The idea that TRUTH is based on something rather than nothing is insidious.
William Miller was a self-taught Baptist lay preacher who had been agnostic until his regiment won a battle he thought a certain loss. Suddenly, he began entertaining the notion that God intervened among humanity! With no other basis than his presumptions, Miller pulled together a stack of religious books and began trying to work out when Jesus was going to come back and end the World and take his true believers to heaven.
Outrageously, Miller convinced way too many fellow believers (and pissed off plenty of others) he knew date-certain when the Second Advent of the Lord was going to happen. His followers urged him to set a date.
Despite the urging of his supporters, Miller never personally set an exact date for the expected Second Advent. However, in response to their urgings he did narrow the time-period to sometime in the Jewish year beginning in the Gregorian year 1843, stating: "My principles in brief, are, that Jesus Christ will come again to this earth, cleanse, purify, and take possession of the same, with all the saints, sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. [ 21 ] March 21, 1844, passed without incident, and further discussion and study resulted in the brief adoption of a new date (April 18, 1844) based on the Karaite Jewishcalendar (as opposed to the Rabbinic calendar). [ 22 ] Like the previous date, April 18 passed without Christ's return.
What was the "Truth"? The date came and went.
Miller was in error!
Wouldn't an honest man and honest believers take this as proof of error?
Wouldn't they know what, at least, wasn't TRUE? What to avoid doing next time? Surely.
But, no.
They set another date certain by doing the same damned thing they did wrong the first time!
And believed it!
And....were dead wrong again!
And so on....
Others came and went with new ideas, proofs and dates...........
What you've got to hate is the intellectual dishonesty of the process!
Without William Miller you'd not have had a Pastor Russell. Without Pastor Russell you'd have had no corporation for Judge Rutherford to take over and wield to suit his prejudices. Without Rutherford's creatively weird notions and Fred Franz's crackpot ruminations you'd not have had a fast growing religious cult of zealous date-setters looking for Armageddon any minute!
Each date set and missed drove them deeper into self-ruin!
Stubborn disregard for TRUTH made them view everything they said, printed and taught as THE TRUTH. I ask you, does that make sense?
I HATE THAT!!
I wasted 18 years of my life on this intellectual dishonesty.
People who can not, will not, never will admit when they are dead wrong are hateful people full of self-importance and cruel in their treatment of others who finally admit they've been fooled.
This is something I hate about Jehovah's Witness religion.
They've established Jehovah's Kingdom on a fake date (1914) and all the millions of words printed about it are as silly and witless as the loony tunes William Miller and those who believed him in the first place.
Jesus has been ruling for 96 years and hasn't improved a damned thing!!
It is all a damnable lie...
WHY ISN'T THIS OBVIOUS???