End Times Preaching and Armageddon - has the WTS made a new push on this? (page 2)

insearchoftruth

Do any of the more recent WT studies deal with end times?? Also any good sources of information to be able to assist in refutation of some of her comments/beliefs on the end times. It is all so crystal clear to me that the WTS is pulling the wool over the eyes of its believers. A major concern is as she is reading the WT developed literature, she states and I think fully believes she is studying the bible?!?!

OUTLAW

I have a picture of the WBT$ making the Big Push for Armageddon..... Queue For Toilet ....................... Laughing Mutley ...OUTLAW

insearchoftruth

And out popped a wt, or was it an awake?

Seeker4

Gas is $4 a gallon in the US and higher elsewhere. People here are worried that they won't be able to heat their houses this winter. There is war in Iran and Afghanistan. A huge earthquake just hit Chine and killed tens of thousands. In the US there is concern that we may be entering a recession, people can't give away there $40,000 SUVs, and lots of companies are downsizing and laying off workers. Starbucks just closed 600 stores.

These are just the sort of incidents that get the JWs' undies in a bunch.

S4

insearchoftruth

Not only 'bunches the undies' but rallies the troops as 'signs of the end'. But don't even try to point out the cyclic nature of history! I have always noted this behavior in my wife and her family, I know that 'dirty laundry' is what sells on the news, but she only focuses on the bad things going on in the world. She was really intrigued by the earthquake in China as well as the typhoon in Myanmar, which are both horrific tragedies, but when I tried to show her the attempted response in Myanmar as well as the international response of assistance in China, she can not see the underlying good of people. What is so confusing/perplexing is she is starting to talk armageddon quite a bit, but she is looking forward to college graduation soon and is also interested in pursuing an advanced degree. Until this past week it seemed like she had left the watchtower behind. Her parents (who are fully responsible for dragging her into this mess) are disfellowshipped due to infidelity and though her father is trying to get himself back in good graces, from what I understand her mother has no remorse at all and in essence seems to feel that this extramarital affair is almost owed to her. I guess bad economic times and the efficiency of the international news to bring bad news to people so efficiently could definitely be a strong contributing factor.

garybuss

I have a friend that buys into every new MLM scam to hit town. I've tried to point out how he is the scamee not the scamer, but he signs up for the next trick to hit the streets. Now he's selling chocolate candy as a diet trick to suppress appetite.

My point is, he's got a gullible gene. He also can't add 2+2 and come up with 4. He pays for everything with cash back credit cards and he thinks he's gonna get rich doing that. Yeah! Right!

Some people just aren't happy unless somebody's conning them. I know one guy who left the Mormon Church, joined the Jehovah's Witnesses, quit them and joined the SDA church and now is practicing Judaism.

I'd have to dispense with every ounce of ability to question implausible scenarios in my entire body to join the Jehovah's Witnesses. If a sucker quits the Jehovah's Witnesses, I bet they still can't question implausible scenarios and the next scam is waiting.

I think the thing my wife liked best about the Jehovah's Witnesses is the fact that I wasn't there.

insearchoftruth

Very interesting point you make Gary, she has also gotten herself involved with an MLM scheme as well.....same sort of thinking, and gullibility is necessary for both of them. One thing that is somewhat in my favor is she normally is not willing to put in the effort that a lot of these things take, and an 'at home "bible" study' may go for a bit, even a meeting attended for a while, but when it gets to be more time consuming, she will fade back again.....but she may also like the fact that I will not be involved with the JWs, gives her a haven away from me!

Jeremy C

Seeker4 touched on something that is very important. Economic distress and geo-political instabilities are the Watchtower's greatest assets. It is in these cycles that many people begin to search for an emotional refuge from the perplexing anxieties and uncertainties of life.

I think that it is beneficial to consider the growth of Jehovah's Witnesses prior to 1975. All indications seemed to support the Watchtower's (or Fred Franz's) end times chronology that was published in 1966. There was all of the civil unrest and violence here in the U.S. during the late 1960s, which included the assisinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. The U.S. was bogged down in Vietnam. Then, there was the 1970s with the oil embargo / gasoline shortages, Watergate, the humiliating American withdrawal from Saigon, and the general malaise of the economy. Who could deny all of the obvious evidence that the end was near?

I believe that cycles repeat themselves. The Watchtower organization tends to get caught up in these cycles. Jehovah's Witnesses deperately want to see evidence that the "end is near". They eagerly want to witness the "birth pangs of distress", so that they can be freed from this "system of things".

It is interesting that garybuss used the analogy of MLM schemes. I have often noted that the Watchtower organization is operated similarly to a multi-level marketing corporation. There is a pyramid authority structure, a product to sell (Armageddon), and an organizational obsession with numbers, figures, and percentages. Just as the MLM sucker looks for the "big payout" whereby they can quit their regular job and retire as a millionaire, the JW always watches the news looking for the "Big A" whereby they will get to retire to their paradise home with its fruit trees, and peacocks in the front yard.

still_in74

we are in the last minutes of the last days. Nothing new.

Many JW's view all the "changes" as being indicative of Jehovah preparing us for the "New World".

WTS says whole globe preached to now. That the org is actually planning on how to organize the preaching work and restructuing of the org in the "New System", yes they have said this.

We are getting so much "New Light" - although if you notice the org never actually calls it that anymore. Same shit different pile. But the R&F are eating it up as usual.

She may get caught up in the hype but at the end of the day nothing has really changed.

insearchoftruth

Very interesting, up until about four years ago all I knew about the JWs was they were nicely dressed people who peddled magazines written at about a sixth grade reading level from door to door, what is amazing is how they have been able to turn this into a very profitable venture with amazingly huge land holdings with all volunteer labor. I used to deliver newspapers as a kid and only made a few pennies per paper, but if one delivers enough, there was a pretty good take at the end of the day, now imagine 6 million folks paying for the papers up front, and then turning in what ever profits they recieve from selling them, now that is a formula for some huge profits.

I really does seem like the same old stuff, just in new packaging, and yes, we are in an economic downturn that just happens to coincide with some other things going on in the world that makes one looking for the end see some 'favorable signs' that the end is near.

Need to brush up on some of the other organizations that are also escatalogically centered so I will be able to dispel the thoughts of how unique she thinks they are....also have asked her what she knows about the history of the organization, where it got its start, was it a spin off of another religion and what other significant things have shaped the faith, no answer and I am wondering if she will take the time to try to find out, or if she will ask the pesky sister. My wife kept talking about 'paradise earth' and why would god have created earth if he did not mean for it to be inhabited.....I asked her to read the 'armegeddon account' in Revelations 20 and the first few verses of chapter 21 and tell me what it means...without the assistance of WT literature, I have found out that she has never just read the bible, she has always allowed the bible verse bingo/proof texting of the WTS to shape her view on what the bible says.....

End Times Preaching and Armageddon - has the WTS made a new push on this?

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