"If you can read the Kingdom Ministry articles urging people to sell homes/leave jobs etc to pioneer before the end and then say they did not promote this date then logic will never work"
Perhaps I should clear something up. I went looking for proof that 1975 WAS taught to be the "end". I searched for evidence to show others that everything was to end in 1975. Trouble is, there's probably more evidence to support evolution than there is to support the 1975 theory.
Let me explain. If 1975 was taught to be the "end", there should be articles that state that. There are articles to support everything that the Witnesses teach and believe. There are articles to support the teaching that Jesus is also Michael, that hell is not a place of fiery torment, that the 144,000 are a literal number and the only ones going to heaven. In short, everything. EXCEPT 1975 being the "end", nothing,nada, zilch, zero.
As for your quote above, I have read the Kingdom Ministry articles, yet none of them PLAINLy state 1975 was going to be "It". For that matter none of them "urged people to sell their homes or quit their jobs. I challenge you to produce one.
" As said earlier - I was there" Again so was I. I have read some pretty silly claims about 1975. I think my favorite is the one by a woman who claimed to have been a sister for over 60 years. She spins the tale of "countdown to 1975 boards" in Kingdom Halls. Not just her's but it was done all over the country, she claimed. When I pointed out to her that I travelled with my father when he went to give talks at other Kingdom Halls and never saw these boards she claimed I couldn't have been a Witness as ALL Witnesses knew of these boards. She was the same person who claimed to have recorded the previously mentioned talk.