by Scott77 13 Replies latest watchtower bible
The Watchtower Society of Jehovah's Witnesses predicted the end of the world to come in 1975. As a result, many Jehovah' Witnesses started withholding from having children, higher education, while others sold their houses and donating money to the Watchtower society. Right? Please, correct me. Now, a million dollar question is, What was the Watchtower doing itself in anticipation of the end of the world in 1975?
Scott77
Answer = investing and buying real estate for expansion of the organization's operations. ( world wide )
Those were the hay days of growth for the WTS., all literature back then had a set price for members as well the public.
To be truthful, Fred Franz who was mostly behind 1975, knew it was imposable to accurately chronologically date mankind's
existence of 6000 years to October of 1975, but it was perceived by him and Knorr as a viable marketing scheme for the organization
and by golly they were right.
Your right though Scott, there were a lot of people who self proclaimed they were going to wait until
this system ends to get married and have kids, many teenagers dropped out of high school etc., people dropped their employment to go pioneer.
And most went knocking on people's doors with F. Franz's bullshit in their hands offering it to the public.
By the way, after personally seeing all of this, I started to create some questioning doubts about what I had been taught since childhood.
During a watchtower study in 1962, one of the questions was,
"should we be having children in this time of the end, or be
pioneering."
You know what the answer was .....and so do I!
clarity
If I recall correctly, they were arranging the purchase of a super-printing press that would eventually [late 1970s to early 1980s] cause a request to be made throughout the congregations for:
"Bethel has just purchased a computer-operated printing press, and they need computer programmers to assist in setting it up and programming it, and these must be COLLEGE-EDUCATED computer programmers..."
Needless to say, that was the impetus I needed to exit that damned cult - what HYPOCRISY!!!
There were clearly two schools of thought. I remember that last day of the convention at Dodger's Stadium and the concluding comments were going on. They were saying they were hesitant to book big venues because they thought the end would come, but you have to book and plan a year in advance for assemblies. Then, indeed, they came out and said, basically, "just in case" the end didn't come they were not going to slow down in the preaching activities and they were buying new printing presses and expanding etc., so as not to be caught slowing down.
I thought to myself right then and there that "somebody" at Bethel was not getting on the 1975 bandwagon and was ignoring and and wasn't going to get caught slowing down. So it was clear there were two schools of thought among the anointed. They were not putting their lives and necks on the line over 1975. Turns out, they were right. It wasn't time to slow down. Since then I respected that there tended to be a second school of thought and different opinions about a lot of things at Bethel though the leaders had the final say.
What was also disappointing was how the WTS, in typical fashion, then blamed the brothers for putting too much hype into 1975. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!!!! Who even came up with that but them? They understand propaganda and how to brainwash their sheeple.
If I recall correctly, they were arranging the purchase of a super-printing press that would eventually [late 1970s to early 1980s] cause a request to be made throughout the congregations for:
"Bethel has just purchased a computer-operated printing press, and they need computer programmers to assist in setting it up and programming it, and these must be COLLEGE-EDUCATED computer programmers..."
Needless to say, that was the impetus I needed to exit that damned cult - what HYPOCRISY!!!
That was actually the big transition to computer photo typesetting and offset printing rather than the Linotype and Letterpress formerly used.
It was an enormous financial investment - and obviously not in line with any realistic belief that the end would come in the mid 70s.
I was a young boy in 1975, but old enough to be scared to death about the passing of October. They announced at our hall that armageddon was going to occur in October of that year, and there was even speculation that I can recall as to a specific date, towards the latter part of the month. I recall being scared that I wasn't "good enough" to escape the death by fire that Jehovah would so lovingly provide for each person who was either "worldly" or not good enough in the "truth" to obtain Jehovah's mercy.
I can also remember the immediate lies, "we never said that!" So came the beginning of, "losing my religion."
Every year after that .....even current 2012
During a watchtower study in 1962, one of the questions was,
"should we be having children in this time of the end, or be
pioneering."
You know what the answer was .....and so do I!
clarity
It truly is the most abusive relationship to be in. Can u imagine your spouse making plans over the years with continual failures? And at the end of it all, it's always somehow your fault?
clarity >> During a watchtower study in 1962, one of the questions was,
"should we be having children in this time of the end, or be
pioneering."
Searching for that question in the 2012 Watchtower Library CD turned up nothing. Please, can you help?
Settings chosen were:
Search Scope . . . Article
Space Character . . As an AND operator
Search Occurrences Watchtower (I've been looking through the entire 1962 volume)
Query . . . . . . . children “Study Questions“
