Why have some of Jehovah's Witnesses entertained wrong expectations about dates?
The anwer was YADDA YADDA YADDA- unimportant really what was said. The important thing was to further blame MEMBERS, not the leaders.
MEMBERS have entertained (not done serious meditation or WT studying) and the MEMBERS have wrong expectations. Just keep casting blame away from the leaders and they will believe it.
Just in case anyone wants to recall the leaders' role in this, they sidetrack to scriptures that say "Keep Awake." The leaders are "alert" but the members have wrong expectations.
I am totally amazed that they actually thought it was a good idea to address 1975. I suppose the thinking was that too many rumors are out there. I think someone really dropped the ball on that- reminding the members about that. But still, to blame the members once more, (Their anticipation....) is ridiculous.
I can hear the cult doubletalk in that. The MEMBERS that they refer to are said to be not false Christians, but "alert" to the end. That's because the members referred to are the leaders and writers of WT literature along with the members who believed them.
Addressing members speculating on dates is the entire purpose of this talk. The WT leaders want to remind them not to do so. With only one exception, the rest of the questions and answers were meaningless, just there to remind us that the leaders have it all figured out and we should just listen to/believe what they say.
The one exception: In the last question about the sign of the last days, the speaker mentions something occuring in the world today that shows that "we are in the last days." Among the typical things, he says "child abusers." Not "child abuse" but "abusers." That was purposely slipped in there to make the members be disgusted at the abuser whenever they hear of such crimes, and not focus on the reasons for the abuse such as mishandling by elders. Oh, it's subtle but it's there.
Still, this is a major talk that's full of surprises. To me, it means they are very afraid of free information available to the members.