Malkiel,
I don't recognize these names you listed.
I know, and I wasn't trying to be mean. I think the fact that people have difficulty comparing present day crises with those that previous generations faced is what keeps apocalyptic sects going. New converts come in the front door as fast as disillusioned ones go out the back
The fact that one's expectancy did not come to fruition when one hoped is not deception.
I think you're temporizing. It would depend on whether those expectations were the product of your own reasoning or whether a third party was responsible for them. Even when those expectations are entirely your own, delusion is arguably a form of self deception.
To use an example from JW history, when the Children book was released in 1942, it was distributed to all the children in the audience. (Even though it was not written for children) The audience was told to make good use of it "In the remaining months before Armageddon." (This quote was reproduced in The Watchtower for all posterity to read...)
Considering the fact that those children are now in their late 70's and early 80's, if they are alive at all, I would say that any who took the speaker's words to heart were decieved. How else could we characterize an assurance made by an authority figure that something would happen when in fact it did not? Isn't misrepresentation of the facts to another person the basic meaning of deception?
Another example involves the "great crowd" In 1935, at a convention in Washington DC, a large part of the audience, the "Jonadabs" were asked to stand up. J.F. Rutherford said clearly and unambiguously, "Behold, the great multitude."
These people were susequently taught through JW literature that they had the prospect of living through Armageddon without ever having to die. Remember that this was 73 years ago and these people were adults at the time. Most of them are dead today. Since you cannot possibly have the prospect of surviving an event that falls outside the boundaries of a human lifespan, I would say that they were decieved. Maybe not intentionally, but one's motives in giving people false information does not change the fact that it was done.
I think you miss the point, TD, the point being that ANYONE, including myself, desiring to see the end shortly wants it that way because it is such a significant event. It is the beginning of the end for Satan once and for all, and so the end for all that is wicked.
I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but I understand that Christians would live in expectation of the end. I think the JW's go well beyond this and consequently carry a considerable burden by actually attempting to calculate a time frame for the end.
Anyone expecting the end to arrive shortly is ready for the changes promised in the Bible. And it would be naive to think that there are those in the truth who seriously hope they die FIRST before that Tribulation begins. Everyone, including Abraham, would have loved to live to see Jehovah's fullfillment of this prophecy.
Again, it's one thing to live your life as if the end is right around the corner. That's what Chrstians are supposed to do. It's quite another to go out and knock on your neighbor's doors and try to convince them that it definitely is right around the corner. We're at a point where multiple generations of JW's have done just that.
If it did not happen in my lifetime, it does not mean i've been decieved.
The possibility that it might not even happen in your lifetime is intriguing to me. Christians don't serve God specifically for a reward, but salvation is still an intrinsic part of Christianity. After all, if there's no salvation, why bother?
As I'm sure you know, JW's base their salvific model almost entirely on Revelation 7 and the two groups it describes. In JW theology, 144,000 go to heaven to rule as kings and priests, and a great crowd survive the great tribulation to live forever on the earth. If you're not anointed then you're not a member of the first group. And if the end does not occur in your lifetime, then you're not a member of the second group either, becasue the great crowd survive the great tribulation.
You wouldn't experience either of the two salvations the JW's believe are described in Revelation 7. You would become a member of a fuzzy ill-defined third group of Christians that are basically the same as those that lived before Christ. --A second group of "other sheep." You'd have the hope of resurrection, but then so does everyone else who dies before Armageddon, JW or not.
Imagine for example if the earthly hope had always existed since the first century. What point would there be in Christians suffering gruesome deaths in the arena if instead of being rewarded with the crown of heavenly life, they simply get resurrected to a celibate life on earth, just like everyone else including those who were not faithful?
Since the hope of surviving Armageddon without having to die and being able to raise a family in paradise figures so prominently in JW literature, I have a hard time seing how the growing number of people that fall into this category (i.e. non-anointed who die before Armageddon) were not at least partially deceived.
