What a stupid question... The Generation of 1914 of course!
If you could choose to live in any generation in any time period,
by John Doe 26 Replies latest jw friends
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zagor
I think we live in some of the most exciting times ever, but If I had an option of time travel I'd love to visit Library of Alexandria while it was at its zenith. Alternatively about 10 000 years into the future.
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Black Sheep
When I look at how several well off branches of my family were decimated by hard times in England in the fourteenth century, (which is not all that long ago), I tell myself that we are in a pretty damned good period right now.
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JAFO
Being in Pittsburgh, in 1870 or so, in order to arrange the untimely demise of one C. T. Russell has a certain appeal to it... so many lives could be saved.. or would never be ruined..
Sigh.. so many choices..
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Tuesday
I'd like to see Neanderthals to see what their regular life was like, if they had spoken language or not.
That's the number 1 thing I'd want to see, other than that I wouldn't mind checking out 6000 years ago to prove the earth wasn't created then, check out ancient Israel to show that it was nothing more than a small desert tribe, I'd like to take pictures of the ancient world wonders. Oh and Woodstock, I would've loved to have been at Woodstock.
As for going back to make sure CT Russell met an untimely end, I don't think Russell was the problem it was Rutherford.
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sir82
To live in? Right now. Why? Medical care, dental care, sanitation, abundance of food, relative peace, relative prosperity...
To visit? Oh all sorts of places & times - ancient Rome, Renaissance Italy, Victorian England, Pre-Columbian North America, any Polynesian island prior to European "discovery"....
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JAFO
As for going back to make sure CT Russell met an untimely end, I don't think Russell was the problem it was Rutherford.
Really? Here's some snippets I've assembled from a few sources at http://www.watchtowerdocuments.com/
From The Watchtower, September 15, 1910, p298. All emphasis and italics in the original version. These are Russell's own words:
"If the six volumes of ‘Scripture Studies’ are practically the Bible, topically arranged, with Bible proof texts given, we might not improperly name the volumes - ‘the Bible in an arranged form.' That is to say, they are not mere comments on the Bible, but THEY ARE PRACTICALLY THE BIBLE ITSELF. Furthermore, not only do we find that people cannot see the Divine plan in studying the Bible by itself, but we see, also, that if anyone lays the ‘Scripture Studies’ aside, even after he has used them, after he has become familiar with them, after he has read them for ten years - if he then lays them aside and ignores them and goes to the Bible alone, though he has understood his Bible for ten years, our experience shows that within two years he goes INTO DARKNESS. On the other hand, if he had merely read the ‘Scripture Studies’ with their references, and had not read a page of the Bible as such he would be in the light at the end of two years, because he would have the light of the Scriptures"The commentary of the day had this to say about our "friend" Russell and his claims:
"Let this be taken in clearly. "Scripture Studies" "are practically the Bible itself." So much, for the sake of duping the credulous Bible-lover. He who “goes to the Bible alone" will within two years go "into darkness." Whereas he who reads Scripture Studies alone, without a word of the Bible directly, will remain "in the light." The only light for us, then, is the Russellized Bible. It follows that there never was light before the Bible became Russellized.
What blasphemy! "When man thus belittles God’s Word and makes his own superior to that of God, it seems to be nothing short of the worst kind of blasphemy. Reflect upon it - to confine oneself to the Bible means outer darkness - to take the word of this one man and never read a page of the Bible means to be in the light.” This inspiration has its origin in the pit! Who is this man?"On "Studies in the Scriptures", his critics had this to say: (highlighting mine)
"Mr. Russell opens his treatise with the claim - which runs as a refrain through the whole - that the light of God’s Word is perceived only as it becomes due from stage to stage in the course of time. He thereby induces the credulous reader to be prepared for any "advancing light" which may be offered by novel interpretation of the Word, however much in conflict with all previous understanding it may be. While this has a plausible side, yet it is a plea which an artful interpreter can use with an untaught reader to a ruinous effect. And the extent to which Mr. Russell carries this principle was the first thing which caused the writer to put himself on guard. Some quotations will be just to the author and will make the point under consideration clearer.
“It is the light from the Sun of Righteousness in this owning of the Millennial Day that reveals these things as ‘present truth,’ now due to be appreciated by the sincere - the pure in heart” (Vol. I, p. 10). "The truth is progressive, shining more and more unto the perfect day, to those who search for it and walk in the light of it, while the various creeds of the various sects are fixed and stationary, and were made so centuries ago.”
A quantity of evidence has reached the writer’s hands from former prominent followers of Mr. Russell, by which this serious contradiction of teaching is exposed explicitly and in startling light. The later teaching has been appearing during the last four years in the periodical of Millennial Dawn teaching, the "Watch Tower." Very cautiously and secretly the latest issue of some of the volumes we are examining has been altered here and there to harmonize with the periodical mentioned. As one writes: “Mr. Russell has made but few changes in the books, evidently fearing to do too much at once."
As to this change in teachings, so marked that one formerly prominent as a follower writes: "Separation has occurred in practically every country on this globe because of Mr. Russell’s perversions of Scripture," Mr. Russell himself, with characteristic duplicity, explains, at one time, that the old teaching “is a part of the smoke of the dark ages, which we are glad now to wipe from our eyes,” and, at another time, that the new teaching is really the "elucidation” of the old."IT ALL SOUNDS MIGHTY FAMILIAR, DOESN'T IT? The same "new light" horse-shit that the GB uses today to justify and explain every change, flip-flop and cover-up was instituted by Russell himself, along with the program of promoting the WTS literature (and by implication, the Society as well) ahead of the Bible itself.
So no, I don't agree that the rot set in with Rutherford.. It has been "company policy" from the very beginning.