Amazingly they tried the same trick in 1925 but no one seemed to know that in the 1960's and early seventies and they got tricked. They may try it again after another 50 years if they will still be here. People will forget or will be ignorant.
A 1975 story
by TooBad TooSad 44 Replies latest jw friends
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JAVA
Topics like this brings out the old timers. :) Anyone saying the Tower didn't push the 1975 date is lying. Like many who have already posted, I was very active from the mid '60s to the early '80s. I witnessed firsthand how the $ociety blamed their failure on the JWs foolish enought to believe them.
During a district assembly in Cincinnati, Ohio in '72 or '73, one speaker said, "Anyone starting a 4-year college program today will not graduate before Armageddon." I was in one of the dramas during that assembly, and our entire drama group talked about that comment the following night.
The 1975 failure is only one of many lies the Tower has tried to cover-up. The Internet is a tool they can't control as their lies are held to the light of truth. -
mouthy
Java!!! I remember it well
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willyloman
we had a CO come in and said, "Bros.,You know what time it is?" It is 11 months,29 days, 23 hours, 59 seconds until October 1975. It is time to start to increase our service to Jehovah. What will you do?"
Sometime in about February 1975, an elder giving a talk in our hall got to a highlight in his discourse, paused for effect, lifted his wrist, looked at his watch, and said, "...brothers, in just l7 months, 22 days, and 13 hours, we'll be IN that new system...."Another memory: Two dub girls, age 16, dropped out of high school in late '74 in order to pioneer "until the end of this system," which in their view was a matter of months away. They were fully supported in this by their parents -- their dads were both elders. Since you can't become a pioneer without elder body approval, they evidently had the support of the rest of the elders -- although looking back I suspect a few of them had misgiving.
These two sisters were very attractive and articulate, and we used on the platform often in our small congo. They appeared on a circuit assembly program to tell their story, to significant applause.
When nothng happened in October 1975, they and their parents were among them most visibly disappointed folks in our congo. Within a year, both girls and one set of parents were "out of the truth" for various reasons. It turned out that the two pioneers were conducting a "study" with a couple of guys they met in the door-to-door work and were incredibly enthusastic about getting their time in. This led one family to take their wayward sister and move far away, where they "became apostate," according to the JW rumor mill. The other pioneer moved in with her young man and they migrated to another location several states away. Her parents stayed and remained stoic, steadfast in their determination to have nothing to do with their daughter.
Writing this now, I'm wondering WTF was I thinking? I joined the organization anyway and stayed for 27 years.
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BluesBrother
As one that was there at the time, it was certainly a time of high expectation, great excitement and real apocalyptic expectations. i recall a Pioneer sister gushing about how "We plan only in months ,not years" and among the elders? Some were more outspoken than others. Some really said it will happen, others like me, were more cautious. Deep down I believed it would happen. I just could not see that Jehovah would allow his organization to be so publicly wrong on such an issue. How wrong I was !
I had to go and have teeth filled, around Spring 1975. I came home and told my wife "Well that is it, I will never have to visit a dentist again" I had not made a future check up appointment - there seemed no point in that.
But what had they said in print?
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w67 7/15 pp. 446-447 The Removal of Mankind’s Chief Disturber ***According to the Bible timetable, man’s history on earth has been nearly 6,000 years. Adam was created in 4026 B.C.E., which means that six thousand years of human history end about the fall of 1975 C.E. We are in the great 7,000-year rest day of God, starting at the time he rested after the creation of Adam and Eve. There are, therefore, a thousand years left to run. Without Satan and his demons to disturb mankind it will indeed be a restful time. It will be like a sabbath. In a way it will be a sabbath within a sabbath. The last thousand years of God’s great seven-thousand-year rest is a special sabbath over which the Son of man will be Lord.—Matt. 12:8.
This was before the general realization of a significant time lapse between Adam's creation, and that of Eve. After all the WTS had commented thus.
w68
8/15 p. 499 par. 30 Why Are You Looking Forward to 1975? ***Are we to assume from this study that the battle of Armageddon will be all over by the autumn of 1975, and the long-looked-for thousand-year reign of Christ will begin by then? Possibly, but we wait to see how closely the seventh thousand-year period of man’s existence coincides with the sabbathlike thousand-year reign of Christ. If these two periods run parallel with each other as to the calendar year, it will not be by mere chance or accident but will be according to Jehovah’s loving and timely purposes. Our chronology, however, which is reasonably accurate (but admittedly not infallible), at the best only points to the autumn of 1975 as the end of 6,000 years of man’s existence on earth. It does not necessarily mean that 1975 marks the end of the first 6,000 years of Jehovah’s seventh creative "day." Why not? Because after his creation Adam lived some time during the "sixth day," which unknown amount of time would need to be subtracted from Adam’s 930 years, to determine when the sixth seven-thousand-year period or "day" ended, and how long Adam lived into the "seventh day." And yet the end of that sixth creative "day" could end within the same Gregorian calendar year of Adam’s creation. It may involve only a difference of weeks or months, not years.
So they always can weasel around it and say that "We never actually said it would happen then" but the fact is that they caused the expectation to rise by publishing the date and heavy inferences. I do not recall any counsel to elders to go easy, or back off from talking up the date ..
Yes they caused it to happen , and I never viewed the writings of the WTS quite the same again. For many years I followed faithfully, but I recognized from then on that they did not have a hotline to The Almighty,and when it came to pronouncements against music and such personal choices, I viewed the writings as being from men, not God, and I did my own thing.