by jwfacts 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
The Watchtower claims that hisorians say 1914 was when the world changed forever. As a JW the year 1914 is repeated so endlessly that it seems it must have been the turning point in history and hence the beginning of the Last Days. But I have never really heard anyone else ever mention that year, apart from the odd history lesson on WW1.
Do people in general ever think of or discuss 1914 as being a year of any significance?
It's a white anglo perspective thing - in 1914 a war that WE were involved in started - so it must be the most important
If you were a jew in Germany between 1935-1945 would you think the war didn't start 'til 1940 ? Same with the first world war - the German and Austro-Hungarian leadership feared what they saw as an inevitable battle between "Slavs" and "Germanic civilization." - a misapplication of social Darwinism in ignorance, as a political ideology - the German government changed in this background in 1912.
Jws are white anglo western people with a white anglo western view of things.
Anything else happen that year ?
Oh' that's right, the second or third?, second (invisible) return of Christ - w here he invisibly came from to start being invisible I'm not quite sure, but thank goodness the wtbts figured it out (in hindsight).
Hmmmh, I think 1914 was a turning point in history because of WW I. Some other historical turning points for me are the beginning of the Third Reich (1933), Tschernobyl (1986) or 9/11.
George Orwell
A J P Taylor
I think in time 1914 will be about as relevant as 1799 is to us today.
Russell accepted what other said about 1799 being the beginning of the last days. Most people today, JWs included, wouldn't have any idea what happened in 1799.
It's a white European perspective thing - that 1914 was the year a big war started (in our history) - so it must be the most important, right
A Paduan, thanks for sharing your view. I have never seen it that way. Maybe the WW I is a turning point for me only because it happened on my continent.Maybe otherwise it wouldn't be.
It is a good point that some of you are making that it depends on perspective. 1914 was not the first world war, or the largest to that stage. There were several European wars that went longer and resulted in more deaths prior to 1914. However WW2 was the biggest by far.
In a couple of hundred years WW2 will probably be the one remembered, but renamed as something such as the Great Nazi War.
Good question jwfacts.
From my non-JW perspective, I don't see 1914 in particular as a turning point, more the entire time of the Great War (1914-19).
Whether it was merely the knock-on effects of the Enlightenment period, when science and technological advances came more to the forefront, along with the perceived 'death of religion' with its associated control on society, or whether it was due to things happening in the 'higher places' remains to be seen.
Everything about life seems to have been moving faster since then as well - technology, life itself - nobody seems to have enough time, in our pursuit of individualism, we seem to have lost our individuality.
Maybe it was the start of a spiritual Armageddon - the fight for human souls between intellectualism and spirituality.
emo sometimes thinks too much
Doesn't appear like anything special on a second look, world war two was an even more deadly and destructive war and on a more optimistic note the 20th century brought in a more humane society at least in the West, a much better record on education, medical science, prosperity and the rights of man. For the average man life after the second world war is better than before it.
Russell got his ideas about 1914 from Barfour before splitting up with him, but apparently Barfour's own group withered away since none of his followers made an issue out of it.
There are probably hundreds of arguable "turning points" in history. Strictly speaking there is hardly a day when the world doesn't "change forever," if only in an imperceptible way.
WWI as any other event did not fall from heaven (JW pun intended). What made it "new" was the strict consequence of the Western industrial revolution and its unavoidable application to warfare.
