Ordinarily, there are so many half-truths and deceptions in each Awake or Watchtower
magazine, that it's scarcely worth the effort to point them out. However, two recent
statements seem particularily misleading.
In the Jan. 1 04 Watchtower, this statement is made:
"The chaos of the second world war did not cause Christians [note the narrow and
judgemental use of that term] to doubt that the good news would be preached" (pg. 15)
This assertion presents people with an image of wisdom that the facts of history
don't justify. Rutherford himself told Frederick Franz "It looks as if the great multitude
is not going to be so great after all." ( pg. 171 Proclaimers book). The Society whipped
up crude falsehoods that naive people believed , with cartoons of Fascists and priests marching
off into Armageddon. The booklet "Face the Facts"(1938) told young Witnesses to hold
off marriage until the brief period before Armageddon passed ( the book Children
did much the same). These remarks caused them trouble in Korea as brothers took
the words seriously ( 1988 Yearbook pg. 149) They got thru WW2 the same way they've
survived every other crisis they've faced: scamming publishers with talk of the End, Soon!
Another notable bit of foolishness can be found in the Jan 22 04 Awake on page 28.
Under "Monkey Business", it recounts the efforts of some researchers to get monkeys
to type endlessly so as to randomly produce a work of Shakespeare. The monkeys
lost interest after 5 pages of text. This, evidently, is supposed to disprove what?
Evolution? I'm no fan of Dawkins or Darwin but this is sheer nonsense. The inability
or disinterest of monkeys in typing HAS NOTHING TO DO with a simple ANALOGY
of how order can be randomly produced. That isn't the point!
This also is the Awake featuring a brother who was a nuclear scientist. I wonder
if he ever feels 'used' shilling for this sort of propaganda.
and so it goes....
metatron