lol @ this thread.
Several of the better posters here, and they all missed the key event of the 20th century...
Shameful... truly shameful.
It is evident that in my 11+ year absence from here, standards have slipped execrably... the very Generation (genea) that I helped train (by the loving administration of WHACK!s and much New Light) has almost entirely passed away... this for a variety of reasons, but let's not go into that - this sorry state of affairs cannot be tolerated. No, no, no!
You've all missed the obvious.
Had you completed the Bible Study I set all of you ~15 years ago in my work here:
http://www.freeminds.org/history/list.htm
you would not have failed so miserably.
The most important event in the 20th century was...
The launch of Sputnik by the U.S.S.R. on October 4, 1957...
Such was its enormous import that some (very considerable, lol) time thereafter, the Governing Body of the Jehovah's Witnesses debated whether or not it provided a suitable hook for them to jettison 1914 entirely and switch to 1957, to give the Watchtower more breathing space in which to operate their worldwide scam operation.
Don't believe me?
My authority for this is a Governing Body member, the only remotely truthful member thereof ever, one Raymond V. Franz, and it is in his book, Crisis of Conscience. On pages 261-4 of the 4th edition, he confesses:
The Chairman’s Committee, consisting of Albert Schroeder (Chairman), Karl Klein and Grant Suiter, now produced a most unusual document. They supplied a copy to each member of the Governing Body. Briefly put, these three men were suggesting that, rather than applying to people living in 1914, the expression “this generation” would begin applying as of 1957, forty-three years later!
This is the material exactly as these three members of the Governing Body supplied it to us:
1957 marked the year when the first Russian Sputnik was launched into earth’s outer space. Evidently the Chairman’s Committee felt that that event could be accepted as marking the start of the fulfillment of these words of Jesus:
"The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken." (Matt. 24:29)
Based on that application, their conclusion would be as they stated:
"Then ‘this generation’ would refer to contemporary mankind living as knowledgeable ones from 1957 onward."
The three men were not suggesting that 1914 be dropped. It would stay as the “end of the Gentile Times.” But “this generation” would not begin applying until 1957.
In view of the swiftly diminishing numbers of the 1914 generation, this new application of the phrase could undoubtedly prove even more helpful than some person allegedly living to be 130 years old in a certain section of the Soviet Union. As compared with starting in 1914, this new 1957 starting date would give an additional 43 years for the period embraced by the expression “this generation” to reach.
Governing Body standards required that for any Committee to recommend something to the full Body there should be unanimous agreement among the Committee members (otherwise the divided viewpoint should be presented to the Body for settlement). The presentation of the novel idea regarding 1957 was therefore one upon which the three members of the Chairman’s Committee, Schroeder, Klein and Suiter must have agreed.
I would think that, if asked about this presentation today, the response would be, “Oh, that was just a suggestion.” Possibly, but if so it was a suggestion seriously made. And for Albert Schroeder, Karl Klein and Grant Suiter to bring such a suggestion to the Governing Body they must have been willing in their own minds to see the suggested change made. If, indeed, their belief and conviction as to the Society’s longtime teaching about “this generation” (as applying from 1914 onward) had been strong, firm, unequivocal, they certainly would never have come forward with the new interpretation they offered.
The Governing Body did not accept the new view proposed by these members. Comments made showed that many considered it fanciful. The fact remains, however, that Governing Body members Schroeder, Klein and Suiter presented their idea as a serious proposition, revealing their own lack of conviction as to the solidity of the existing teaching on the subject.
Its particular significance is that by piercing earth's atmosphere, it either encountered demons or did not. Franz does not mention this, possibly because he was ignorant of this aspect, possibly because he was embarrassed to acknowledge the degree of sheer idiocy of the organization to which he had dedicated all his life and took decades to grasp what was obvious to Focus in about 15 seconds, or possibly for other reasons...
Indeed, surely Franz was aware that one of the Society's finest publications, dating to 1919, is "Demons Infest Earth's Atmosphere". The title accurately summarizes this learned work.
And much later, in "The Golden Age", a Watchtower publication (and predecessor to "Awake!"), similar assertions were made. The successor to "Herald of the Morning" (published by Nelson Barbour and Charles Taze Russell, 1876-9), a non-WTS Russellite publication, decades later would assert that:
THOUSANDS OF DEMONS INFEST EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE
There's too much nonsense there to place here, but masochists may consult: http://www.heraldmag.org/olb/contents/doctrine/THOUSANDS%20OF%20DEMONS.htm
Furthermore, in "The Truth Shall Make you Free", both in the 1943 original (on page 285) and in the re-publication a decade later, the Watchtower asserts:
Man on earth can no more get rid of these demonic 'heavens' (the organization of wicked spirits) than man can by airplane or rockets or other means get up above the air envelope which is about our earthly globe and in which man breathes.
So clearly Jehovah God had changed that, New Light had arrived, the "demonic heavens" had been pierced by Sputnik, and the most important event of not just the 20th Century but indeed every century (including that non-zero-year containing one in which the minor Archangel Michael got spawned) had occurred.
To all those who missed this Most Important Event of All - a collective:
WHACK!
Personally, I feel the most important events of the 20th Century were huge advances in physics and medicine, the demise of European empires, the arrival of mass production and, sadly, World War II.
Of course - all were missed by Goobergawd's Non-Prophet, Yes-Profit Whoreganization of semi-literate window-washers.
No surprise there.
__
Focus
("Demon-Infested" Class)
