by Big Dog 77 Replies latest jw experiences
Keeshah,
I just found out about this one... Oct 8th, 1968 Awake! Pages 13,14.
But that Awake! article clearly states "Does this mean that the above evidence postively points to 1975 as the time for the complete end of this system of things? Since the Bible does not specifically state this, no man can say."
I did not go to College after High School because I thought that I should be putting kingdom interests first. Not because I had set a date for Armageddon.
In my case (which is in the minority of others on this list) 1975 meant nothing to me in 1975. Now 1914! That was the date I set my hopes on. Realizing 1914 was baloney was a big step for me.
To AlanF who said that my position would have been called spiritually weak in 1975. I would have vehemently said they were the ones who were spiritualy weak. I would have said that to any Circuit or District Overseer or Governing Body member. I had heard about 1975 being the end from my inactive spiritually dead step father, his alcoholic mother and pot smoking sisters. These are the only people I knew who said they believed Armageddon was coming in 1975. The active members of my Congregation publically said they did not believe this.
I cannot count how many householders asked me about 1975 and I always said NO!
Thanks, AlanF...for those quotes. I'm printing them for my niece. She was baptized in the 80's and doesn't believe this.
Oh youse of literal faith!
The March 8, 2005 Awake! clarifies all in an article entitled "How Much Longer Will It Be?" and under the subheading "6,000 Years Completed in 2024," it reasons that the millennium would be the last 950 years of a 7000-year rest day of God. It says on page 19-20:
Hence, the fact that we are nearing the end of the first 6,030 years of man's existence is of great significance.
..Taking note of Noah's 120 years of work prior to the great flood, the year 2024 is particularly worthy of notice. This combined with the fact thatt that the "last days" began in 1914, and that the physical facts of our day in fulfillment of prophecy mark this as the last generation of this wicked world. 2024 will see the culmination of a great tribulation on the world and its leadership. So we can expect the immediate future to be filled with thrilling events for those who rest their faith in God and his promises. It means that within relatively few years we will witness the fulfillment of the remaining prophecies that have to do with the "time of the end."
buncum bruce
Englishman: swapping mothers won't help us then .. my mum still counts the pelicans & pigeons preparing for the great feast day of jah.
But that Awake! article clearly states "Does this mean that the above evidence postively points to 1975 as the time for the complete end of this system of things? Since the Bible does not specifically state this, no man can say."
So why write and elude to it, again and again ?
Ever heard the JW mantra "Three times for emphasis"?
Robert K Stock said:
: To AlanF who said that my position would have been called spiritually weak in 1975. I would have vehemently said they were the ones who were spiritualy weak. I would have said that to any Circuit or District Overseer or Governing Body member. I had heard about 1975 being the end from my inactive spiritually dead step father, his alcoholic mother and pot smoking sisters. These are the only people I knew who said they believed Armageddon was coming in 1975. The active members of my Congregation publically said they did not believe this.
Then you and your fellows were in the minority. I remember commenting to one prominent elder, about mid-1972, when I first began realizing that something was wrong, that perhaps Jehovah was pulling a fast one on the Society so as to teach them a lesson about predicting a date for "the end" (by that time I had already begun to distrust the Society because of a number of other things). He told me that I was spiritually weak and should have full confidence in the Society's comments about 1975. This guy had been the Congregation Servant for many years before the elder arrangement was instituted.
I also remember when, in early 1968, our Circuit Servant, brother Anthony Conte, dealt with the KM article that was quoted from earlier in this thread. "Brothers!" he said, "Do you realize that there are only 88 months left until 1975?" That was the first time I truly understood what they were saying, and it really shook me up.
During the next several years the Society did everything in its power to enhance the belief that "the end" would come by 1975. There was the "Truth" book campaign that instituted the six-month Bible study program. If, after six months, the student was not attending meetings, the study was to be dropped because of "lack of time because the end is so close and we need to spend our time with deserving ones." Even by 1974 the Society was still pushing the date, even though most JWs I knew didn't pay much attention to it any more. I remember being extremely interested that they chose the Yeartext for 1974 from Habbakuk 3:17, 18 "Although the fig tree itself may not blossom, . . . I will exult in Jehovah himself." This obviously in anticipation of horrific events soon to come.
You really ought to read those links I provided, especially the second one to the KM quotations. They'll show you that your congregation simply wasn't paying attention to the Society.
Finally I want to mention that several years ago, a former District Overseer who had close ties to Knorr, Franz and other WTS bigwigs who promoted the date, told me that he mildly chided Franz back around 1970 about that promotion. Franz justified it by saying, "Look at the increase we've had!" So, even though Franz himself probably didn't put all that much stock in the date, he cynically used the trust that other Bethelites had in him, and the trust that the JW community put in the Society, to pump up the numbers.
: I cannot count how many householders asked me about 1975 and I always said NO!
Sure, and why do you think that was? Because the Watchtower Society wasn't promoting the date? Clearly not! It was precisely because the Society promoted the date that so many JWs put stock in it and announced their beliefs to the world.
AlanF
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society is only about one thing - power.
I find it somewhat humourous that "The 1975 Issue" is being debated with such vigor. Typically the society was having a "bob each way" (as we say in Aust/NZ). The Watchtower worked the 1914/Last Generation hypothesis to its max (just look at the best selling Truth Book). In circuits throughout the world Circuit & District Overseers cranked 1975 up for all it was worth. Many of them had been sucked into selling everything they had for an 18ft caravan and a life of door knocking and sorting out congregational problems.
As 1975 got nearer our faith began to wane and,as we entered 1974, it seemed highly unlikely that a Great Tribulation with its massive social upheaval could suddenly sweep the world up into the religion hating ferver that was to preceed Armaggedon. Many of us began to speculate.
As early as 1973 I remmember publically deriding those with minds set on a 1975 date but that in no way means that the society wasn't hell bent on squeezing every last drop of 'zeal for the truth' from the jw rank and file.
We sometimes forget the power of the Circuit Overseer grapevine in stiring up prostletizing zealotry amoungst the zombie faithful. WAs it by Watchtower Article or Circuit Overseer direction that the "last tract campaign" was carried out in 1974? For me the good news certainly go off track in 1984 when our young CO told us just how decisions were made at meetings of the Governing Body. No angels entered the room, they just thrashed issues out and had a concensus vote. I don't know why this news disturbed me so deeply. After all what's wrong with running ones life by the decisions of a far off, unelected committee of closeted men?
I see power games. Here, there and everywhere. Power through bullying, power through humour, power through force of personality, power through intellect. Yes folks I see power games here. But the worse most dispicable power games and abuse comes through the dehumanising exercise of it in political and religious organizations such as the WBTS.
unclebruce
:::
Interesting read Alan, cheers, unc.
This subject makes me very sad. For those of us who lived through it, we remember it very clearly. Yet, the JWs who lived through it, act as if it never happened. I had a conversation with my JW sister two weeks ago. I will probably be our last. I brought up 1975, and she said it was no big deal. I told her I could supply some WT quotes, but she was not interested. I brought up other subjects, and I went too far. After an hour of a long distance phone call I made to her, she yelled at me and hung up. I may never talk to her again, and I really don't care. I have disfellowshiped her.
I was 9 in '75. I have no recollection of any hysteria amongst my family or anyone in the cong. But then again, I didn't take many things too seriously when I was nine. I was obsessed with bugs then ... bugs and anything that creeped, crawled or slithered.
Maybe if some mutant Potato Beetle was to fated to come and destroy the wicked in '75 ... I would've paid more attention.
tS
