1914 WW 1 is it a fallacy

by edmond dantes 15 Replies latest jw friends

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  edmond dantes

  The outbreak of war in 1914 was maybe not in the true sense a world war because at that date it was a war between some European States and was not the earlier American Civil War a war between states? Maybe it could be said that the actual world war only happened when the Americans came into it on April the 6th 1917 and then only lasted until the following year.

  The point I'm making is what's the big deal with 1914 anyway, maybe the true date of Jesus arriving in the minds eye was much later maybe it was in 1939 which was the start of another fine old mess.

  The Jdubs could hang their predictions on any old date because it don't mean a thing.
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  CaptainSchmideo

  You know, you have made a very valid point.

  One of the more horrific aspects of WW I was that it used 20th century technology against 19th century battle tactics, resulting in the stupendously wasteful loss of life in that war. But if the gatling gun had been invented just a little sooner, you probably would have seen similar slaughters during the US Civil War (which was fought just as incompentently, IMHO).

  Another thing about the so-called "Great War" which got everyone's knickers in a twist was that instead of lop sided Imperial incursions by European nations (1890s) into technologically backwards territories of Africa (where they fought people armed with "sharpened pieces of fruit, and handfuls of grass"), now you had wholesale slaughter of the cream of White Europe. (with America joining in later). Oh, My! How distressing! War is a terrible thing when your own side suffers losses too!

  The irony of WWI is that it's almost faded from popular consciousness today, with WWII starting to do the same. There are only a handful of people still living who were active participant in the first one, and the ones from the second one are thinning out pretty rapidly as well.

  Shoot, I could make a case for the Vietnam war being a epoch making war. It ushered in an unsurpassed level of mistrust of the Government by the general population, we still feel the effects of it 40 years later, and we are repeating the same mistakes in the Middle East today. Maybe 1968 was the "End of Gentile Times"!

  naahhhhhh......
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  Tired of the Hypocrisy

  if the gatling gun had been invented just a little sooner

  Custer would have probably not been massacred at Little Big Horn if he had taken his with him. Imagine how life would have changed back then if he had taken them?
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  Caedes

  The outbreak of war in 1914 was maybe not in the true sense a world war because at that date it was a war between some European States and was not the earlier American Civil War a war between states? Maybe it could be said that the actual world war only happened when the Americans came into it on April the 6th 1917 and then only lasted until the following year.

  This has to stand out as one of the most wilfully ignorant and stupid comments of the year. Verdun, The somme? any of these names mean anything to you? Millions of dead, including Russians, British, German, French, Japanese, Indian and Canadian long before 1917. No, it was not just a war between some European states, it may have started that way but very quickly escalated to involve all of the world powers.

  "It is always better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt" credited to amongst others, the book of proverbs, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain and Plato
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  Nathan Natas

  The Jdubs could hang their predictions on any old date because it don't mean a thing.

  That's not really accurate, is it?.

  The JWs like to find a few unrelated scriptures and build an arithmetic puzzle with them, then they "solve" the puzzle to show how they are led by Jehovah's Magic Spirit. So you can't just pick ANY date, really, can you?

  ...unless you falsify ALL of the information regarding the dates. For example, the WTS might decide next year that Jerusalem fell in 1958 when Golda Meier farted after eating a salad; then the WTS could use that date as a starting point to prove that Atlantis is in Brooklyn, because the planet Yuggoth is in a plane of perpendicularity with a line drawn from the Pleiades.

  Maybe you're right after all!
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  Wasanelder Once

  She did? W.Once
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  blondie

  In his six volumes, Studies in the Scriptures, Charles Taze Russell (founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses) made many predictions that were tied to specific dates (e.g., 1878, 1910, 1915). As these volumes were reprinted, some of the dates were changed because the original dates passed without the predictions being fulfilled. In time, all of the dated prophecies failed and the movement had to reinterpret the predictions or ignore them altogether.

  One example (of many) is striking. In Volume II, Mr. Russell predicted:

  In view of this strong Bible evidence concerning the Times of the Gentiles, we consider it an established truth that the final end of the kingdoms of this world, and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God, will be accomplished near the end of 1915. Then the prayer of the Church, ever since her Lord took his departure—“Thy Kingdom come”—will be answered; and under that wise administration, the whole earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord—with knowledge, and righteousness, and peace (Psa. 72:19; Isa. 6:3; Hab. 2:14); and the will of God shall be done “on earth, as it is in heaven” (p. 101, emp. in orig.).

  How did the Jehovah's Witness sect's current teaching about the 1914 "gospel" evolve from Russell's original teaching? It came about as the need for the Society to respond to the unexpected events ocurring all around it in the real world which challenged its' original conclusions. 1914 came and went, and Armageddon failed to come as predicted. So new copies of Russell's Studies in the Scriptures were printed up by the Watchtower Society with the key date 1914 changed to read "1915" in key places in the text (compare, for example, page 81 of the 1908 edition and page 81of the 1915 edition of volume 2 in Studies in the Scriptures).
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  R.Crusoe

  Caedes, I thought the first worldwar was the establishment of the Roman Empire in the minds of first century Christians!

  It's often the case that after drinking so much WT alcohol,puking is both an inevitable and welcome pathway to recovery!

  After all,are we not standing shoulder to shoulder thinking the WT has done exactly that?

  So how respectable is all their accurate academia when garnished with lies!

  Give me an honest, modest speaker of his mind anyday and I will forgive them their flaws!

  It's the self appointed clever boots who refuse to ever admit errors that I feel are deluded beyond recovery!
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  Caedes

  R. Crusoe,

  Personally, I would be surprised that the difference between republic and empire would have been that noticeable to ordinary judeans but that is just my opinion.

  Presuming the rest of your post was aimed at me, spit it out, what are you saying exactly?! Fortunately I have never been a witness, just had to endure a witness upbringing, so I never subscribed to any of their views.

  If you are complaining about my criticism of the original poster of this thread, then I fully stand by my comments. Anyone who wants to undermine and downplay the sacrifice made by millions of soldiers to try and make a cheap criticism of a small cult, deserves the heckling. Whatever point he was trying to make in regard to failed prophecy was automatically undermined by his piss-poor understanding of world history.

  Since I have never claimed to be infallible I shall assume your last comment was aimed elsewhere.
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  ninja

  caedy....are you in a mood?......he he