1975 - JWs in other countries, not just the U.S. also knew about the prediction

by deegee 9 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  deegee

  I have been wondering, if the 1975 prediction was just a rumour started by the rank & file as the WT claims, then how did JWs in other countries, a part from the U.S., also come to know about the prediction?

  I started studying with the JWs during the 80s when I was a child. While attending one of my first meetings during that time, a brother commented during the WT study that Armageddon did not come in 1975 because it was not known how many years after Adam, Eve was created.

  At the time, I hadn't a clue what the guy was talking about. But this took place in Jamaica and in retrospect, it certainly makes me wonder - how did the JWs in Jamaica come up with such an idea?
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  slimboyfat

  In some countries it was a much bigger than in the US, like the Philippines, and other countries it wasn't a bit deal at all, like Italy. I've got the graphs that show this.
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  btlc

  Because 1975. was announced in "The Watchtower" magazines in all languages available in that time, that was the official teaching, not just a rumor.
  
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  UnshackleTheChains

  Here in the UK, I remember an elderly sister mentioning 1975. She said she wondered why the Society would have said that at the time, as people sold up their homes. She and her husband sold their home and began pioneering back then.
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  alanv

  I am from the UK, and my teenage friends and myself took what they said very seriously. We gave up our careers and regular pioneered. We had no doubt that what we were being told was the truth.
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  snugglebunny

  It was a big deal in the UK. 1975 was featured for the first time for us in a talk at the 1966 assembly held in Cardiff. Many witnesses had travelled to Cardiff by ferry via the Severn estuary. On the journey home, the ferry was packed with JW's and the talk was of little else.
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  waton

  • via the Severn estuary. On the journey home, the ferry was packed with JW's and the talk was of little else.

    sb: At that time there were two waves surfed on the Severn, the tidal bore coming in, and then the big wave that swept through the "waters" of the wt domain, energising the people, and giving wt a good, surprising ride.

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  Xanthippe

  A lot of the instructions on how to live as a JW is verbal, convention talks, CO and DO talks with the net result that the rank and file do what the GB want, sell homes, pioneer, give loads of money to the Borg and later they can step back and say we never said that.
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  Vidiot

  God, how could those guys have ever not thought, "hmm, gee... is there any way this might come back and bite us on the ass?..."
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  freddo

  "Vidiot"

  It didn't bite them in the ass, except for a small dip in numbers in about 78' and 79', by which time Knorr was dead and GB 1.0 and Franz let '75 morph into the "generation" that would not pass away. They continued spouting nonsense in the 1980's until Freddie croaked in 1992.

  Then in 1995 the boys in Brooklyn dropped the "real" generation, the century turned and finally by 2010, with the death of Jaracz, GB 1.0 had gone.

  The last death twitchings of "generation one" had gone from being possible in the minds of all who hung on to it by 2014.

  Now it is GB 2.0 getting bitten in the ass.