Has anyone heard this phrase " I did indeed see God once, his face was on a dollar bill ?
WT Society holds EXTREME Responsibility for 1975 and False Expectations
by flipper 140 Replies latest jw friends
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Finkelstein
By the way in case people are not aware of this, the main person/people who conjured up 1975 and this fraud dating was no other
than F Franz together with N Knorr, both self described anointed ones. Its quite laughable ... really
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Finkelstein
bttmp.
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Gopher
Yes Finkelstein, ol' Freddy was the Watchtower Society's chief doctrinnaire from the time in the 30's-40's when JF Rutherford started to lose day-to-day control of the society spending much time in exile at Beth-Sarim in San Diego.
Even during the time Nathan Homer (Simpson) Knorr was the president from the 40's to the 70's, Knorr was mainly the chief operating officer interested in growing the organization while Freddy kept the mad doctrines coming!
Certainly Freddy was the guy who initiated and emphasized the Watchtower's 6000-year chronology which pointed to 1975. Funny how you don't hear a peep out of the WTS these days about the 6000 years. That piece of malarkey surved its purpose and was swiftly retired in the late 1970's.
1975 was certainly egg on the face of Fred, but he had the cojones to keep going with his whacky doctrine-making all during his time as WTS president after Knorr passed. In Fred's biography article that appeared in the Watchtower magazine before his death, this old man said that the passing of more time (assumedly meaning that the end about 2 decades overdue by his calculations) only made him MORE sure that he was right. He certainly promoted cognitive dissonance to the best of his human ability, parallel to Newspeak in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. -
Quendi
I haven’t read all the pages of this thread but wanted to contribute my experience. I first came in contact with Jehovah’s Witnesses as a boy in 1968. The frenzy leading to 1975 was well underway by then, having been incited by the book Life Everlasting—In Freedom of the Sons of God which had been released in 1966. By the time I started studying on my own in 1974, that frenzy was out of control.
Many of us had very high hopes as “the critical year 1975,” as Awake! breathlessly proclaimed, finally arrived. I remember the Memorial celebration that year was held on 27 March. After our congregation held its celebration, many of us walked outside the hall and stared up at the full moon and speculated that this might possibly be the very last Memorial we would ever celebrate. It was all very heady stuff for Yours Truly.
But, even though the 1975 talk was all the rage, not everyone was caught up and swept away by the hype. The man who studied with me, Terry Wheat, was far more circumspect that most. He constantly reminded me that my dedication to Jehovah was a lifelong one and would not terminate once Armageddon had come and gone. In his view, it didn’t matter when the end of the world came. What was more important was for each Witness to continue to live up to his dedication. I never forgot that.
Nobody in my Tuscaloosa, Alabama congregation sold homes or businesses. As a matter of fact, life continued as normal for all the Witnesses I knew. Many of them led ordinary and uncomplicated lives anyway and saw no reason to make radical changes. Quite a few had families to raise and elderly parents to care for and weren’t going to disrupt their lives on the hope the End would come. Seeing those examples definitely helped me to keep my emotional balance.
So while I felt disappointment when 1975 came and went with nothing happening, I stayed the course. I got baptized in January 1976 and labored in the WTS vineyard for many years thereafter. The first seeds of doubt were sown in me by the November 1, 1995 issue of The Watchtower with its twisted explanation of what a “generation” meant. I knew then something was seriously wrong with Witness theology, but it would take another twelve years before I finally realized that I needed to leave the cult forever.
Quendi
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Finkelstein
1975 was an indulgent commercialized fraud that helped greatly into luring more JW followers and increased the distribution of the WTS. literature
base. It also was instrumental in ruining many people's lives in the process. When 1975 did arrive by then the WTS honchos knew that it was all
a venturing success by the incoming numbers. And yes folks that why JW publishers have to hand in their publishing report in monthly !
Numbers are very important to the WTS for obvious reasons.
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Joepublisher1
Quendi said, “The first seeds of doubt were sown in me by the November 1, 1995 issue of The Watchtower with its twisted explanation of what a “generation” meant. I knew then something was seriously wrong with Witness theology, but it would take another twelve years before I finally realized that I needed to leave the cult forever.”
My experience is very similar to yours Quendi regarding that Nov 1 st , 1995 issue that trashed the VERY long held and deeply embraced belief and teaching that the generation of 1914 would NOT die off the earthly scene before the end comes – it was such a core doctrine that in the Live Forever book this teaching/belief was called “a certainty”. We were constantly being reminded how old that “1914 generation” was getting and that the anointed numbers were going down – one of the lines of so-called evidence that the end is near! (Of course, the latter teaching was eventually trashed, too!)
It struck me that so many of my fellow JWs didn’t mention anything about this change – whereas common sense would have told you that it should have raised questions in their mind about the credibility of the WTS leaders. However, after seeing so many post similar comments on the internet, apparently many others were like me in that that change (to the 1914 generation teaching) opened up a seed of doubt! And, it took many of us years before we finally realized that this organization is NOT who they say they are (i.e. God’s earthly organization, the truth, etc.). Indoctrination runs deep, does it not?
Further research into the WTS and its history (over the internet) caused many of us to come to the conclusion, why support an organization that is nothing more than a hoax!
Like I’ve said before, after that change to the 1914 generation I realized that most of the teachings of this religion are subject to being “tweaked”, “changed” or outright “trashed” and some teachings even have flip-flops in explanations throughout the years! Once you realize these things, you can’t have “faith” in what they currently teach as “the Truth” and the “New Light” doctrine can only be accepted as a concocted teaching to explain away the many ERRORS, FALSE PREDICTIONS, and ON-GOING CHANGES in this religion. One of the other straws that broke the camel’s back was realizing that there is NO ACCOUNTABILITY from the WTS leaders! Think about that statement.
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flipper
Been really busy the last week with my son & his girlfriend visiting from out of town. They are leaving today so I'll finally have more of a chance to respond to your posts. Thanks for all the great responses !
JOE PUBLISHER- You hit the nail on the head when you said the " WT Society whitewashes their history " and that you found the WT leaders claims are all a big hoax and they are not accountable for any of their false statements. That tells you pretty much that they are just a scamming, mind control organization.
JHINE- You are welcome.
HEARTOFABOY- I remember the 6 month study program as well as I was a young teenager in 1975 or years just before that also. It's true what you say about delivering those tracts in 1973 and 1974- the WT leaders said it was an URGENT work , peoples lIVES depended on it. Uh-huh. Those same people are much older now in 2013, still alive. Nobody destroyed anybody. And all the GB members from back then ? They're all dead as doornails rotting in their graves.
FINKELSTEIN- Lies and a scamming organization is basically what the WT Society is. As you say 1975 was just another marketing ploy to promote WT lies and scamming of its own members selling false illusions. WT leaders mode of operation continues to follow this path here still in 2013.
SAMMIELEE 24- Hey Sammies wife, good hearing from you ! Say hi to Sam ! WT Society IS responsible for the lives they have destroyed for sure ! As you stated the WTS betrayed that trust and faith we had in them and stomped on all of those failed hopes. They are HUGELY accountable.
TRANSHUMAN 68- Uh-huh. A short time left. The WT Society has pushed this " urgency " thingie for 134 years now. Amazing.
GOPHER- You are right. WT leaders have pushed this malarkey for over a century now. They'd keep this scam going for thousands of years if they could.
QUENDI- Like yourself I was a born-in JW. I started doubting the " end times " in 1989, and it continued from there. I know of several ex-JWs who were affected by the 1995 fiasco as well. I'm just glad many of us have escaped to our freedom of mind and thinking away from this mind control cult. I'm glad you escaped too Quendi
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Heartofaboy
No probs Flipper, we know what we went through don't we, & no matter how much the leaders of the borg may wish it, our experiences at their hands are not going to be forgotten any time soon.
Take care my friend.
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Quendi
I’ve been mulling over this thread and reflecting over the last 38 years and the impact Jehovah’s Witnesses have had on them. I appreciated what our friend, Joepublisher1, has shared about his experience. His has paralleled so many others, mine included. Like him, flipper and others, it took years after the first seeds of doubt were planted before they bore the fruit of freedom from this cult.
So when I think about the friends and family I still have in the cult, I have to realize that their departure from the Witnesses, should that ever happen, won’t be quick and speedy. Joepublisher1 is right to say that indoctrination runs very deep and overthrowing it comes only with great effort and cost.
When I first began to doubt back in 1995, there was an immediate feeling of revulsion against myself for daring to question “Jehovah’s organization.” I remembered all the arguments that had been used against other opposers, how they had succumbed to arrogance, pride, hubris or the desire for some kind of sexual or other fleshly fulfillments. If I weren’t careful, I would do the same. So I initially suppressed my doubts and carried on, hoping that Jehovah would make everything clear in time if I exercised patience and maintained my faith.
It took trusting an elder who was a real Bible student and the trauma of being disfellowshipped to incite me to act on my doubts. The elder helped me to see that the WTS theology was for the most part hopelessly false, particularly with respect to its interpretation of Bible prophecy. Being disfellowshipped for being a gay man was another major turning point. Why would God damn me to eternal death simply for being who I truly was? Otherwise, he would have answered my prayers to change my nature into the one the WTS said I should embrace.
By 2007, I had come to realize the organization was a counterfeit, but I still sought reinstatement because I wanted to enjoy fellowship with friends and family again. I planned to get reinstated and then slowly and gently fade away. However, the continual rejections of my requests for reinstatement made me realize that going back was not only worthless but wrong as well. I was then able to turn my back on the WTS and its entire works for good. I have been much happier since then.
But all of this took years and my growth as a person has been ongoing ever since. I still have faith in the Bible and I still hold on to the hope that eventually our Creator will turn his full attention to humanity and answer the Lord’s Prayer in full. In the meantime, I live my life as best I can, free and secure in the knowledge that there is no reason to rejoin this execrable cult.
The 1975 fiasco seriously damaged many people. The WTS sought to shift the blame for its wrongheaded prophesying on the rank-and-file, saying we had “run ahead of Jehovah” and taken liberties with interpreting what had been published in WTS magazines and books. That is a lie, one of the worst in the long list of lies this organization has propagated. And even though I knew many who kept their heads during those hysterical and frenzied years leading up to 1975, we suffered nonetheless. Instead of developing the God-given talents and abilities we had, we let them languish and wither because even though 1975 had passed, we were told the End was still “soon” and we should not act upon any plans for personal growth and advancement.
I am glad to read the experiences posted here because even though many of us were damaged and wounded by the false hopes we had, most have escaped this cult’s clutches and are moving on with our lives in the years we have remaining. My friends, I wish all of you the very best and remember George Eliot’s wonderful exhortation: “It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
Quendi