How many here believed, down deep in your heart that the end would come in 1975? (page 2)

Londo111

I was only 3 in 1975. I wish I had a conscious memory of that time, it might’ve come in handy later. All I heard was the Society never said 1975…just some people interpreted that way. If I only knew!

Slidin Fast

I always thought "no-one knows the hour and the day". Me and Mrs SF just kept our heads down and watched the hysteria.

I don't know why we didn't quit the next year when the WT blamed the R&F for speculation.

James Mixon

Phizzy: good for you

Londo 111: "Society never said 1975", but a lot of people ran ahead and no

one was told them you guys are not teaching truth.

Slidin Fast: I wonder when did the GB realize the R&F was out preaching speculation?

They were also waiting to see if it was BS.

cantleave

I was 8 / 9 in 75. My mother was anticipating the big A and I guess I was influenced by her.

In the years leading up to '75, I was a pre-teen / young teen. I didn't think about it that much, but in my area, it was a huge deal. JWs really believed it. They emphatically told my unbelieving dad that the end would come before I could get my driver's license, so they believed it 100%.

What got me was the pre-1995 generation teaching(s). I really believed that 1994 was the limit (1914 + 80yrs). Now that I look back, I think that after that one failed is when I really started losing steam. I started to believe they were just guessing. I planned my entire life around it and bet everything on it. I'm suffering to this very day for believing it.

Village Idiot

I was 15-16 in 1975 after having been a witness for 2 years. I was deep into the chronology bit but it wasn't 1975 that affected me, it was the 1914+generation that I emphasized to myself.

It was around 1974 that I went to a large special meeting to hear a talk given by none other than Fred Franz. In front of 10,000 people he gave a long winded talk explaining his panoramic view of history from Creation till the end times.

He explained the 7,000 year creation days and tied it in with the 6,000 year chronology starting with the creation of Adam and Eve and ending with Armageddon. He explained that there was an "Adam and Eve gap" that made the exact day or month of Armageddon impossible to predict but that the end would come within months to a few years of 1975. He specifically said it would not take decades for that to happen because that would have meant that Adam was alone for such a long period of time that he would have been "tempted into bestiality." He posed a rhetorical question saying "Would Jehovah allow Adam to be tempted into bestiality?" Then he answered his own question and said "No brothers and sisters".

I remember recording that talk but I have no idea where that tape cassette is or if I even still have it.

I also remember being in the Kingdom Hall during the theocratic ministry school when they read the Kingdom Ministry program that spoke of people selling their houses to preach in the short time available and encouraging it.

I lasted until 1980. It wasn't until a few years after I had dropped my Watchtower persona that I read detailed rebuttals by "apostates" on the entire JW Chronological voodoo. Nothing surprised me about it.

James Mixon

cant leave:Yes my ex-JW wife scared the dickens out of our kids.

Magnum: you are not alone in your suffering, but it could be worst, still

believing in the crap.

VI: Oh sure they never said that, just speculations from guess who, none other

than Fred Franz.WTH...

OrphanCrow

How many here believed, down deep in your heart that the end would come in 1975?

I did. Those were terrible years leading up to and following 1975.

I left the JWs in summer of '71. I turned 14 years old in the fall of '71. I had already figured out that I wouldn't live much past my 17th birthday so I figured I must as well live life to the fullest I was able to and I didn't want to die a virgin! lol!

So, I became pregnant in the spring of '73 and I spent my pregnancy in fear, lots and lots of fear - that my baby would be killed by Jehovah.

My baby was born in early 1974 when I was sixteen. I truly believed that neither him or I would survive for more than a year or two. Those years that followed were pure hell, but I knew one thing for certain - I didn't want to die as a JW. I hated being a JW for many reasons. Those reasons don't really matter but what did matter was that I had no point of reference in which to debunk the propaganda that I had been fed since I was born.

The threat of eternal damnation was ALWAYS in the back of my mind....every minute of every day and in my nightmares at night. I spent the next several years just hanging on to the hope that maybe, just maybe...the JWs were wrong about the end of the world in 1975 but it would take several more years before I was able to deprogram that erroneous teaching.

It wasn't until I landed in a drug and alcohol rehab when I was 27 (yay! I had made it ten years past the date I thought I would be dead...and my baby was already almost a teenager) that I was forced to confront the demons that had stuck a paper bag over my head and pushed me to the edge of the cliff.

That was in the days before the internet. I give thanks to Gary and Heather Botting for their book "The Orwellian World of Jehovah's Witnesses" and to James Penton for his book "Apocalypse Delayed". Penton's book was my "bible" for many years. I can still remember the minute of the day that everything clicked and I knew for certain that the JWs were wrong, horribly wrong. I will never forget that moment.

I was by myself, driving down the highway and all of a sudden, it was like I had driven into another dimension...it was almost like a brilliant flash, and the world looked bright, clean and REAL for the first time in my life. I cried and laughed at the same time and finally, finally I was able to say, and I said it out loud "I am part of this world! I AM wordly!"

And I still am. 40 years later, I am still here. And so is my son.

Fuck the Watchtower Society. Kiss my ass you bastards. I am worldly and proud of it.

fulltimestudent

Hah! I confess to some doubt. I had read very carefully, Freddy's thoughts in (I think) Life Everlasting—in Freedom of the Sons of God , and noted his careful hedging, but felt I should trust my "Christian brothers."

My fears were confirmed in 1975 itself, when around August or September of that year, Nathan Knorr and Freddy Franz himself came to Australia and Sydney elders were asked to attend a meeting at the Greenacre Assembly Hall.

Nathan was a sick man (from cancer) at this time, but I noted a tone of irritation in his voice, when he introduced Freddy to speak, by saying that there was no longer enough time left in 1975 for all the things that Brother Franz says must happen before Armageddon, to happen. Therefore Armageddon was unlikely to be coming in 1975.

Worse, the following year, they sent Doug Held*, a Canadian who had been a former Branch overseer in Australia out here to firm up our faith (haha). Doug did that by telling us that Armageddon was likely to be 20 years away, this confirming the growing suspicion that I, like millions, even billions of others had been had by history's biggest confidence trickster, i.e. the Lord Jesus Christ, who himself (according to a man who'd never knew or heard him) said:

27At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

29He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. 30When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near.31Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near.

32“Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 33Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.(NIV)

Who is meant by the personal pronoun 'you' Jesus used when preaching that day. Why, the people who were listening to him that day, of course.

Jesus believed and taught that Armageddon (as the church later called it) was going to happen right there in his day.

That's why the whole Christian thingie, (not just the jws) is an enormous con trick.

Jesus believed with all his heart, we believed with all our hearts, but it is all bullsh*t.

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ps: Doug Held came from the Canadian branch. Gossip is that he was one of the geogeous looking young men who Percy Chapman (the longtime Canadian branch overseer) collected around him, and whom he liked to take out to expensive dinners at fashionable restuarants.

There is no evidence that Doug was ever involved in M2M sexual activity, but Percy may have had the hots for him and liked to have him around

James Mixon

OrphanCrow: enjoyed your story, good for you. I wonder how many young folks

were damaged that came out of the 60's and 70's from the end of the world crap....

How many here believed, down deep in your heart that the end would come in 1975?

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