Could it be that they just surf the net? That's what I was doing when I found this article.
http://www.endoftheworldpredictions.com/
Could they also be looking to Nostradamus and Mayan principles?
How do JWs calculate their "End of the World" predictions?
by Quirky1 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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civicsi00
I would say "Ask Freddie" but since he's passed on and "may be involved in the communicating of divine truths today" then I guess we'll just have to wait and see what "flashes of light" emanate from the Brooklyn headquarters.
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rebel8
I think it's more like how the character Oswald Bates on In Living Color chooses his vocabulary--with the same accuracy and knowledge.
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read good books
If there are any "flashes of light" from the Brooklyn Headquarters I hope it means the place is on fire. I think they just wait for something big to happen like a War or Depression and oops there it is, times are hard it must be Armegeddon. Fred Franz always sounded like he was making it up as he went along when he was giving those talks on Bible Prophecy.
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yadda yadda 2
You seem to be under some misapprehension, if you are talking about JW's as a whole.
JW's do not base any of their calculations on Nostradamus or Mayan calendar principles. The closest they come to anything in that bracket is by perpetuating C T Russells old faulty and thoroughly debunked bible chronology interpretations underpinning his 1914 end of world prediction, which is partially derived from Pyramidology, something very popular in Russell's day.
In fact, JW's presently no longer have any 'end of the world' predictions per se...they have had many, but they all failed to eventuate. Now they just keep repeating a generic and nebulous "The end is at hand" rhetoric.
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Black Sheep
They just take some assumptions and multiply them by other assumptions and assume that the result is a prophesy from an all knowing god.
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Farkel
:How do JWs calculate their "End of the World" predictions?
That's easy. Russell started the whole pattern using the "Jubilee years" from the old testament. This would be typically 50 years according to the Bible, but the WTS has used 40 years, too. Anything that fits their target date. You see, it is all so simple. First, they pick a date somewhere in the future that they want to be "prophetic." Strangely enough, their "end time" dates are always just under 10 years in the future. Not less. Not more. It is a good target date time frame, because it is not so far out that people will ignore it, and not so close to the current date that the WTS won't have long to milk it for all it is worth. Translation? Scare the shit out of people to get them to join the Cult and spend their money and lives promoting the Cult until the date comes and nothing happens. Repeat this process over and over and over.
Since there are a lot of time frames to be found in the Bible it is pretty easy to use them to arrive at any predetermined date you want: 3, 3 1/2, 6, 7, 10, 12, 24, 25, 40, 49, 50, 70, 80, 120, 130, 1,300, 2,300 are just a few of many Bible time frames. So all one has to do is pick the target number of years in the future that suits the Printing Corporation and cobble together the verses scattered throughout the Bible that add up to that date, and voila! You have a brand new Bible-Based(tm) prophecy! The smaller numbers are said to represent years, while the larger numbers are said to represent days. The right combinations of the two can make a prophecy for ANY future date.
This is so easy, even a child could do it.
Farkel
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OnTheWayOut
I would say that there is no real good oracle at WTS like Freddy Franz was.
Most of their stuff is just cut and paste from previous articles, run it past a
writer to jazz it up and run it past lawyers if anything "new" is actually put
into it.But they might read articles like your link. They might look at other cults and
other predictions and consider using the language in their "jazz it up" stages. -
Witness 007
Throw a dart at a scripture. Or pray really hard and Jah will guide you.....but when your wrong it was SATAN!
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Homerovah the Almighty
Through their inherit imagination and persuasion, C.T. Russell grabbed the religious ideologies from the Adventists of his time and then
used them to help in the circulation of his literature and since most people were mostly Christan based in faith he knew he had a market.
The continuance of that effort is still seen today almost exactly as it was from the beginning roots of Russell with some variance.
You might consider the end times doctrines as a decisive marketing strategy for the Corporation, it lures people through
coercion and then manipulates the individuals to their will.