"Beast" Memories

by NotFormer 10 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • NotFormer
    NotFormer

    I've been crapping on the WT a lot lately, which sometimes seems a bit unfair to me, especially since I was never in, therefore I don't really have a dog in the fight. To provide a bit of balance, I'll reminisce about the rampant prophecy speculation going on in mainstream Christianity (I refuse to use the WT's pejorative term: "Christendom", especially since by definition, they're part of that classification πŸ™„) in the 70s and 80s. To be fair, the churches themselves had been around long enough to realise that end times interpretations are like arseholes, everybody has one. The purveyors of prophetic wisdom were hangers on at the fringes. They would be invited to a circuit of certain (usually new and upcoming) churches regularly, where they would espouse their ideas and a collection would be taken to help further their work. Their stars would usually fade very quickly when they made specific date predictions and they inevitably didn't come to pass. This isn't so much about them as a memory I have of one particular piece of anecdotal evidence that a few of them attached themselves to.

    In 1974 a joint venture of the major Australian banks introduced a credit card system called BankCard. How this relates to all of the above is because of one feature of it, the logo. It was a stylised lower case letter "b", in three colours. To the imaginative, this spelled "666". πŸ™„ Here's the Wikipedia article about BankCard, showing the logo:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankcard

    As a young lad being constantly told about the 666 symbol on the BankCard, I just could not see it! It didn't even look like a very good representation of a "b" to me, let alone a 6. I'd walk past a bank branch with the BankCard logo in the window and gaze at it, and walk off shaking my head, saying "I don't see it".

    Take a look at the logo as depicted in the Wikipedia article. Was I wrong?

  • careful
    careful

    You said it, 'To the imaginative, this spelled "666".'

  • Diogenesister
    Diogenesister

    You're correct Not Former ...nothing like it!πŸ˜‚

    Very 70s...very trendy ATM , 70s styling. Makes me rather nostalgic...

    NB it's exactly the kind of thing witnesses get paranoid about. In fact a lot of our JW urban legend myths and stories have originated in "Christendom" we all came to find out!

  • Jeffro
    Jeffro

    I suppose hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia can be fun if not taken seriously. But the β€˜beast’ in question was Nero, and despite the superstition at the time that he would return, he’s quite dead and everyone can rest easy without fear of the number 666 (or 616 if you prefer the Greek rendering of his name).

  • Phizzy
    Phizzy

    Is " hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia " ( an irrational fear of the number 666) the longest word in the English language ? It is certainly the longest word to ever grace the pages on here !

    That fear runs deep in Society, they had to change the number on a local 'bus from 666, people complained, thought it would bring evil down on the 'bus, but it ran for many months, until some wag at the 'bus company added an emoji to the sign displaying the number, the emoji was a Devil face, complete with horns ! LOL.

  • Jeffro
    Jeffro

    pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

  • BluesBrother
    BluesBrother

    I can remember a thing going around, that if you ascribed a numerical value to the letters of the alphabet and took the name Kissinger and added them up you could get to the number 666. So it meant that Henry Kissinger must be the foretold beast !

    Tbf, the WTS has never said anything like that.

  • TonusOH
    TonusOH

    Numerology and 'Biblical Chronology' are birds of a feather.

  • jhine
    jhine

    Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia

    is the fear of long words . Someone didn't think that through .

    Jan from Tam

  • Jeffro
    Jeffro

    jhine:

    Someone didn't think that through .

    They knew exactly what they were doing.😈 πŸ˜†

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