Its an illness.
But we got better, yea!
Camping ''bewildered'' and ''mystyfied'', but check who is taking blame...
by Aussie Oz 53 Replies latest jw friends
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flipper
History shows this has happened hundreds if not thousands of times with some alleged " prophet " or religious leader thinking he knows the end time crying " the sky is falling ! ", " the sky is falling ! " . Then hundreds of sincere but gullible and duped people follow that person to their own detriment.
Although not as physically dangerous as the Jim Jones or David Koresh cult which cost people's literal lives- I find it just as criminal and psychologically dangerous and disgusting that Camping and the WT society build up such false hopes to their followers which cost them time lost in their life, money spent on lunatic endeavors , and for the sake of what ? A deceptive pipedream. Disgusting
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sir82
Tragic but truly many Jehovah's Witnesses have given up much more: education, careers, marriage prospects, sexual expression, the chance to have children, and contact with the children they do have, money, time, the freedom to think for themselves.
To me, that is the saddest thing about JWs: all that wasted potential. How many truly gifted, intelligent, talented people are wasting away knocking at empty houses or folding Bethelites' underwear in "full time service".
And, i think, potential at a group level as well as individually. for the most part JWs at heart are good people doing what they think is best. Unfortunately, for them, and the rest of the world, "what they think is best" is a complete and utterly foolish waste of time.
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designs
'Turn On, Drop Out, Love In, Get High' its oh so common and seductive....
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Terra Incognita
The Watchtower is psychopathic. Camping is just pathetic.
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No Apologies
Yeah I haven't heard of Camping DFing anyone who changed their mind about following him. So that puts him at least one step above the Watchtower.
No Apologies
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Black Sheep
I wonder if he'll pay these guys bill for them ....
SA world-enders left with hotel bill -- report
South African followers of US evangelist Harold Camping, who predicted the end of the world for this past weekend, have been left to deal with some earthly matters -- a super-high hotel bill.
23 May 2011 | Sapa
JOHANNESBURG - South African followers of US evangelist Harold Camping, who predicted the end of the world for this past weekend, have been left to deal with some earthly matters -- a super-high hotel bill.
http://www.citizen.co.za/citizen/content/en/citizen/local-news?oid=196641&sn=Detail&pid=334&SA-world-enders-left-with-hotel-bill----report
Beeld newspaper reported on Monday that Johannes Coetzee and 80 of his followers had booked themselves on Friday into the Devonshire hotel in Braamfontein, Johannesburg at R689 per night, excluding meals, for a single room, and R1178 for a double room.
By Sunday afternoon, when there was still no sign of the world ending on Saturday, the group was still at the hotel and refused to speak to Beeld.
Coetzee did not answer his cellphone either.
His Facebook page was littered with comments, including a Jan Viljoen, who posted a message: "Johannes, praat met Facebook. Ons hoor graag van jou. [Johannes, speak to Facebook. We would love to hear from you."
In the United States, Camping has also been keeping a low profile. This was his second end-of-world prediction that has gone wrong, after a similar mishap in 1994.? -
d
I think will serioulsy hinder the preaching work of the Jw's. THey are going to have to come up with a new tactic to recruit people but It will not work. I personally science trumps believing in God.
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steve2
Remember Leon Festinger's study When Prophecy Fails. He followed a sect that predicted the end of the
world and made the suprising discovery that the failure resulted in increased commitment to the belief
systerm from followers, a phenomenon he attributed to cognitive dissonance.
Yes, his was ground breaking sociological research from the late 1950s that attempted to get inside the thinking patterns of people who set themselves up as prophets of the end and even set dates for it to happen. From a rational perspective, we'd expect them to say, "Sorry I was wrong; I need to re-examine my religious beliefs."
In more callous circles, cognitive dissonance is known as "saving face" - after all, if you've invested a huge amount of time, money and energy in spreading the Truth, it's hard to say, "Um, I was wrong folks; I didn't know what I was talking about", because among other things it would mean you were stupid enough to be duped in the first place and, possibly even worse, all the people you've been exposing as "false" are now shown to have been correct.
So, rather than hang your head in sorrow and learn humbling lessons, you turn the failure around and say, "My faith is now stronger than ever...I do not believe simply because the end is coming...My conviction remains correct and the Bible shows true believers are subjected to ridicule. Look at how they laughted and mocked Noah and on and on and on..." Oh dear...this sounds so depressingly familiar doesn't it?
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Leolaia
There was just a local news broadcast with Camping talking about this:
"The Bible is not always easy to understand, says Camping. 'We're always learning, always learning. We had all our dates correct, we had all our proofs correct.' But he says God had not opened his eyes to the fact that Judgment Day had come quietly on May 21st as a spiritual judgment, rather than horrifically as a physical calamity. 'The whole world is under Judgment Day and it will continue right up until October 21, 2011, and at that time the whole world will be destroyed. If people want me to apologize, I can apologize, yes, I did not have all that of worked out as accurately as I should have, or wish I could have had it, but that does not bother me at all.' "
This is exactly what happened among Bible Students (at least in Rutherford's faction) wrt to the failure of 1918. The Finished Mystery book the year before predicted that the "glorification of the little flock" would occur around April 27, 1918 (p. 64), along with the 'earthquake' or 'social shock' (pp. 178-179), consisting of God "destroying the churches wholesale and the church members by the millions" (p. 485, 530). When this did not occur, Rutherford claimed that what happened was a spiritual judgment on Christendom and an invisible resurrection of the dead (the first resurrection) rather than a conspicuous glorification of the living "little flock", teachings still perpetuated by Jehovah's Witnesses today.