Why Did the Watchtower Use Sir Isaac Newton's End Time Dates For 1914 and 2040ish?

by RottenRiley 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  RottenRiley

  You all remember which Watchtower quoted the life of Sir Isaac Newton "super PhD in Math, maybe the greatest math mind ever?” Were they greasing their members to accept 2040s as a possible end of the "Over-lapping Generation"?

  Isaac Newton came up with his own formula for providing 1914, many Centuries before the Bible Students, so how come the Watchtower has tried to take the credit away from the "Past Men Of Fame"?

  We were all brought to JWN because most of us are born-ins, our parents were addicted to the Date-Setting, Apocalyptic-Fatalistic views providing us with minimum quality efforts to create a better life and help us with school and relevant activities. What if we never got involved with Date-Setting, what if your parents were normal and helped you to your fullest potential? How far you would have gone in life if your parents presented life in a balanced (Non Cult Mindset) way, instead of instilling us with fear about the Great Bird Feast of Carcasses. How come we had parents who were "phoning it in" instead of helping us with school, teaching us after-school sports and social upward mobility? As born-in's, JW kids had a disadvantage compared with non-Cult kids. Here's a example, I ran in to a kid I knew fifteen years ago, he was so darn smart in school and now he is addicted to ICE or (Crystal Meth), he was a Valedictorian with a full scholarship to Harvard but his parents turn it down. Are they happy he was never tricked by those nasty University teachers, instead now, he is in-and-out of jail and suffers from mental illness along with homelessness. All these problems stem from the Watchtower trying to solve Daniel's Prophecy along with Numerology, I am trying to make up for the damage I did to my kids, it's hard work but I am trying to make things better.

  The fearful nature the Organization has shown towards higher-education is pathetic! They lie about the Universities agenda of destroying faith, if this "Faith" was strong, it should stand on it's own merit, not off the backs of false prophets! Who has not heard "JWs get a great education reading their Watchtower and Awake Magazines" the problem is nobody is accepting that degree, in fact, Bethel is down-sizing that degree to almost zero! We forget that once upon a time, the majority of Universities were mostly Christian faith based (Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Sorbonne), so why was it wrong to go to a University men like Isaac Newton attended? Was this going to impede our ability to Date-Set or Calculate the End-Times? Not everyone has turned out as awesome as , blondie, BillytheEx, Chaserious, Crofty, Steve, Marvin, JwSav, Vidiot, DCMS, W.M.F., Perry, Ruby ect............ Too many names to list, so many good people on JWN.

  Sorry, I missed a giant portion off my list, it got deleted :(!

  Instead of focus on date setting and End Time crying, what if we lived our lives in a moral fashion without fear and worrying we might end up as the Main Course, like the Watchtower Leaders enjoyed hinting we were not good enough to be in God's Kingdom. Jesus did not teach what these whack-jobs do, he was much better and kinder with love and joy, not focused on 1914 or 2041, 2043...

  http://www.thepropheticyears.com/comments/countdown_to_second_coming.htm
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  kaik

  The end of the world was and is an obsession of Anglo-saxon countries and can be traced to all four awakenings that spawn from Northern America. Newton and others were in the 18th century tried to figure out the end of the world by using enlightenment approach to Bible and calculate it by some formula. This was much more popular in the 19th century, but the origin of all these Armageddon prophecies are within Age of Reason. European catholicism and orthodoxy had share of their prophecies in earlier era, but as the centuries passes, Catholic and Orthodox churces abandoned to predict the end. It was also considered heresy by inquizition. There were numerous predictions in the late Roman Empire. When Rome was sacked by Goths in 410 people could not imagine a power that without Rome; therefore, they believed that the end was imminent. St. Jerome was shocked to hear the city that conquered the world was conqured. Christians were expecting Jesus return as the power of the Rome was gone. St. Augustine wrote his best book, City of God. However, as the centuries passed and the land of the Imperial Rome was ploughed and destroyed, the feeling of dissapointment was there. Armageddon was predicted in 843 when Frankish Empire collapsed, in 999 and so on. But these voices were less and less prevalent in the medieval Europe. Medieval Bohemia believed that the Armageddon would happen in 1419. Million people flocked to the hills and waited and waited, yet nothing happened. It was much later when Reformation produced numerous Protestant denomination when the end of the day mania started all over again.
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  sarahsmile

  It has something to do with a college in England. The college offerred a large amount of money for anyone who had a new scientific theory. Newton was one of the first president. He had God perfect number when building Jerusalem and Russell came up with God perfect number with pyrimidolgy. All who submitted pyrmidology were considered loose screws.

  Opps, ignore tge above! Lol. I would not know about that WT.
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  kaik

  I remember reading about the Newton prediction of Armageddon many years ago. But it was much later than JW, around 2060 or so. Contemporary French philosophers were rather critical of Bible and were moving away from rationalize world on it.
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  RottenRiley

  How does "Date Setting" of the "End Times" prove you are a good person who shows Good Samaritan qualities? I wish you could see how my sister has abdicated any responsibilities to my mother in her time of need. All she care's about is showing off her "elderette badge", most of my friends and others who are more silent think she is the biggest fraud, they hate her Jackal-Cackle (Not mine but a Witness in her Hall coined that phrase.), I wish you could see how she evaded the children of single-parent children and handed out gifts to dual-attending JWs, while fleeing from the single-mothers dragging their kids to meetings. These are the people Witnesses look up to, the men and women behind the wrongly applied titles of Elder and Eldettte!

  My friend told me her husband comes up to him and start's bragging about the cash-flow his business is generating. Oh "Wow, that's a ton of cash he said" he said he wanted to show this Bozo Elder who built his self-esteem up by trampling on others, his bank account statement, this was just his ($10,000,000)Five Year CD at 7% at the time. He had $5,000,000 sitting in a Money Market fund he used to fund his "Lending Business". This guy (Not the shit for brains elder) turns everything he touches in to gold, Bozo Elder sat back until my friend asked "Have you made $1,000,000 in Net Income yet? Sure you might have done $1,000,000 in Revenue but what of Net-Income after paying yourself a Salary?" I like when stupid JW Elders are bragging about cash before the wrong people, there was a guy studying who left when it was apparent the Witnesses were more concerned with his finances than his spirituality. He said he left the Witness study when people started to hint "I am running a little light this month, can you think of helping me out", he wanted to know who has told other Witnesses he was in a position to help, he did not help because he would rather help real charities "instead of helping people who chose to be poor because they don't want to work a full schedule.

  Why are JWs so fascinated with High Networth people when they themselves justify their poverty by saying "Oh, he or she must not be very spiritual if they have Millions of dollars." JWs cling like ticks to rich Witnesses and Rich Witnesses quickly learn to tell the Elders to shut their mouth about their finances. Final example, a brother decided to invite a few elders to his mansion, "worst mistake I ever made, soon I was bombarded by the mentally screwed up Witnesses telling me they did not have enough money to attend the District Convention. The only explanation I can think of was the elders who came for dinner quickly opened their traps divulging my financial information, why?" He did not help the Witnesses who were too lazy (Those who want to stay in a nice motel but refuse to save their money), one family we knew was paying rent of $2600 a month, he got the elders and Witnesses to loan him $75,000 over two years (the never ending economic bump that followed him to his next four congregations) he never paid any of that money back. The Body of Elders knew some of the Witnesses with a few hundred grand were loaning this family $5,000 to "get over their ecomomic bump(ended up lasting two years because this guy knew how to milk the brothers, two years of borrowing money and the elders did not warn the friends to cut him off!).

  These are the "Bestest People on the Earth" according to the Unfaithful Slave, they don't protect the interest of their followers, they will allow the crooked JWs to fleece honest hard working Witnesses with savings, it became a matter of survival to not tell anyone anything about your job or work. Here's a way of greeting done at Creepsters Hall:

  First time Elder Scamster Meets Brother Jones driving a $90,000 car.

  "Hi, I am brother Jones, how, oh, what kind of work do you do for a living?"

  "I think it's not a good idea to talk about work in the Kingdom Hall, Jesus kicked merchants out of his Father's House, it's not a good thing to talk about." Brother Jones.

  "You must have a lot of money if you are avoiding this question" Brother Scam

  "Good bye, my wife want's to go to lunch! I gotta run!" Jones

  "I would like to go to lunch but I am not in a financial position to do so, i kinda broke now! Having lunch together would be good for our families to get to know each other better! Yes, if you don't mind buying us lunch it would be a good for my wife and six hungry kids!"

  "No, no thank you! Bye! I think I am going to find a new Kingdom Hall that focuses more on Spiritual Things instead of how much money I have!" Jones

  "Wow, what a stingy man that new brother is! I am not going to talk to him anymore!"

  We are dealing with nutjobs like these because they are too focused on doing the least amount of work in expectation of their Master's arrivial. This is why the average Social Security benefit JWs get is around $930 a month. Some JWs get really mad when they find out all those years of "Working under the Table" and "Tax Evasion" don't count towards Social Security benefits!

  They are financially poor because of men playing games with Daniel's prophecy and Date-Fixation by Pharoah's burial building dimensions. Scary stuff, poverty because of Daniels prophecy. Why did Daniel and all the wise Jews end up with money, power and a high political position in Babylon? Did Jehovah bless these men, JWs claim they would not have worked for the King of Babylon, what religion were we stuck to, a Bizzarro Religion?
• 

  AndDontCallMeShirley

  @ RR

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  Actually, the bigger answer to your question is: if no one can understand the Bible without the aid of the WT, how is it that many others figured out the 1914 timeline and manner of Jesus' return BEFORE Russell ever learned of it? And, if Russell was responsible for "reviving long-lost truths" as WT claims, why didn't Russell simply become a follower of Barbour or others of that time instead of founding his own religion? Others discovered the "Truth" (as WT teaches it)long before Russell did- an impossibility as far as WT is concerned, because there was no "Organization" to teach truth yet. Of course, the elephant in the room that WT fails to acknowledge is that they were all wrong, Russell included! And, if Russell was used by Jesus to revive truth, why has WT recently marginalized him and virtually everything he taught ?

  .

  *** jv chap. 5 Proclaiming the Lord’s Return (1870-1914) ***

  The Watch Tower, July 15, 1906, p. 229.

  Neither Barbour nor Russell was the first to explain the Lord’s return as an invisible presence. Much earlier, Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) had written that Christ would return and reign “invisible to mortals.” In 1856, Joseph Seiss, a Lutheran minister in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had written about a two-stage second advent—an invisible pa·rou·si′ a, or presence, followed by a visible manifestation. Then, in 1864, Benjamin Wilson had published his Emphatic Diaglott with the interlinear reading “presence,” not “coming,” for pa·rou·si ′ a, and B. W. Keith, an associate of Barbour, had drawn it to the attention of Barbour and his associates.

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  Russell didn't learn the 1914 date until 1876- meaning Newton figured it out before Russell was even born. Maybe Newton was the "faithful slave" (not!).
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  designs

  I remember going through that period of- There's got to be a secret code here in the Bible phase.

  A Beautiful Mind.....something about the human mind wants to see formulas where there are none.
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  AndDontCallMeShirley

  RR: Instead of focus on date setting and End Time crying, what if we lived our lives in a moral fashion without fear and worrying we might end up as the Main Course, like the Watchtower Leaders enjoyed hinting we were not good enough to be in God's Kingdom

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  It would be impossible for WT to fully control every aspect of the lives of 7.5 million JWs without its two most powerful tools: FEAR and GUILT !!! How could WT get anyone to slave their life away for the corporation without heavy-handed FEAR as the motivator?
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  Vidiot

  kaik - "...the origin of all these Armageddon prophecies are within Age of Reason."

  Apocalypticism as a byproduct of the Enlightenment?

  I've heard that theory before; I think there might be something to it.
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  DATA-DOG

  Newton, CTR, ect. These guys were of the "John the Baptizer" class. Mere forerunners of the FDS. The big J used them to distribute bits and pieces of truth until the FDS starting with Rutherford, could form like Voltron or Captain Planet and release incorrect interpretations of God's word for nearly a century.

  DD