FRAUD at the proper time: Watchtower swindle and GB nonsense

by Terry 30 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

Terry

FOOD AT THE PROPER TIME?
There is a huge difference between an opinion and a false teaching.
What if it could be unambiguously demonstrated that a teaching is not merely opinion but a false religious view passed off as absolute truth in the name of a higher authority?
Would that not be fraud? Would that not make the teacher of such fraud a liar and brand them even Anti-Christ?
We can conclusively list the false religious teachings of the Governing Body of the Watchtower Society ACCORDING TO themselves! Below a list is culled from various publications by C.T. Russell who was the mouthpiece of the Lord.
1.The Second Adventists and Millerite Movement was the fulfillment of bible prophecy.
2.A Meteor shower on November 13, 1833 was fulfillment of Jesus warning about end times.
3. 1846 marked the fulfillment of prophecy in having Jesus cleanse the Sanctuary (having arrived invisibly).
4. 1872 marked the end of six thousand years of human existence from the creation of Adam.
5.Since 1872 we have been living in the 7th Millennium.
6.Christ's reign began in A.D. 1873
7. 1874 marked the beginning of the Times of Restitution.
8.C.T. Russell is the messenger or "angel" identified in the Laodicean church in Revelation (1874).
9. The Lord did not come in 1844. The Bridegroom tarried and it was predicted this would happen.
10. "Beyond a doubt" the Lord appeared in 1874. The physical facts "are indisputable".
11.1874 marked the beginning of the Battle of Armageddon.
12.The Great Pyramid of Egypt was placed there to be used as a "witness in stone" and marks the important dates in prophetic history.
13. Measurements inside the the interior passageway (3416 "pyramid inches") demonstrate 1874 as the date of Christ's return.
14.(The same!) interior passageway measurements (now changed!) of 3457 pyramid inches demonstrate that the end of 1914 marks the beginning of the "time of trouble".
15.For forty years Pastor Russell set forth clear and unmistakable evidence of the Master (Jesus) presence on the title page of the Watchtower and "it will never come down!).
16.1939: the banner comes down. "Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom" goes up instead.
17. 1878 (spring) the Holy Apostles are resurrected to heavenly life.
18. The close of the heavenly calling ended in 1881. No further anointed will be selected. The number was sealed.
19.The close of the heavenly calling ended in 1918.
20.The close of the heavenly calling ended in 1935.
21. 1883: "Christian is the only name we need to be called."
22.God placed the Great Pyramid in Gizeh (1883).
23.Satan placed the Great Pyramid in Gizeh (1928).
24. BEWARE OF ORGANIZATION...IT IS WHOLLY UNNECESSARY. (Watchtower 9/15/1895)
25. "There is no command in scripture against military service". (Watchtower 8/1/1898)
26. God favors the Aryan race. (1898 Evol 30-31)
27. A black man can pray his skin white. (Zion's Watchtower 10/1/1900)
28. The BOOK OF RUTH is not prophetical.
29. Quibbling about celebrating Christmas is unneccesary it is a grand event and a tribute of respect to him. (1904)
30. You can read the CHARACTER of a person by feeling the bumps on their head. 1907
(Maria Russell requests in court for an increase in her alimony from $40 a month to $100 is denied because all of Pastor Russell's assets have been donated to the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society.)
31. Reading Pastor Russell's STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES will bring you into the light faster and better than reading the Bible. (1910)
32. The "time of trouble) will begin somewhere between 1910 and 1912. (1911)
33. Operating on people for appendicitis is unnecessary. It is brought on by worm infestation. A dose of medicine called SANTONINE will cure it and typhoid fever. (Zion's Watch Tower 1/15/1912)
THIS BRINGS US UP TO 1914
REVIEW:
Everything listed so far can be dismissed by latter day Jehovah's Witnesses. And it is! But, it is important not to forget any of it. Why?
This is the sort speculation and guesswork all sorts of religious people were indulging in all over America in many churches. What makes Pastor Russell any different from them?
Two things.
1.He threw his personal fortune into publicizing his claims backed by his followers willingness to donate and participate in spreading these fantasies.
2.He passed all these speculations and outright bogus representations of prophecy off WRONGLY as the very revelation of Jesus to himself as sole conduit of Truth in the time of the end.
By current JW standards we have to pronounce him wrong AND (most importantly) a FALSE PROPHET. There is no way around it.
Russell was willing to go easy on the Millerites and the 2nd Adventists. He was willing to cut them slack and say they fulfilled prophecy even though they taught and believed errors.
Why?
Because these very same people were turning to C.T.RUSSELL to rescue their false beliefs from ridicule. C.T.Russell offered them something that looked like concrete evidence.
1.The meteor showers, times of trouble, world events, prophecy fulfillments, chronology charts and Great Pyramid measurements really packed a wallop.
2.If he kept guessing and moving dates around; sooner or later he might hit the jackpot.
1914 brought World War I.
That was a large enough event to get everybody's attention and pump life back into the hundreds of little errors the Watchtower had been making over and over. It refreshed hope that Russell might have something divine to offer.
A broken clock is right twice a day.
Pastor Russell's bogus prophecy clock only had to strike once to sustain the gullible long enough for Judge Rutherford to get his hook into them and start the process moving again.
My easy source for these is Randy Watter's own SPIRITUAL FOOD AT THE PROPER TIME available at his Freeminds website.
Terry
thetrueone

C T Russell sold himself to the public as a divinely inspired messenger of bible truths and knowledge.
In reality he was inspired by his own publishing company and self propagating religious ideologies.
A religious charlatan of his proper time.
Is there any difference from the WTS. today ?
None whatsoever .
The religious publishing company has just changed hands over and over again and nothing that it has ever said came true.
designs

thetrueone,
You have just described all of the Denominations of Christianity as well. The Founders of each group claiming to have channeled that elusive Holy Spirit and claiming new light. What a sad mess it all became.
Terry

And....
I would be remiss if I did not mention the PREMISE of all controversy in Christianity: The Bible.
Without uncorrupt original autographs of the NT and OT it cannot honestly be asserted or demonstrated we actually KNOW THE WORDS spoken and written by Apostles.
If we don't know the words we can't debate the issues or insist on True Teaching.
If you can't debate BASED ON SOMETHING DEMONSTRABLY TRUE you are dead in the water.
Christianity has settled for loud insistence that the Bible is "true"--whatever that means.
Jehovah's Witnesses built their matchstick kingdom upon a corrupt foundation of error in PYRAMIDOLOGY, TIME CHARTS, ADVENTISM, FALSE PREDICTION and a willingness to fudge the so-called facts without conscience.
They aren't honest brokers of "truth" nor are they intellectually honest in admitting errors. The closest they come to humility is when their noses are rubbed in embarassing failures. But, blame-shifting obscures even that!
They are rascals through and through.
Perry

The Founders of each group claiming to have channeled that elusive Holy Spirit and claiming new light.
Designs, are you suggesting that Christians don't believe these words here:
Gal1: 6 I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
7 Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
8 But though ° we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
All the Christians that I know reject the doctrine of "new light" like the WT teaches. What Christians are you talking about? It seems like you are lumping all Christians in with the Watchtower.
I believe that this is the dream world that atheists live in: "All religions are cults (followers of men) except ours" !
Here's some new light for atheists:
"The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing - is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice."
-Richard Dawkins
thetrueone

"The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing - is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice."
Intellectual honesty withholds the acceptance of the unknown and the yet to be discovered, that in itself is a moral truth.
Are you in the truth Perry ?
HappyGuy

"The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved out of literally nothing - is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice."
I hate to break this to you Perry but these are not facts they are opinions and theory. The material universe did not come from nothing it came from energy. Solving Einstein's relativity theory, E=MC2, for mass we get M=E/C2, thus mass came from energy.
Many theorize that the universe did not "evolve" that it had a beginning at a fixed point, unless the word "evolve" here is being used to describe the expansion from that fixed point.
Terry

Perry, what model of Falsifiability would you offer for us that would represent that which would demonstrate error on your part?
Falsifiability or refutability is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, that if it is false, then this can be shown by observation or experiment. The term "testability" is related but more specific; it means that an assertion can be falsified through experimentation alone.
For example, "all men are mortal" is unfalsifiable, since no finite amount of observation could ever demonstrate its falsehood: that one or more men can live forever. "All men are immortal," by contrast, is falsifiable, by the presentation of just one dead man. Not all statements that are falsifiable in principle are falsifiable in practice. For example, "it will be raining here in one million years" is theoretically falsifiable, but not practically so.
Falsifiability is an important concept in science and the philosophy of science. The concept was made popular by Karl Popper, who, in his philosophical analysis of the scientific method, concluded that a hypothesis, proposition, or theory is "scientific" only if it is falsifiable. Popper however stressed that unfalsifiable statements are still important in science, and are often implied by falsifiable theories. For example, while "all men are mortal" is unfalsifiable, it is a logical consequence of the falsifiable theory that "every man dies before he reaches the age of 150 years". Similarly, the ancient metaphysical and unfalsifiable idea of the existence of atoms has led to corresponding falsifiable modern theories.
Popper invented the notion of metaphysical research programs to name such ideas. In contrast to positivism, which held that statements are senseless if they cannot be verified or falsified, Popper claimed that falsifiability is merely a special case of the more general notion of criticizability, even though he admitted that refutation is one of the most effective methods by which theories can be criticize
WTWizard

It is even worse when the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger that writes this up demands that adherents not cross-reference anything with independent sources or study the Bible (and just the Bible) in small groups or on their own. And, they demand that people adhere to their teachings, even if they can be proven wrong with their own Bible--until the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger itself fixes the bad teaching, people are supposed to believe and TEACH the bad doctrine.
AllTimeJeff

There is a huge difference between an opinion and a false teaching.
Here is a potential opportunity for theists and atheists/agnostics to "get along".
It's simple really. Everyone, even Perry, is obviously allowed their personal beliefs. They are entitled to their opinions and freedom to worship. (and the opposite being true, atheists do not have to worship or to have religious precepts forced upon them as the law of the land)
We on this board do well to realize that people likely aren't going to change their stripes too much. The best that can be hoped for is a bit of honesty. An example statement would be
Theist: "Yes, I believe in an invisible being, I worship him and it adds great meaning in my life. I do not have answers to all logical questions for my beliefs, but choose to worship still thanks to my faith. I wouldn't expect others to believe as I do unless they were so inclined, and I understand the reasons why." (I guess the understanding part would be the rub there wouldn't it?)
Atheist: "I see no evidence of God as he is presented traditionally. I allow that most of the world does believe in a supernatural power, and I respect their right to believe this. As I ask logical and reasonable questions and do not get the answers to satisfy the logic, I am content to allow others their opinions, even as we continue to discuss the matter from various points of view."
Atheists do not teach doctrine. They merely point out the obvious.
It would be helpful for some theists to do the same.
For the record, I am rather empathetic to theists on this one. I think at this point in human evolution, most of us need some kind of personal belief system that gives meaning and purpose to life. The challenge is to realize that your personal beliefs, which are at their core, your opinions, are not proveable by any known measure, esp when compared to the hundreds of thousands of competing belief systems that exist on planet Earth at this moment.
Such simple math (i.e. the sheer amount of belief systems) should humble the most ardent theist. Believe as you will, but don't argue to strongly for what at best can be argued to a draw, due to the same amount of evidence that is in existence for all belief systems in the world.
(re read my last sentence a couple of times, it makes sense. Trust me. )

FRAUD at the proper time: Watchtower swindle and GB nonsense

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