Why Guess About Dates At All?

by Pickled 75 Replies latest jw friends

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  WingCommander

  ******** YAWN *********

  It's really simple: Cults have to persuade everyone that ONLY THEY are enlightened with God's Holy Spirit and divine direction and have the ability to apply and interpret ancient biblical prophecy into and onto your life today!

  Join up now!!! - so that you may too reach and teach and make the TRUTH your own! The end is immenet! The sky is falling! Repent now, leave every other false religion for our false religion....why? Because the FDS says so!

  Cult snag tactic, plain and simple.

  Regards,

  Wing Commander
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  Pickled

  wingCommander, before you fall asleep at the stick.... :-) I agree with your view about the kind of tactics that all cults use more or less. But since this isn't a Welcome Ex-Moonies forum I think it would be really helpful to share experiences that might cause potential new converts of the JW to rethink what they are currently learning. The goals are the same, but aren't the methods and message a little different from those who might be convinced that they should sell flowers in an airport?
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  jaguarbass

  So why do they do it? Is it a tool to motivate, like a threat of sorts to keep the members too afraid to quit when Armageddon is always right around the corner? Or do they really have the same mind set as Russell only without the Pyramids?
  
  I would really like to hear your thoughts about this.
  
  My thoughts are its good business. In my case they got 10 years out of me peddalling their rags. They got more than that but say I am 15 its 1967. The word is the end is comming in 75. I was raised in the tower and held in mby fear. I tried to escape about 71 and remember people pushing my buttons, they would say the worlds going to end in 4 years and your going to be destroyed. Dont leave come to the meetings, come sell the magazines, come save others.

  Then after January 1, 76, They went into denial and started back peddaling. Somehow I, I made up that the world was going to end in 75. Even though I made it up and I never heard it or read it from them. The world was still ending any day now so stay in the ark.

  When you cant sell the steak you have to sell the sizzle.

  Without the internet and limited bookstores and being on the treadmill of meeting attendance and service, it took me till I was 31 to figure out how to quit them wackos.
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  neverendingjourney

  When I was studying this religion with the JW I asked why the 1975 prediction was generally disregarded. The answer I was given by several was that the WTBTS never gave that specific date and it was only those spiritually weak ones who chose to take that date literally and then become disillusioned when it did not come to pass.

  This is what I was told as well, although the topic rarely came up. I remember being told that a bunch of greedy JWs took the Society out of context and began taking out loans to live the good life before the end came. Then they lashed out against the Society because they were left with a bunch of debt they couldn't repay. Greed, in essence, was what motivated them to leave "Jehovah's organization" and become apostates. The sad thing is that the people telling me this weren't JWs during 1975, and if there were any JWs who had actually lived during that time present, they kept quiet in order to avoid having people think they sympathized with the apostates.

  A very religious woman I called on a few times brought this topic up, and that's the answer I gave her. Greedy witnesses took certain comments and ran with them. They ran up a bunch of loans and lived in luxury expecting Armageddon to save them from having to repay their debts. The society simply implied that the end "might" come in 1975, but these people, in their desire for luxury, read more into the suggestion and paid the consequence of their sinful desires.

  Oh how ignorant I was! Now that I have seen the proof of what was actually said, there is no way one can honestly blame people for reading into comments made by the Society. People were encouraged to leave their jobs, even quit school, to pioneer. The end coming in 1975 was portrayed as a certainty. It's true that the literature softened it's stand a bit as 1975 neared, but good and faithful JWs were expected to obey the Society and live their lives as if Armageddon would take place in 1975.

  It's sad, but that's the revolving door nature of the Jehovah's Witnesses. The current crop of JWs have no idea what happened 20 or 30 years ago because they weren't around back then.
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  JH

  They use dates, to keep people scared and present. It's a way of saying, "the end is just around the corner, you have to come to each meeting".
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  Maddie

  It's all been said already but there have been doomsday predictions throughout history. It is a very powerful way of recruiting people and then keeping them - like dangling a carrot, forever moving the prize.

  Maddie
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  Pickled

  Jaguarbass, you wrote... "so stay in the Ark."
  
  That's interesting because that sounds like another version of the bird in the cage thing with the look what happens when it tries to leave the cage scenario.
  
  The interesting thing about Noah's Ark, to me, is that nowhere does it indicate that the design included a steering wheel. This Ark you referenced is not the same kind of Ark that houses a group completely at the mercy and direction of God alone, and wherever He decides to have them land....and more importantly, when.
  
  This present Ark is more like the Titanic whose builders boasted loudly that it was absolutely unsinkable.
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  Pickled

  “Life Everlasting in FREEDOM OF THE SONS OF GOD”
  COPYRIGHT, 1966 by WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY
  OF PENNSYLVANIA
  
  CHAPTER 1, Pages 26-30
  SIX THOUSAND YEARS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE CLOSING
  The time is fast drawing near for the reality that was foreshadowed by the Jubilee of liberty to be proclaimed throughout the earth to all mankind now oppressed by many enslaved things. In view of the earth-wide situation and the world’s condition, it appears most urgent for the liberation like that of the Jubilee to come soon. Most certainly the near future would be the most appropriate time for it. God’s own written Word indicates that it is the appointed time for it. Here we are well along in the twentieth century of our Common Era. How long before our Common Era began was it that man was created and placed in his paradise home in what is now southwest Asia? The Holy Bible, which gives us the authentic account of man’s creation, gives us a timetable running way back to his creation. The Bible runs this timetable or chronology all the way back from the year of release of God’s people from Babylon in the first year of Cyrus the Great, the Persian king. –2 Chronicles 36:22, 23; Ezra 1:1-4.
  Thus we can connect up the Bible’s count of time with the world’s count of time down to this date. By doing this it becomes evident that man is nearing the end of six thousand years of his existence and the beginning of the seventh period of a thousand years of his existence. The year of man’s creation is generally spoken of as the Year of the World or Anno Mundi and symbolized by the letters A.M. Now if we take a copy of the popular King James Version of the Bible, equipped with marginal references, we find that it gives the year of man’s creation as 4004 B.C.E., which is according to the Bible chronology figured out by the eminent Irish Anglican prelate, Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656). If we accept that date, then if we add 1,996 years, it gives us the total of 6,000 years. Then the seventh period of a thousand years of life for man would begin in the year 1997 C.E.
  Since the time of Ussher intensive study of Bible chronology has been carried on. In this twentieth century an independent study has been carried on that does not blindly follow some traditional chronology calculations of Christendom, and the published timetable resulting from this independent study gives the date of man’s creation as 4026 B.C.E. According to this trustworthy Bible chronology six thousand years from man’s creation will end in 1975, and the seventh period of a thousand years of human history will begin in the fall of 1975 C.E.
  So six thousand years of man’s existence on earth will soon be up, yes, within this generation. Jehovah God is timeless, as it is written in Psalm 90:1, 2: “O Jehovah, you yourself have proven to be a real dwelling for us during generation after generation. Before the mountains themselves were born, or you proceeded to bring forth as with labor pains the earth and productive land, even from time indefinite to time indefinite you are God.” So from that standpoint of Jehovah God these passing six thousand years of man’s existence are but six days of twenty-four hours, for this same Psalm (verses 3, 4) goes on to say: “You make mortal man go back to crushed matter, and you say: ‘Go back, you sons of men.’ For a thousand years are in your eyes but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch during the night.” So in not many years within our own generation we are reaching what Jehovah God could view as the seventh day of man’s existence.
  How appropriate it would be for Jehovah God to make of this coming seventh period of a thousand years a Sabbath of rest and release, a great Jubilee sabbath for the proclaiming of liberty throughout the earth to all its inhabitants! This would be most timely for mankind. It would also be most fitting on God’s part, for, remember, mankind has yet ahead what the last book of the Holy Bible speaks of as the reign of Jesus Christ over earth for a thousand years, the millennial reign of Christ. Prophetically Jesus Christ, when on earth nineteen centuries ago, said concerning himself: “For Lord of the Sabbath is what the Son of man is.” (Matthew 12:8) It would not be by mere chance or accident but would be according to the loving purpose of Jehovah God for the reign of Jesus Christ, the “Lord of the sabbath,” to run parallel with the seventh millennium of man’s existence.
  The Jubilee year of God’s ancient law was a “shadow of the good things to come.” The substantial reality that it foreshadowed must yet without fail be introduced for the good of all the groaning human creation. The blessed time for its introduction is fast approaching. Shortly, within our own generation, the symbolic trumpet will be sounded by divine power, proclaiming “liberty in the land to all its inhabitants.” (Leviticus 25:8-10) God foresaw the need for this and had it foreshadowed in his ancient law given through the prophet Moses. As his law foreshadowed this coming great worldwide Jubilee, he has laid the full legal basis for its full, glorious realization. Consequently there is now every reason why the human creation will yet be set free, not by men, but by Almighty God. The long-awaited time for this it at hand!
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  Pickled

  Jehovah’s Witnesses – Proclaimers of God’s Kingdom (1993), 104
  
  “The Jehovah’s Witnesses had long shared the belief that the Thousand Year Reign of Christ would follow after 6,000 years of human history.”
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  Pickled

  Watchtower, August 15, 1968, 499
  
  6,000 YEARS FROM ADAM’S CREATION
  
  26 In a similar manner it is only necessary to add up the following years involving ten pre-Flood generations to get the date of Adam’s creation, namely:
  
  From Adam’s creation
  To birth of Seth (Gen. 5:3) 130 years
  To birth of Enosh (5:6) 105 “
  To birth of Kenan (5:9) 90 “
  To birth of Mahalalel (5:12) 70 “
  To birth of Jared (5:15) 65 “
  To birth of Enoch (5:18) 162 “
  To birth of Methuselah (5:21) 65 “
  To birth of Lamech (5:25) 187 “
  To birth of Noah (5:28, 29) 182 “
  To beginning of Flood (7:6) 600 “
  Total 1,656 years
  
  27 Adding this figure 1,656 to 2,370 gives 4026 B.C.E., the Gregorian calendar year in which Adam was created. Since man naturally began to count time with his own beginning, and since man’s most ancient calendars started each year in the autumn, it is reasonable to assume that the first man Adam was created in the fall of the year.
  
  28 Thus, through a careful independent study by dedicated Bible scholars who have pursued the subject for a number of years, and who have not blindly followed some traditional chronological calculations of Christendom, we have arrived at a date for Adam’s creation that is 22 years more distant in the past than Ussher’s figure. This means time is running out two decades sooner than traditional chronology anticipates.
  
  29 After much of the mathematics and genealogies, really, of what benefit is this information to us today? Is it not all dead history, as uninteresting and profitless as walking through a cemetery copying old dates off tombstones? After all, why should we be any more interested in the date of Adam’s creation than in the birth of King Tut? Well, for one thing, if 4,026 is added to 1,968 (allowing for the lack of a zero year between C.E. and B.C.E.) one gets a total of 5,993 years, come this autumn, since Adam’s creation. That means, in the fall of the year 1975, a little over seven years from now (and not in 1997 as would be the case if Ussher’s figures were correct), it will be 6,000 years since the creation of Adam, the father of all mankind!
  
  ADAM CREATED AT CLOSE OF “SIXTH DAY”
  30 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.