The Battle of Armageddon… LOL.

by transhuman68 18 Replies latest jw friends

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  transhuman68

  I was looking through a Watchtower publication that I bought recently, and found this quote about children & Armageddon:

  Our theme "rearing children in divine favor" does not refer to the rearing of the children of Armageddon survivors in that new world when all surrounding conditions and all forces in operation will be toward helping those who live to do righteousness. No; but it refers to rearing children who are born now before the battle of Armageddon. Not only is the life of all children endangered by the nearness of Armageddon, but their eternal destiny is involved. The prophetic foreview of the destruction of Christendom at Armageddon lays bare the alarming fact that the lives of ungodly children will not be spared by God's executional forces just because of their tender years. (Ezekiel 9:5, 6, 10) The parents will therefore be in large part responsible for what befalls their young offspring at Armageddon.

  Which publication? “This means Everlasting Life”, page 248. And the year? 1950…

  O.K. So those children who were ‘endangered’ are now well and truly retired, or at the very least, in their last year in the workforce, and the parents that this advice was given to would be in their 80’s or 90’s or passed away.

  What really bugs me is that this was the theme of many Watchtowers in the late 70’s, and being an unbaptised child it used to frighten the heck out of me! But it was the same message, but more than 20 years later; and those 'children' were already adults!
  

  I have to confess, reading the old WTS books from the 40’s & 50’s I’m starting to find this religion to be rather comical, and I’m hating it a bit less…

  Just thought you all might like to know ‘there is nothing new under the sun’…
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  Laika

  I always had trouble spelling the word Armageddon, but oh well, that's hardly the end of the world is it?

  (shamelessly stolen from Facebook)
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  transhuman68

  LOL, very clever! I guess you had to have been there... the Cold War days were different though, and anything seemed possible back then.
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  Laika

  It's a good quote, most of those children who stayed JWs are now teaching their grandchildren they will never finish school (that's what I was told, repeatedly - finished 10 years ago). Tragic.
• 

  jwfacts

  "most of those children who stayed JWs are now teaching their grandchildren they will never finish school"

  That's the most difficult part to comprehend. These people know they were misled, yet continue with the same lies to their own children.
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  Heaven

  Not only is the life of all children endangered by the nearness of Armageddon, but their eternal destiny is involved. -- “This means Everlasting Life”, page 248 -- published 1950.

  Fast forward 64 years .... and Armageddon has yet to arrive. The words 'soon', 'imminent', 'nearness' ... Botchtower has a way different definition of these words than the rest of society.

  Yes, Watchtower has been crying wolf for decades now and if you include the years before they were officially called Jehovah's Witnesses, they've entered into the 'century' category.

  When I was a kid, the big date was 1975. I was 12 years old then. When I turned 19, me and my younger brother were starting to plan our next moves once we had graduated high school (back then grade 13 still existed). We had both been told we'd never even go to high school.

  But BAM... there we were!

  And Mom was trying to talk us out of going to College because Armageddon was so close. Sooo... seven years after the supposed arrival of Armageddon and it's obvious failure to arrive she was still believing it was imminently going to happen. We had to explain to her that in order for us to 'get good jobs at good companies' we would have to get some higher education.

  I will be 51 this year. I will also have 30 years of service at my company. I am closer to retirement that the beginning of my career.

  And Still.... Armageddon Has Not Arrived.

  
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  transhuman68

  These people know they were misled, yet continue with the same lies to their own children.

  Yes, they do- and the Watchtower keeps printing the same warning to parents & children decade after decade, as if they were never wrong! So maybe this is what religions do- but it is still completely irresponsible.

  Hi Heaven, good to "see" you again! Did you never believe, or did the 1975 failure make you see what was really happening? I sort of missed 1975... too young to remember it.
• 

  Heaven

  Hi Heaven, good to "see" you again! Did you never believe, or did the 1975 failure make you see what was really happening? I sort of missed 1975... too young to remember it.

  Hey transhuman, I'm not always able to be on the site but when I can, I am.

  When I was a child I definitely believed. I never questioned my parents. I thought they knew everything. But as I started getting older, more adult topics were introduced and I started seeing discrepancies. Kids have amazing BS detectors.

  I think it was the Ethiopian famine of the late '60s/early '70s that started everything for me. I couldn't reconcile a loving and powerful Heavenly Father with the atrocity of this situation and his obvious lack of caring and action. My Mom's explanation for this did not help either. Armageddon's 1975 Failure to Arrive came slightly after this but was definitely part of the awakening process.

  In my family, 1975 was a rough time as my maternal grandmother was suffering from bone cancer and then died. Armageddon's lack of arrival was overshadowed with this huge loss for us all. This was my first major loss of a family member and person very close to me.

  It sure seemed odd to me and my bro that, 7 years after Armageddon's failure to arrive, our Mom was instructing us to 'get good jobs at good companies' but we couldn't go to College because we wouldn't need it as Armageddon was so close. This just didn't make sense to me at all.
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  designs

  transhuman- Very good observation about the Cold War mentality of the 1950s. We had neighbors with bomb shelters in their back yards and at School we did our regular 'Duck and Cover' drills....like crouching under our desks when the A bomb went off would save us!
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  TTATTelder

  I remember the 1986 "International Year of Peace' and how that was supposed to be the filfillment of the prophecy at 1 Thess 5:3. - "Whenever it is that they are saying, “Peace and security!” then sudden destruction is to be instantly on them"

  I remember there was some specific day that year where the proclamation was official - I don't know if it was when the world leaders came together to pray or what, but I was scared to go to sleep that night.

  What made it worse was when I woke up the next morning, I jumped up to check if everyone in my family was alive. My dad was sleeping in a weird way where it looked like he had grasped his chest or something. I thought he might be dead, so i woke him just to be sure.

  Sounds silly now, but what a great traumatic childhood memory from my stupid ass religion.