was there a 1975 "scare" (page 2)

Open mind

Gary:

That has got to be the most concise, accurate description I've read yet of how this religion messes with people's heads across all age groups.

Thank you.

Open Mind

garybuss

Thanks Quandry,
I have to write, when I talk I sound like Porky Pig on speed:-)

I enjoy you're posts too. I'm glad you're here.

I was baptized in 1973. There was non-stop talk around the KH's and assemblies about how close the end was. There was some from the magazines and talks on the platforms, as noted above. The big thing was just the buzz going around in the congregation - and the WTBS did NOTHING to stop it. They make now say "well the brothers were just making it up," but they allowed it because it served their purpose. Try having an idle conversation about the veracity of the latest Watchtower and see where that gets you.

John Doe

I would love to hear someone give us a narrative experience of their day, if they can remember it, of December 31, 1974. I can't imagine believing with such certainty that the world is about to end and you know when and how it will end. Does anyone remember? How about January 1, 1976?

garybuss

Thanks Open Mind,
So it didn't bother you that I left out the 7 trumpets of Revelation picturing Rutherford's 7 district assemblies?

Ya gotta love the Witnesses and numbers. Being a Witness has to be like going to a virtual Las Vegas where nobody ever wins and having to tell everybody you enjoy it.

Please, please, can I loose just one more time? It's like playing spiritual blackjack, only instead of taking your money when you loose, they take your family and your job and your house and if you complain about that, they kill ya.

Then they say it's "right" because it's Biblical, or it's "right" because it's legal. Ever notice how quick and how often they play that "right" card. Other religions hide behind "faith" but the Witnesses hide behind "right". Whenever they say it's Biblical or it's legal, that's the "right" card.

Witnesses can be mean because it's "right". Witnesses can be dishonest because it's "right". Witnesses would rather be "right" than alive. It was the fight for "right" that was the reason they stood up to Hitler. It was the fight for "right" that kept them going back to the government and appealing to the politicians for recognition of their "rights".

Witnesses are the case study "right fighters". They can act bad and fight for "right" at the same time. The Canada sextuplet case is a perfect example.

anewme

As I recall the expected doom was to begin in the fall of the year, around October.
It is true that no statement from a Watchtower actually said "Armageddon will begin on such and such date,1975" but there was no curtailing the hundreds of comments during Watchtower Studies and Book Studies from the old timers as we called them who grabbed whole segments of time in those days to answer questions, taking five minutes sometimes to share their belief in Armageddon's closeness. As a people we endured a real hysteria among the rank and file with demonstrations from the platforms in the forms of mini-dramas depicting the suffering and imprisonment Jehovahs people will likely face just before the big A.

It was overwhelming to a new one like myself who sat there hearing comment after comment from these respected people, elders, old timers, pioneers, my study conductor that time was running out for those who sat on the spiritual fence.

I was baptized in 1973 mostly at the insistence of my pioneering friend who was sincerely afraid Armageddon would find me unbaptized and unprotected. I mean, as she put it, how could the angels tell me from a worldly person if I did not have the mark? Baptism would put that mark on me. And going out in service telling the good news would keep it there. She pressured so many people to get baptized in those years. But after '75 she went looney and left the area.

But yeah it definitely is true that the headquarters allowed so many to speculate and if they corrected them during assemblies and conventions I dont recall it.

Anewme

was there a 1975 "scare"

Open mind

garybuss

JeffT

John Doe

garybuss

anewme

cultswatter

Leolaia

DannyHaszard

DannyHaszard

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