IF YOU HAVE THE FACTS on your side, you go with the facts.
If you are wrong you change your mind (the intellectually honest course of action.)
However--what if you are NOT intellectually honest?
You EVADE!
Evasion is, in ethics, an act that deceives by stating a true statement that is irrelevant or leads to a false conclusion.
Watchtower leaders resort to the following:
1. Truth is 'progressive.'
This is an absurdity. Something which matches reality exactly is 'true' no matter how you misunderstand it at first.
Facts are always facts. Ignorance is a state of 'not knowing' and knowledge is progressive. So, Watchtower teachings which change over time are evidence of WRONG UNDERSTANDING.
Ex: "the Lord's second presence began in 1874." Watchtower 1922 Mar 1 p.73
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2. Revisionism: "changing what was said to be correct by altering the words or by removing any trace of the counterfactual elements."
3. "Poisoning the well" is a rhetorical device where adverse information about a critic is presented to an audience with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing everything that the target person has to say. (Ex: "Mentally diseased apostates.")
4. We're only human--(false humility)
"Many had emphasized the year 1925 as the date, and then when that date did not materialize the date was moved up to 1932. Again, 1932 came and "Christendom" was not destroyed.... Because men (--what men? Who exactly?) tried to fix the date when God would destroy modern Nineveh and God did not back up their prophecy... is that any reason to be peeved?" Watchtower 1938 Feb 15 p.55
5. Pretending to take responsibility while only clouding the issue with vague language. ("Out of zeal and enthusiasm for the vindication of Jehovah's name, Word and purposes, and the desire for the new system, some of his servants have at times been premature in their expectations." Watchtower 1979 Jul 1 p.29 How Jehovah Guides His People.)
