by Guest 77 33 Replies latest jw friends
Personally no, and as such I was never disappointed that the system didn't end. Embarrassed, yes. The org. made fools out of the RF. Just why they made such an idiotic prediction especially when the scriptures and their literature plainly said over and over again that NO MAN knows the day and hour!
Guest 77
I thought MAYBE the end would come that year. But if it didn't, I was still going to keep serving Jehovah. That's how I felt at that time.
The reason they developed expectations regarding this date is the same reason the organization did it for all their other dates, and it was to increase the flow of newcomers and to build up a false sense of urgency among the then-current believers.
As always, these kind of date predictions are a double-edged sword. And when they fail (as they always do), there is a backlash against the organization, and rightfully so.
Goph, one of the underlying reasons for my thinking was, there was so much work yet to do. The main clue that stays with me is, NO man knows the day and hour. What could be more plainer than that? It's like asking, what part of NO is it that you don't understand?
Guest 77
Well, I was 6 at the time so I can't really give you an honest opinion, but I know my father did, only because I saw how "into it" he was before and the two or three years after it I noticed a change in how much he was involved in everything. I truely believe it wieghed heavily on him after nothing happened, he slowly did the fade after that, it took a few years for him to really become inactive.
Hi Dan,
I wasn't a witness then, so I don't know how I would have reacted then. When I joined in1987, I believed that the 1914 generation wouldn't pass, so in a way 1994 was the limit, and I did believe that, so maybe if I would have been a witness in the early 70's I would have believed that 1975 was the end.
Like you said above, no one knows when it will happen. Many today say it will never happen, because many don't believe in a creator. I do.
I was never a date oriented witness. I was a witness because I believed it was the truth and that witnesses were actually leading the life people were supposed to live. By the age of 17 when 1975 came along I was questioning both of my assumptions, but kept my questions to myself. I longed to go to college, but my parents strongly discouraged me from going. My brother's family put off an operation on one of their children partly because they believed the end was near. In our congregation it would have been viewed as apostacy to question the 1975 belief and of course now it is apostacy to say that witnesses ever believed the end would come in 1975.
I was closely involved with my friends at the time who were all pioneering and going to bethel, so I quit my job and started pioneering and eventually went to Bethel myself, was removed after I revealed I was gay, and then came home and pioneered for 2 more years under the silly idea that I might get to go back to Bethel if I proved myself.
Yes I believed it. There was no reason to question it. But then again everyone loves I love Lucy show and I never understood it. So you see maybe my mind can only see what is in front of it.
Cathy
I was a young man at the time, and by 1975 I was in my teens. I never really totally was 'aware' of the whole 1975 thing, though I do recall the Life Everlasting book and reading the WT and Awake during those years and reading them rather avidly. I guess I was too busy thinking about girls.
I knew families in my Kingdom hall that had sold their homes and adjusted their lives, for the 1975 thing... It was interesting how 1975 came and 1975 went. One particular family seemed to get hooked on the "bottle" after that.
Special K
Sure I did and it scared the living hell out of me! I was just a kid at the time but I remember my father telling me that the Big A was a-comin' in 1975 so naturally I believed him. When it failed to come, the entire congregation developed collective amnesia and went on their merry way. Years later my father insisted that he never believed it was coming in '75 and that I must have been mistaken.............ya right dad; I must've come up with that one on my own.
