2017 Convention Video To Be Shown Regarding The 1975 Failure (page 10)

littlerockguy

Audioclip from a talk in 1967 where this brother mentions 1975. They can't hide from this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DLBAeIr0cQ

LRG

Gorbatchov

Born in 1970, I still hear my fathers comment about the 1980 excuse of 3 lines in a WT article. Way too short, way too late. He did not believe in the date and mentioned the fiasco later to me.

Why this video now? I have no idea.

They give "some" the blame for the Fred Franz madness. That's incorrect.

Fact finding will show that easely.

G.

It's always interesting to parse the WT dialog. For many years, I noticed the unique phrases they use, not just in literature but also in speeches. They stood out because English for me is a 2nd language. For example, they'd say: "It may well be that..." or "Some believe..." In the video, the dialog stated: "some were looking to a certain date as signifying the end of this old system of things". The key words or phrases here are "some were" and "a certain date". So, t's not that they're too fucking scared to say "we were" or "looking to 1975". It's that they have always had a manner that can work to deflect and provide deniability. Using the passive voice ("mistakes were made") is a good technique. I heard it from Fred Franz's mouth. He was the best practitioner of subterfuge I knew up-to-then. I think we need to give the bastards their due and admit that they know what they're doing. They are not just zealots. They are world-class manipulators.

I remember the first International Assembly in 1969 in Yankee Stadium. There were indications back then about 1975. After being in Bethel for a few months in 1974, we attended the Gilliad graduation at the Sunnyside Assembly Hall in Queens, NY and I heard Fred Franz say, after stating his deduced chronology that it would be an appropriate time for Jehovah God to begin his 1,000-year reign through Christ precisely in 1975. Of course, that lit up everyone's imagination. I wasn't sure what to think then.

Etude

shepherdless

Someone could make a great parody with this video.

Change that date at the start from 1997 to (say) 2027. Grandpa is wearing outdated clothes from a goodwill bin, because their choices had left them poor. Grandpa explains that they kept me in with emotional blackmail, saying I would only see grandma again if I continued to do the Borg's bidding. Then change the oblique references to 1975, add references to "overlapping generation", insert Splane's whiteboard before grandpa says "but something just didn't seem right" etc. Finish up with grandpa saying "I am so happy I am out of that stupid cult. Now kids, how are you going at college?"

There are other possibilities, of course.

hothabanero

1975 was the last year these guys had an original idea.

snugglebunny

My parents sold up their home to become need is greaters during the 75 saga. Armageddon is just around the corner! They used the money from their home to fund the move. I was out of the JW's by then. My father gave up a lucrative job and pension and, when the money ran out, did various menial jobs to survive in their rented home.

Eventually they finished up in social housing. In later years when I referred to that period my mother exclaimed "Oh are you a seventy-fiver then?"

Unbelievable.

ScenicViewer

And don't forget the 6 month Bible study program. If Bible students didn't come in after a 6 month study, the Society said drop them. Why? Because "the urgency of the times in which we live demands it."

(W 5-15-69 p312, Article: Have You Been Studying For Six Months?)
In view of the short time left in which to do their work, Jehovah’s witnesses do not continue to study the Bible with any who fail to respond to its urgent message within six months. The nearness of this system’s end compels them to use their time in the most effective way possible. So they feel obligated to spend their time calling on someone else who might respond by attending meetings at the Kingdom Hall and by speaking to others about the Bible truths learned. Thus it may be that if you have not as yet responded by even becoming a regular attender at some of the congregation meetings, the one who is studying the Bible with you may cancel that study arrangement in order to give his time to someone else. This arrangement is not meant to be harsh, but the urgency of the times in which we live demands it. There are millions of persons who need spiritual help and God’s servants want to reach all they possibly can.

(W 6-1-1969 p346, Article: They Are Acting On What They Are Learning)
“SIX months! What if the end of this system comes in three?” This is what a father of four small children in Florida seriously asked when Jehovah’s witnesses told him about their free six-month home Bible-study course. This man’s wife had obtained from them the book The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life. Both he and his wife had been up late each night examining its contents.

"...the urgency of the times in which we live demands it." That was well over 40 years ago.

Question to Watchtower: How urgent were the times really?

This reminds me of an expression I once heard a salesman use - Turn 'em and Burn 'em. I suppose that meant to get all you could from one customer then move to the next, which is very similar to how Watchtower treats people.

Although some Witnesses took it upon themselves to study with a student for longer than 6 months, the Organization said there wasn't time. Why? The above information was published in 1969, so what important date was just around the corner from then? 1975 of course.

The 6 month Bible study program was abandoned soon after the failure of 1975.

pale.emperor

I remember in the late 80s/early 90s when i was a little kid and my dad telling me "back in the 70s some people got the idea into their heads that armageddon would come in 1975. The Watchtower never said that. Bethel never said that. Someone thought it up and spread it around. Some people sold their houses and took out loans, quit their jobs and went on holiday thinking they'd never have to pay it back."

My dad came into ~~the truth~~ the cult in 1977. Two years after the fiasco. So of course he only had second hand knowledge of what happened. No internet and CD Roms back then to check for himself what actually was said.

baldeagle

This video re-enactment of the 1975 debacle is troubling on several levels, as many have stated here in this discussion. It seems the most disturbing, offensive area we all agree on is the blatant dishonesty, in view of all the recorded articles proving that the WT leadership created this teaching and endorsed it right up to its abject failure.

Of the 7 GB members, Mark Sanderson being the youngest would have made him about 10 years old in 1975; therefore, it had no real impact on him a young kid at the time. However, the other six men range in age from Samuel Herd around 82...down to Geoffrey Jackson about age 62 and various ages in between. These men would all have full knowledge of the teachings from GB 1.0 and lived through the feelings and reactions in the congregations.

What I find disturbing is how galling it is that they can try to distort the facts that are irrefutable as to the origin of this teaching. Are these men that claim a special spiritual enlightenment and a future “brother” of Christ so far fallen in their decency? Seriously, can they look themselves in the mirror each morning and really feel no shame for these fabricated and fraudulent videos?

On another note depending on where you lived and how much a “true believer” you were, 1975 did receive a variety of responses. Some continued living their lives as usual working, raising families, waiting to see what would actually happen.

I remember a brother, a friend of mine telling me when he was a kid, his father bought a new house in early 1974. The response from the congregation including his PO was scathing, along the lines, “Are you crazy? Aren’t you listening to the talks and counsel coming from the organization? You will never live in that house it’s only going to be a distraction, where’s your faith? A few short years later that chastised so-called “faithless” brother became the new Presiding Overseer, raising his kids in that nice new home. The original PO who was involved in the ridiculing fell away due to the 1975 fiasco.

Also, I personally know of two family men each with young children at the time (11-14 yrs. old) who felt compelled due to their faith and interpretation of things to sell their houses in 1973. The end never came. Over the years, they both exhausted their savings by renting and day-to-day expenses and were unable to re-enter the housing market. One is deceased the other is 87 years old still paying rent from a measly government pension.

The GB leadership whether today or 80 years ago has a lot to answer for; they have indeed ruined a countless number of lives of people who were mostly sincere and believed they were doing God’s will.

Splash

baldeagle Of the 7 GB members, Mark Sanderson being the youngest would have made him about 10 years old in 1975; therefore, it had no real impact on him a young kid at the time.

Actually Sanderson was baptised in 1975 at the age of 10.
I wonder why.

The other lie in this video is at the 2:00 mark
"Both at meetings and in my personal study I was reminded of what Jesus said, 'Nobody knows the day or hour'."

WT are trying to make it sound like they had nothing to do with the 1975 frenzy that they lit and fanned for years.
I can understand why the WT want to distance themselves from this obvious false teaching that harmed so many. Unfortunately that's not going to be possible for them.

2017 Convention Video To Be Shown Regarding The 1975 Failure

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