I have ran into this a few times lately. There is so much wrong with this statement, but I want to just focus on the points that have the highest chance of setting into the JW's mind.
What first comes to mind is the fact that JW's have been peddling the "end of the world" being right around the corning for over 100 years...
If JW's "don't live for dates" then why the main focus on Armageddon? It will come "like a thief in the night" correct? Then why has the Watchtower continually stated "how close it REALLY is" for so long?
If you get a time warp machine and find this exact conversation in each decade for the past 100 years the Witness would have the same exact argument and position. That they don't live for dates, but that the end of the world is "very close" and that the org is constantly providing new light every day.
STOP! Please stop saying the end of the world is so close! You have lost your prediction privileges! Maybe it is, but we OBVIOUSLY aren't supposed to be predicting how "close" we "really" are.
You say you don't for dates, but it's funny the only time you mention that position is when one of your dates or "time-periods" fail to come to fruition.
If you TRULY don't live for dates then stop thinking about Armageddon, and start focusing on doing the right things, making the right decisions for yourself and your family.
Your future is important, God wants you to take care of yourself, not slave away in hopes that it will all be worth it "very soon."™
-Sab
The JW "We don't live for dates" argument
by sabastious 17 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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sabastious
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SixofNine
Exactly. They've even put it to music, "live for the day, whe-e-e-e-n you'll say, life without end at last"
apologies in advance for the horrible earworm
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sabastious
Yup. They all live for that day coming in their lifetimes. The only time I "start to not live for that day" is when they get so old that they realize they might die "before the end."
-Sab
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Scully
Whether they agree or not, people - in general - do live for dates.
Our entire lives revolve around schedules, events, anniversaries, celebrations. It's natural. We mark time on calendars, by days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia. We countdown days, hours, minutes and seconds (and even "sleeps") to the next big event.
I think the WTS (and other doomsday cults) knowingly and intentionally exploits this tendency. When they say Armageddon™ is Just Around The Corner™, we are naturally inclined to relate that to other experiences in our concept of time-keeping. When they say the Great Tribulation™ or the New System™ will be here Soon™, we relate that to our own experience of "soon" - "I'm going on vacation soon" or "my car payments will be finished soon".
The fact is, they've been beating the Armageddon™ is Just Around The Corner™ drum for as long as I have had any experience with JWs, which will soon be about 45 years, and even before that, they were blathering on about how close the end of This System Of Things™ is. Generations (real generations, not WT defined ones) have gone by - kids like I once was were told they'd never finish grade school, or high school, or need to go to college, or get married, or have children, or need a pension, or retire, or DIE before Armageddon™ arrived. My own kids would have gone through that idiotic cycle too, had we not hopped off the WT treadmill. I had JW friends growing up who had heard the same song-and-dance routine from their grandparents, and parents, and then passed it on to their own children and grandchildren. What a complete and utter waste of life. They tread water and put all their hopes and dreams on hold, for absolutely NOTHING.
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TD
Without at least "ballpark" dates the idea that the ministry is a life-saving work, that people are being marked for survival and that failure to go door to door may result in "bloodguilt" all disolve into thin air and the JW faith loses its reason for existence.
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Justitia Themis
AAAAHHHHHHHHH
Thanks a lot 6 of 9. Now I have that stupid song STUCK in my head!!!!
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Alwayshere
THEY LIVE FOR 1914.
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blondie
1874, 1878, 1881, 1914, 1915, 1920, 1925, 1940's, 1957, 1984, 1994
It depends........................
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sabastious
Blondie how come you leave out 1975?
-Sab
