My blood begins to boil too when I start to talk about this subject since the GB's pride and arrogance and greed affected so many peoples' lives and the serious choices they made for their future (or should I say the choices they didn't make for their future).
Older people than I am, failed to make serious financial choices for their future that affected them in the following years. Many still held on to the belief that if it didn't happen in 1975, we may just be a few years off in the calculations...besides the generation since 1914 will soon be fulfilled anyway so no need to waste money on retirement savings and life insurance, etc.
The quotations you found are so typical of the many many statements the GB made only to be enhanced by the elders and CO's in their talks.
But the height of hypocrisy came when they gave the explanation that it was God's way of "weeding out the org." or "cleasing it"!!!
For everyone who never experienced that time in the org. before 1975, just try to imagine what it would be like to grow up truly believing that you would never grow old....
I'm one of those kids who wasn't supposed to grow up "in this system of things". I'm now in my thirties, yet Armageddon was supposed to be here before the 20th Century....
what... what did you say? The Society never predicted it would happen in the 20th Century???
"The Nations Shall Know That I Am Jehovah - How", published in 1971, says :
Shortly, within our twentieth century, the "battle in the day of Jehovah" will begin against the modern antitype of Jerusalem, Christendom. (page 216)
I attended a District Assembly in Cinn. Ohio in '72 or '73. One of the speakers said, "Anyone entering a 4-year college today will not graduate in this system of things."
Maybe Armageddon really happened in 1975, but like the 1914 visit from Jesus, it was invisible. Only those with -20/-20 vision can see it. Yes, it's very clear now; I see the light.
I was pulled out from school 5 months before my 'O levels', a very basic requirement in the UK then, a brother had a job for me in a factory.
Course, I went willingly along with it, after all, with Armageddon being just around the corner, what was the point of any more education?
The stupid part was that all my family were in professional occupations, I eventually acheived the dizzy heights of being a lorry driver before deciding that I could do much better things with my life.
-I personally worried about having a small child at that time and not wanting another one before 1975 for fear of "woe to the pregnant woman and those nursing a baby in the tribulation" warning
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o the memories- i recall my mom coming home from the hall in tears
a bro gave a talk about text and beat the hell out of my mom-
a few weeks later a sister refereced that talk asking my mom:
"How will you run with that big belly"
once again the tears so when i hears some Little Pissy A$$ new jw come up here on the net and try to run that foolishness down my throat it get ticked off-
but then i have to remember they are programmed and like any good working software it only does what it is programmed to do-
and the program is designed to protect the ORG at all cost
Java says Maybe Armageddon really happened in 1975, but like the 1914 visit from Jesus, it was invisible. Only those with -20/-20 vision can see it. Yes, it's very clear now; I see the light.
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i humble myself for i was wrong- i must admit that now i understand the ANTI-TYPE of what happened-
yes we are all in the paradise sitting under our tree and for anyone to say otherwise they simply are not spiritual
In the late '60s to '75, the Tower encouraged young people to turn away from education, not to have families, and members to sell farms and property so they could work full time selling Watchtowers. All the while the Society was buying up Brooklyn, and anything else they could get their greedy little hands on.
How sad for your mom. Carrying a child should be a happy and calm time not one of fear and guilt.
I know what you mean about getting ticked off by some new "Prissy..." JW posters coming here with their attitudes. My dander gets riled up too as you well know from some of my posts, but 'yes' I too have to remember they are just programmed to answer that way, and 'yes' many of us were there too. (maybe not as ignorant as some of them come across but nontheless we were there too)
I'm glad you remind me of that point though...sometimes the 'ole bloodpressure overheats.
Java: Thanks too for the insight. Paradise..I almost missed it..sitting under a beautiful tree...looking up...except when there's a bird directly above) [8>]
Your comment about the Cinci Assembley reminds me of what my friends told me in 1959, when I told them I was going to college. Same message - I would not graduate before the big "A". All my former friends are grandfathers now.
