The year the Watchtower broke the bank at Monte Carlo

by Terry 6 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  Terry

  1.A very respectable war hero named William Miller came up with such a convincing argument about the 2nd coming (Advent) of Jesus,

  even mainstream churches invited him to preach about it. You know--just in case there was something true--the churches didn't want to miss out.

  2.Thousands of regular churchgoers got very excited about 1843. I mean--these people were stoked and ready! The mainstream Christian Churches took a "wait and see" attitude while grumbling out loud, "It's probably not true at all."

  3.Nothing happened! THE GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT is what this was called.

  Now STOP right there!

  An honest person would admit they were wrong. An honest person would apologize for getting carried away and they'd go back to their old church.

  For MOST of the fooled and disappointed people--that's exactly what happened. But, not for a few hard-heads!

  4. William Miller set another date for a year later, 1844 and nothing happened AGAIN!

  5. Most of the hard-heads hung their head in shame and crawled back into the old mainstream churches.

  Now STOP right there!

  What would you call somebody who was fooled twice and STILL believed? Yeah, the word "stupid" seems to fit. But, it is worse than stupid.

  These people were fringe (as in lunatic fringe) believers who were too prideful to admit their double-error.

  6. Splinter groups formed from remaining hard-heads who still thought Jesus was due any day. There are all sorts of different sect names for these people. It isn't accurate to label them all 2nd Adventists, yet this is the focus of their interest: the 2nd Coming of Christ.

  Now STOP right there!

  This kind of true believer is fascinated by mysterious charts, chronologies, signs and loopy proofs because it makes them seem "smarter" than those

  boring people who are in the regular churches. Ego, naivete, gullibility--but, also intelligence without education played a big role.

  There have ALWAYS been these people all through history. What is different about the late 19th century is how many of them CAME TOGETHER at the same time.

  7. Dates were always being set, "proved" and predicted ahead of time which ended up being nothing at all.

  8. At no time did any of these groups ever stop and say, "Well, gosh--maybe we are just wrong and none of this is true." Nope, didn't happen.

  9. Pastor Charles Taze Russell had money from his father's men's clothing business to squander on hair-brained religious pursuits and he put together a hum-dinger of a package pointing to 1914 as --not the beginning of the end, but THE END.

  Now STOP right there!

  I'm about to tell you why 1914 is so frickin' important and why the Watchtower Society can hardly ever abandon it.

  Are you ready?

  Until 1914 all these predictions produced only one thing: RIDICULOUS EXCUSES!

  When World War I broke out--IT WAS SOMETHING REAL happening in the same year as one of their endless chain of pointless predictions!

  10. 1914 at first appeared to CONFIRM Russell's predictions of Armageddon! It was so damned exciting for something HUGE to happen, the brothers and sisters wet themselves and had spiritual orgasms like never before. IT WAS REAL! IT WAS REAL!

  Now STOP right there!

  No.

  It wasn't really what Russell had told them about at all! It wasn't the END.

  It was just World War I. But, they couldn't let a marvellous worldwide disaster go without exploiting it for all it was worth.

  11. Russell spent the last two years of his life making. . .ummm uhhh "adjustments" to his predictions (after the fact) and temporizing.

  12. When 1916 came and Russell died, the Bible Students and other sects and denominations who had 2nd Coming Fever--they hung on!

  13. Everybody seemed to feel : "Okay, we've got something huge happening and we don't exactly know what it is--but, we're not going to let it get away without making scriptures FIT one way or another.

  And it has been that way ever since!

  1914 is the year. . .SOMETHING BIG. . .made them excited. But--nobody expected what actually happened: it ended with Armistice.

  How disappointing!

  This pissed them off bigtime!

  They blamed the League of Nations and acted like Satan was the culprit for world peace.

  Each 2nd coming specialist popped up with a different explanation and ALL OF THEM HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WRONG.

  (Yeah Judge Rutherford--I'm talking to you, Buddy! 1925? I don't think so!! You are a jackass!)

  It is the only year that ever produced a BIG EVENT--all the other years have been embarassing flops.

  The Jehovah's Witnesses have taken so much credit for getting something right like World War I they completely miss the point.

  And what is the point? IT WAS A STUPID F-ING ACCIDENT!!

  Like the person who spends a fortune in a gambling casino and one day breaks the bank at Monte Carlo---they keep going back to the casino chasing that incredible feeling of success.

  They squander everybody's time, life and fortune trying to win big like addicted gamblers.

  That's why 1914 is the centerpiece of JW teaching.

  What would happen if you walked into a gambling casino and bet on every number on the roulette wheel?

  Whatever number comes up--you "win."

  But--since you bet on so many other numbers___you didn't really win in the sense of coming out ahead.
• 

  Terry

  

  
• 

  designs

  WWI definitly gave the Wt. juice.
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Yes, 1914 was originally a "generation" from 1874. Russell believed that Christ had returned invisibly in 1874. He predicted that the "Gentile Times" would end in 1914, and that Christ would take power of Earth's affairs. He interpreted the outbreak of World War I as the beginning of Armageddon.

  Later, all the other Bible hidden prophecies that pointed to 1914 were just simply working backward to make them point to 1914- the "time, times, and half a time," the 360 days in a Hebrew year and "a day for a year" were all part of making themselves look smarter. They originally used 606BCE as their calculating date because they forgot there was no year ZERO, so they just changed to 607BCE. Originally, the great pyramid proved it all just as well.

  Ever since then, all that being a Bible Student/Jehovah's Witness was about was being "right" while all others were wrong.

  Rutherford managed to turn it into something more dangerous in control and Knorr managed to expand the empire, both of them using Fred Franz to write more goofy stuff just as Russell did, but they never "broke the bank" again. Still, 1975 was deliberate and they gained more money for expansion than they ever would have without predicting the end for that year. Franz was rewarded for his part with the presidency, but they took his power and spread it thin with the creation of the governing body- to protect the corporation above all else.
• 

  Terry

  I believe the WTS sold 108,000 million Truth books at donation!

  1975 was a Win-win.

  The weak members fell out and that left the hardcore and all the newly converted to replace them.

  Each time the WT has failed they came out ahead because they get rid of troublemakers and strengthen the lunatics.

  In studies on cognitive dissonance, each time a strong belief is disproved it only makes the person double-down and strengthens their resolve!

  Then, the Sunk Cost Fallacy takes over: "I've come this far...I can't quit now."
• 

  RayPublisher

  Bravo Terry good post!
• 

  Terry

  I believe it was in Allen Paulos' book, INNUMERACY, I read the following.

  A man wanted to establish himself as a big time investment counselor.

  He came up with a wickedly clever plan to build trust and confidence in potential investors.

  He needed to convince total strangers to allow him to be their money guy. But, how?

  This was his plan.

  He printed 6 thousand copies of a stock PREDICTION Newsletter, saying there was NO DOUBT it would go up in a month's time.

  He printed another 6 thousand. In that second batch he predicted the OPPOSITE, saying the stock would definitely go down.

  He mailed out the Newsletter predictions to 12,000 potential customers. He kept track of which ones got the UP prediction and who got the DOWN.

  The following month he looked at what happened to the stock. It went up. So, here is what he did. He purged the names of the people

  who had received the DOWN prediction. He now turned to the 6,000 who received the UP.

  The second month he followed up with yet another Newsletter prediction. To that 1st group he split them into 1 groups.

  He mailed an UP prediction to 3,000 and a DOWN prediction to 3,000.

  And so on.

  After three straight months of CORRECT predictions he was down to a group of 1,500 names.

  These were people who had received ONLY UP PREDICTION NEWSLETTERS, WHICH HAD BEEN ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.

  He phoned them and pointed out his 100 per cent accuracy and pitched himself as the best stock picker of all time.

  For $400 a year he offered his private Newsletter on a subscription basis.

  He made half a million bucks on subscriptions.

  His client base went through the roof. He had complete success after only four months of business.

  See what can be done with numbers and filtering of expectations?