Have you read "Signs of the last days?" by Carl O Jonsson?

After seeing H4O's thread today (about Hassans book), I decided to open up this one. I have only been out of the org since 3-29-08 so I have a lot of reading this past month and a half...

I'm halfway through reading the "Signs of the last days" book. In some ways it has impacted me more than some of the others I have read.

As I read CofC, for example, I could see that the inner workings of the GB showed that there were not spirit guided but very misguided...

As I read ISofCF I could see logical Biblical arguments that refuted JW syances on blood, holidays, Jesus, etc...

I read the Gentile Times Reconsidered, and was very impressed with the logic about 587 BCE. I had always doubted 1914 being the correct date because I did not agree with the "7 Gentile times" concept (also discussed in the book). He explains how the archaeological evidence points to the 70 year period being 609-539BCE based on Jer 25:11.

But reading the signs of the last days and comparing it with my WT-Lib it is really revealing about the WT duplicity and deliberate manipulation of scripture and citations...

I always had trouble explaining the signs of the last days to Bible students, whether from the Live forever book or the knowledge book...

Reading that Earthquakes caused more monetary damage in our time and killed more people than in previous generations seemed like some circular reasoning, since property is simply more expensive and more people live on the earth. The same goes for pestilences, it's natural that more people should be kiled in our century because the population is larger...

Yet the "Last Days" book debunks all of this as myths and shows how the WTS misquotes everyone in order to advance their misguided viewpoint that we live in the last days. In fact, a look at the current CD-Rom shows that they admit that earthquake frequency is no greater now than before:

This is a big departure from the live forever book which falsely claimed:

I am so furious to see the outright lies in the WTS literature!!!! This book has made me madder than ever...

Oompa, you still want to bomb something???

J/K but this book really has gotten me upset about the obvious duplicity in the WTS! A must read - even though written 20 years ago!

(Note to older JWDers... sorry if there are similar threads, but I'm new and had to vent...)

A@G (of the WTS writers will burn in hell, I'll be rejoicing class)

Gee Whiz,

I could have saved 8 bucks and got free shipping, I could of added this to my order!

Oh well, I'm on a roll to order books now,

Thanks!

hope4others

edit to add; Vent all you want you need it!

Could have asked first Hope...

I think one of the most interesting parts of that book are the actual letters from seismologists stating how they felt about the quoting practices of the JW organization. 

A long time ago, before JWD, one of the participants on the H2O board contacted Jane Cahill, Yilgal Yaden and David Tarhill regarding 607 and got similar responses

Hey TD,

This is part of why I'm so upset.. I had kind of felt they were just somewhat misguided (as easyreader has asked on his thread), but the quotes show their deliberate intent to mislead... I am so f***ing pissed!!!! (and that's like the second time in my life I use the F*** word).

A@G

I ordered it first along with the Franz's books.

If you paid attention to the way the WBTS prints quotes, you already know this:

But when I read the actual letters from the sources, I was sick to my stomach when presented with the proof of their shoddy journalism.

I wouldn't trust this organization as far as I could throw em. I knew they didn't really have any journalistic integrity...but when I saw it in print, it was pretty much over for me. 

And I felt similarly,  with CofC etc., most of the stuff I knew or figured out.  Jonsson's books were the clincher for me.

(Hi Ann!! )

I suspected it, but here was proof!!!!

Awakened: You have (so far) barely scratched the surface of Watchtower (intellectual) dishonesty. The following is a link to a collection of essays, many of which are focused particularly on this point:

http://corior.blogspot.com/

 Read the ones by Alan Feuerbacher, especially: http://corior.blogspot.com/2006/02/part-1-disagreements-about-evolution.html

...which analyses in great detail misquoting and misrepresentation of scientists statements in the "Life-how did it get here"-book. Congrats of having been awakened, btw.

There is no "they" who wrote those unTruths, who filtered out what was unpleasant and passed on only what was acceptable when quoting others.  It was an individual.  A different individual at different times.  But you won't know which individual because of the anonymous attribution culture in Watchtower writings.  Had each author known his/her name would be published along with his/her writing, you can be sure there would have been much less duplicity in the writing.  Without personal responsibility, the truth went right out the window in what the Society wrote and now writes.

Hello there, fellow awakened.

I understand your anger (and dissapointment), as I've had the same myself. I haven't read this book, but it doesn't surprise me much anymore that they'd lie and misrepresent to find support for their views. 

However, growing up, I was told that the WBTS writers were at least "semi-inspired" (whatever that would mean or how that would work...), and never lied, because they were guided by holy spirit, which would weed out any un-truth. This was "The Truth", after all. I remember thinking (and being told, I suppose) that it was so great that we had these 'pure' magazines and books, because what they contained was the Truth, and so we didn't need to investigate other sources, 'cause it was all in there (everything we needed to care about anyway). In our household growing up, we were not allowed to take the literature with us to read in the bathroom. This would be considered... well, 'sacrilege', for lack of a better word.

-So imagine my shock (same shock you're now experiencing, I suppose) when I found that they were in fact lying; misrepresenting, quoting out of context, quoting people as experts in a field when they're not experts, stringing together such quotes in an effort to make the reader reach the WBTS conclusions without stating them outright etc. It's even more sinister because they know that most of their reader base trust them completely, are rather naive, unknowing when it comes to many fields of science, unknowing when it comes to deceitful ways of laying out an argument, common fallacies in arguments, etc.

For me, as has also been mentioned in posts above, it was their dishonesty in quoting scientists (and "scientists") in the Creation books that did it. The links in Hellrider's post above are good, although rather lengthy and elaborate, but this page shows the misquotations without extrapolating too much, which makes it easier to see the big picture.

So no, I'm not really that surprised anymore. But it does still leave a bad taste in my mouth, and a sinking feeling in my gut, knowing I trusted them 100% for so many years of my life. 

I'll see if I can get a hold of Jonsson's book as well. There's a whole lot of reading one needs to catch up on once one has left the Witnesses!

Hi Awakened.  Wow - I thought I was spending a lot of time reading but you have me beat by a longshot!  I read "Signs of the Last Days" right after COC.  It was fascinating to see all the data that he collected.  I always suspected that our generation wasn't special with all the signs that the WT likes to stress over and over.  I mean, come on, 2 Tim. 3: 1-5...People have been violent, liars and worse since the first pages of Genesis.  And thinking back to history classes in school, the world spent hundreds of years fighting over colonies and land.  Famines and plagues were devastating and would kill over half the population.  Carl's book is very fascinating.  He's compiled lots of figures and analyses.  I should reread it cuz I devoured it rather quickly the first time.  I think he mentioned also how it's only been recently that the population has really doubled in size or something like that.  Mainly due to serious diseases being alleviated but also because the child mortality rate was...insane...I'm not sure what word I'm looking for.  I could never understand how common and accepted it was that half the siblings of my grandparents and great grandparents never survived past childhood and women died in childbirth quite frequently.  I feel grateful for living in this time period after contemplating Carl's book and what life was like for people down through the ages.  Pre-1914 doesn't sound like no picnic to me.

Love your posts, A@G

Really nice thread.  I hope any lurkers take the time to look into what is being discussed here.

PBS contributed to my education on this.  There were numerous programs about the advances made for human life in the 1900's right arount the year 2000.  And life was NO picnic for vast majority of mankind before 1914, whether you didn't have to lock your door or not!  Human rights were almost nil; child labor was alive and well, and big business fought to keep them in the mines!!! 

The list is endless.

I really hope any luking JW's take the challenge to "prove" Jonsson wrong and read his book.

YoMamma and HellRider, Thanks for the additional reading material... I'll start to look at it closer soon.

IKnowNothing-  Interesting take on anonimity and the WT. I enjoyed R Franzs revelation about who wrote what back then, though.

BTW....Interesting take on this... Ray Franz's WT he wrote in 1977 about Sacred Service, as well as Commentary on James and Choosing the Best way of life were all badmouth by one of our Gilead instructors who claimed that apostate influences had seeped in. CoC reveals who wrote each...

Awakened07, yes the WTS plays such mind games that they are spirit direected but not inspired... I'm gonna puke...

Switchlink and Dagney, I agree, rather than this being the worst of times this is about the best of time in human history to live. On interesting thing I saw in college was Jacob Riis documentary photos (taken pre-1914) called "How the other half lives" about poverty in US ghettoes... you never see such poverty anymore here in the US... strange if we're in the last days, right?

Jookbeard... I got Penton's book from the library, but I couldn't read it cover to cover like I did with the others... I found it somewhat repetitive and boring. Didn't do much for me.. we're all different.

Mouthy - Yes I do admire Carl O J for his courage. And reviewing the society's pubs before and after, he has had a profound influence on their claims. Loks like the WTS is not spirit inspired, but rather seek to do damage control, lol.

Lurkers please check out these books by C O Jonnson. They are filled with scientific proof that will leave your doubts outside!

I've long had a theory about the Society and it's "scholarship".

The library at Bethel is filled to the brim with a hundred years worth of reference material.

This reference material is by NON-JW's!

In other words; actual scholars!

Here is my theory.

All (that's right, ALL) of the ideas presented in the Society's publications are triggered by things read in actual, scholarly tomes. The rub is this. They are twisted just enough to make them Jehovah-worthy!

I'd compare it to copying a popular singer's hit record by doing a cover version with a different arrangement and new lyrics.

The Society, in other words, consists of SCAVENGER pseudo-scholars! 

The first time I became aware of this possibility was in the late 60's and early 70's when the language of the Watchtower studies changed in vocabulary to include the phrase: "Spaceship Earth."  This, if I recall correctly, was a Buckminster Fuller term coined by him in his writings. Suddenly, it was---along with the peculiar "happifying" popping up hither and thither.

It came into my mind that the Watchtower writer had been influenced.

Further along....

I noticed how many secular writers were being quoted as support for various pet theories of the Watchtower. I said to myself, "Self, why are these Watchtower scholars wasting their time reading secular writers? How much of this goes on?"

Then, much later...

I began going to the library and reading actual quotes (complete quotes, not snippets!) from authors, scholars, etc. whom the Society DISAGREED WITH....and found they were deliberately misquoting or mischaracterizing these people!

Now I think they have no scholarship and never have. They just do twisted riffs on other people's homework.

A specific example of this is in the work of Martin Luther. If you read long passages of his rants against the Catholic Church you clearly see where Fred Franz got whole chunks of his book BABYLON THE GREAT HAS FALLEN-GOD'S KINGDOM RULES!

The "great minds" at Bethel are just like the lazy students at your local High School who crib off the A student's homework!

Bah! Humbugs!!

It all started with the methodology of Charles Taze Russell.

Think about what he actually did.

He bought the best titillating ideas about End Times he could afford and brought them together and distilled them into his own STUDIES IN THE SCRIPTURES.

Pyramidology, Adventist charts, Aquila Brown musings, Maria Russell's "faithful and wise servant" doctrinal brainfart, etc...

all of which became the centerpiece of Jehovah's Witness theology under Rutherford.

The methodology has never really changed.

What began as a dustbin of sweepings from crackpot authors transitioned into the re-arranging of actual mainstream scholar's work into a crazy quilt religion with contraian overtones and a pig-headed stubborness that is downright antisocial.

What a crock!

yourmomma - Thanks for the link on 'Idealistic JW History.' Although I've seen examples before (like the 'Passing The Test' WT article a couple of years ago), it's great to see many other examples set out so methodically. It's a keeper.

---

Please don't forget that Rud Persson ('Wolfgang Herbst') was co-author with Carl O. Jonsson. It's a bit of an insult not to acknowledge all his hard work with the book too.

(Hi Dagney )