship, boldness, etc. that it once had. It's a joke now; it wasn't so much so back then.
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3rdgen
Well said Magnum.