Earthquakes in one place after another

by irondork 11 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  irondork

  I was thinking about Mathew 24:7 - "earthquakes in one place after another" and Luke 21:11 - "there will be great earthquakes"

  Growing up in the 80's, I could have sworn the retoric coming from the WTS was that there would be an increase in the number of earthquakes as the end drew near. Yet these two scriptures say nothing about an increases in numbers. The 80's were a hundred years and many, many chemicals ago, so I refreshed my memory with the CD library.

  I was not able to confirm what I remembered. Rather, the quotes I found had to do with more intense earthquakes, becoming greater events, human disasters. They talk about how many people were killed in such a short period vs. the estimated losses of the past.

  In a later issue they mention the 7.0 that killed 300,000 and left 1.3 million homeless in Haiti.

  NOT TRYING TO DEFEND THE WTS HERE, but according to the CD library, it was never a matter of promoting an increase in the numbers. So the information from the USGS about the number of earthquakes remaining constant does not seem to fly in the face of what the WTS has been saying. Has the information in the library been altered? Did the brothers read too much in to what the society was really saying again.

  When will the rank and file ever learn?
• 

  Wizard of Oz

  When their particular time has come?OMG
• 

  transhuman68

  From Paradise Lost (1958 hard copy) pg. 183, paragraph 28:

  28 Now we learn that along with disease, Jesus named great earthquakes. Since 1914 earthquakes have been great. At Mark 13:8 the Son of God said: "There will be earthquakes in one place after another." True it is: since 1914 earthquakes have occurred more often than ever before. Since 1914 earthquakes have taken thousands of lives, such as the 1923 earthquake in Japan that killed 99,331 persons. From 1915 to 1955 earthquakes killed about 850,000 people.

  Read more here:

  http://corior.blogspot.com/2006/02/watchtower-society-backpedals-on.html
• 

  Flat_Accent

  They have always taken that scripture to mean 'increases in xyz'. So they'll plug whatever BS statistic they can come up with.

  http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/earthquakes.php

  There have been more natural earthquakes in the earth in the last four years than in any previous period in earth's history" World Distress Why? The Remedy (1923) p.26
  
  "Even then, if the exaggerated figures of past centuries are accepted at full value, the above figures show the average annual death rate was greatly accelerated from and after 1914-from 4,000 killed per year it leaped to 40,000! Death and horror in concentrated form is mankind's portion since 1914." Watchtower 1951 Apr 1 p. 202
  
  "Significantly, since 1914 there have been more major earthquakes than in any previous period of similar length in recorded history." Watchtower 1961 Oct 15 p.628
  
  "On the average, about ten times as many have died each year from earthquakes since 1914 as in previous centuries." Life - How Did It Get Here? By Evolution or by Creation? p.225
  
  ""There will be great earthquakes, and in one place after another pestilences [disease epidemics] and food shortages." (Luke 21:11) That well fits events since 1914, as there has been a huge increase in the distresses from such calamities." Does God Really Care About Us? p.20
  
  "From the time Jesus gave his prophecy until 1914, history records five earthquakes that each took 100,000 lives or more " Awake 1982 Jul 8 p.16
  
  "But Jesus foretold "great earthquakes." (Luke 21:11) Has the frequency of these really changed? ... Since 1914 the yearly average of reported severe earthquakes has soared to over 11 times what it was during the thousand years before then. Is more than that required to fulfill the prophecy?" Awake! 1984 Oct 22 p.7
  
  "This means that, in comparison with the previous 2,000 years, the average per year has been 20 times as great since 1914." Reasoning from the Scriptures (1985) p.236
  
  "Such an increase in earthquakes does not surprise Jehovah's Witnesses." Awake! 1995 Aug 22 p.27
  
  "During the last 2,500 years, only nine earthquakes have each killed over 100,000 people. Four of these quakes have occurred since 1914." Watchtower 1998 Sep 15 p.7
• 

  mP

  and before 1900 earthquakes destroyed no cars or televisions. given the numbers of these that get damaged in modern high tech earthquakes its obvious jehovah is brining armageddon from krypon.
• 

  Disillusioned Lost-Lamb

  Earthquakes have always happened one place after another; it’s called seismic activity and this process has been going on long before mankind’s existence.

  All you have to do is watch either the Discovery, Science or History channel to know earthquakes are definitely NOT on the rise.

  Earth is just doin’ it’s thing, nothing more.

  Apparently this is too heavy, or evil, for most witlesses to understand.
• 

  serein

  earthquakes dont mean real earthquakes it means somthing else,it means revolutions and goverments and countrys having lots of problems like the econamy and uprisings and what not, imo.
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  serein

  i read it on a site i was looking at on symbols it sounded more reasonable than litral earthquakes
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  thetrueone

  Since the ancients believed earthquakes were caused by gods in a show of displeasure or vengeance toward the

  people who worshiped these select gods, its not surprising that those words were spoken concerning the Hebrew god's final return.

  In reality when the earth's Teutonic plates were in even more motion, creating the extraneously large mountain ranges such as the Rockies,

  thats when you could say there were more earthquakes in one place after another.

  Of course the WTS. doesn't know shit about the earth's geographical evolution, they're just poorly educated religious zealots, trying to sell

  their literature.
• 

  Chariklo

  I had an elderly sister on the phone this evening. She was trying to prove to me that I was being led astray, and that the WT had the truth. I'm fond of her. She is 84, in poor health, and has been a Witness for over half a century.

  After asking me some very silly but predictable questions about what I thought about the way the world was going, the decline in morals etc, she asked, "Well what do you think about the way the weather's changing?"

  Me: (Remembering this is someone old and frail whom I like and don't want to upset.) "What exactly do you mean?"

  "Well, I mean, the way the seasons are all wrong, the way the ice caps are melting."

  Me. "But this has happened before."

  "No, we've never had the ice caps melting"

  Me: "Yes, many times in Earth's history we've had very warm periods and very cold periods. You've heard of the Ice Ages? And you know that Britain was once tropical?"

  "I've heard that some people think this may have happened once. I don't believe it." Pause. "Well, what do you think about all these homosexuals"

  I took pity on her and brought it to a close.