1975 Made Easy.

by Englishman 21 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  RunningMan

  I must relate a humorous event regarding the 1975 aftermath.

  My cousin's husband is a very righteous elder, one of the pillars of the city congregations. They were married in 1973, just as the Armageddon fever was reaching it's climax.

  About four years ago, there was a WT article that talked about brothers who go beyond the society's teachings. My cousin's husband was conducting, and he made a special point of highlighting the 1975 issue, saying that it never reallly happened. Good Witnesses of the day did not believe that 1975 would be the end.

  Well, about a week later, at his 25th anniversary party, a tape was played. It was an older brother who had written and performed a song for the young couple. At one point in the song, the words were "If you can make it through to 75, you can make it for a thousand years".

  The line hung there like a big motza ball. Everyone had forgotten it for 25 years, but there was the evidence, faithfully recorded. Time stopped for a while. Then everyone ignored it and moved on.
• 

  ChuckD

  Avengers,

  You may want to check the batteries in your irony detector. I am sure that Moman's comments were fully tongue-in-cheek.

  cd
• 

  jayhawk1

  Englishman,
  

  After 27 years with the animals Adam obeys a snake?

  After 27 years of being totally alone, the man probably talked to anything that would talk to him. Who knows maybe Eve was like Sausage Lucy and Adam needed a buddy to have a drink with at the local Knowlege tree.

  Is this a light saber in my pocket or am I just happy to see you?

  "Hand me that whiskey, I need to consult the spirit."-J.F. Rutherford
• 

  LDH

  And I have often wondered how so many otherwise intelligent people were duped by 1975.

  I guess they wanted it to be true so badly, they just readjusted their blinders.

  Lisa
• 

  r51785

  Looking back on the 1975 idiocy (I was a pioneer at the time) the one point that always makes me shake my head is the assumption that a creative day was 7000 years long. Without this assumption there would be no significance to 1975, yet there is no basis other than pure speculation for making this assumption!
• 

  OUTLAW

  Hey E-man,I always get pissed off when dubs who lived through the 1975 era deny that year was ever predicted.They have no problem lying to your face,about that or anything else...OUTLAW
• 

  Marvin Shilmer

  Hello there, r51785

  Looking back on the 1975 idiocy (I was a pioneer at the time) the one point that always makes me shake my head is the assumption that a creative day was 7000 years long. Without this assumption there would be no significance to 1975, yet there is no basis other than pure speculation for making this assumption!

  Instead of instigating any significance to 1975, I think the 7,000-year creative days idea actually resulted from it.

  It works like this:

  1. The WTS calculated we are roughly 6,000 years into the 7th "rest day," which brings us to at or around 1975.

  2. The WTS has taught/assumed that Christ's 1,000-year reign as king in a special government (called God's Kingdom) will be the final 1,000 years of the 7th "rest day."

  3. The WTS has taught/assumed we stand at the threshold of the 1,000-year reign of Christ.

  4. The close proximity of the 6,000-year and 1,000-year periods is too close to be coincidental, therefore the WTS assumes the two must be related as God's final "rest day" from creation.

  Concluding that 1975 marked the end of 6,000 years of human history birthed the 7,000-year creative day teaching.

  1975 became significant because it coincidentally fell at a millennial marker. That's it in a nutshell. If that marker had been 12,000 years the WTS would have taught the creative days were 13,000 years.
• 

  Dutchy

  I was attending a congregation in Germany in the early '70's and the brothers went around looking for the largest, most beautiful houses and castles that they would like to live in after Armegeddon in 1975, and threw Watchtowers on the roof of those houses. It was supposed that God would not destroy those houses as his people had marked them out to be lived in. Seems so ridiculous now but at the time they were absolutely serious.
• 

  Englishman

  I recall my PO dad saying to one of his fellow air-traffic controllers that he was trying to convert: (There were 5 of ‘em at London Heathrow!) He said:

  “Give me a year either way. If Armageddon isn’t here by the winter of 1976, I’ll buy a packet of Woodbines and we’ll smoke the lot together”. I mentioned this to my JW mum who is still door-knocking. Know what she said? “Oh, are you a seventy-fiver now, then?”

  Maybe someone knows some of the other JW controllers from Heathrow? They were:

  Ron Hooper

  Len Hobbs

  Doreen Hall (nee Gidlow)

  Seamus O’Sullivan

  Bertie O’Sullivan.

  Englishman.

  Truth exists;only falsehood has to be invented. -Georges Braque
• 

  seedy3

  I was 19 in 1975, I remember it very well, as well as the up-building the WTS did to promote it. There were many that I know sold everything they had to go into the full time service. My mom and dad decided to move "where the need is greater" to help struggling congragations and help start new ones (this was the begining ferver of 1969). It was a very rough time in our family history as where we went had no work that my dad could do, it was just too remote for his trade. I remember eating Pancakes 3 meals a day for a while (it took me years to even look at a other pancake). Eventually in 1973 we were getting so in debt that we had to move where we could have an income so we went to Phoenix.

  People there had the same frenzy over the 1975 date, amung them were those that were taking advantage of the short time left........... figuring they would not have to pay for their large purchases that they could not afford. One guy in the summer of 1975 bought a bunch of new appliances for his house, he couldn't afford them at all, he bought themon the type of deal "No payments till January 1976" LMAO........ he told me he did it becasue he knew he would not have to pay a dime for them, becasue the "Great day" would be here by then.

  What fools we all were. I can't beleive I hung on to it as long as I did after that date. I agree it really pisses me off at the older
  J-duds that will say that it was all a mde up frenzy by some of the out of hand publishers. But I remember the assemblies, the talks the literature, all.... pointing to 1975. If you remember when every one was looking for the declaration of "Peace and Security", then Richard Nixon stated it in a speach on teleivsion about the Vietnam war ending. What a shock!!!!!!!!! Was this the end???!!! The elder that conducted the Book study and my dad were talking about it at the bookstudy right after it happened.

  I remember giving a 2nd student talk on the ministery school and based it on when we would announce to the world that our preaching work was ended. Well that never came.

  Although I remember justifying what the WTS said about 1975 to some workmates of mine, SHEESH what stupidity.

  Seedy