by titch 128 Replies latest jw experiences
Their was also a book that was published around that time that claimed their would be famine in the world before the end of the century , very popular among witnesses .
smiddy
false prophets feeding falser prophets.
since 1975 the world population has doubled, and except for the perennial crisis areas, food production has sky - rocketed, and body mass greatly increased, look at KH, AH seats in the US now. wow! famine 1975? wrong. again.
I remember the hysteria mostly. I was criticised for buying a house with a mortgage since it was fundamentally dishonest because I knew I would not be paying it down.
I remember not being convinced, I couldn't see any change in the world whatsoever. I did somehow have some sort of warped stoical, weird loyalty that kept me from joining the apostate movement that saw a lot of people in our area start another sect. Poor mutts, all of us.
Why did I just not follow through and clear off then?
They have been teaching wrong things for over a century and all of their teachings have passed away unfulfilled.
It's fitting that Jesus exposes them in Matt 5:18-19:
"Truly I say to you that sooner would heaven and earth pass away than for one smallest letter or one stroke of a letter to pass away from the Law until all things take place. Whoever, therefore, breaks one of these least commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in relation to the Kingdom of the heavens."
Ironically, I learned this verse at the recent convention!
I also was a teenager in 1975. As someone else mentioned, it was the build up to 1975 in their books and other literature, starting with the freedom in the sons of God book 1966 (my mum still has that book).
It was all anyone talked about. I left school at 15 because of it. I remember going to friends' congregations and some of them had countdown charts on the wall!
The 1968 watchtower asked "Why are you looking forward to 1975". I wasn't really, I was scared, I didn't want anything to happen, but if it was going to as I was being led to believe then I wanted to be in what I thought was the 'only' place to be to survive. Looking back it all seems so ridiculous now that so many people could have believed this. We were deliberately led to believe this by their literature. It makes me mad when they all deny it was ever said.
That was the main reason I left. The constant denial that they never said it!
titch
You say it was the mindset of many? No it was the mindset of ALL. The R&F didn't make it up, it came from the top. We were all misled.
So, looking back in retrospect, do you remember anything---ANYTHING at all---that was happening on the world scene, that you would have thought, "Yeah, this is it, the Great Tribulation will soon be here, and the start of Armageddon"? Can you recall anything at all that would have caused you to think that?
I agree with you on that one, titch:
- By June 1975, there was absolutely nothing going on that could have caused a person to even begin thinking like that.
From what I recall, about the only noteworthy event that happened in 1975 was the real end of the Vietnam War. (The energy crisis, the moves to impeach Richard Nixon etc all occured the previous year, 1974 - and what the end of the Vietnam War had to do with Armegeddon, I could never figure out! )
That whole 1975 business did come from the top, too - much as they later tried to deny it. With magazine articles entitled "Why are you looking forward to 1975?", it was quite obvious what the WTS wanted its readers to think.
Bill.
"So, looking back in retrospect, do you remember anything---ANYTHING at all---that was happening on the world scene, that you would have thought, "Yeah, this is it, the Great Tribulation will soon be here, and the start of Armageddon"? Can you recall anything at all that would have caused you to think that?"
Yes! The friggin' cult caused me think like that. It wasn't any "mindset" or perception or rumour or any other BS that they claimed after when their prediction didn't come true. It came from the top. It was pronounced by elders and the ilk higher up, repeatedly at the KH and at conventions. That I do remember clearly, I'm not buying any of the denial. They're lying through their teeth. Many JWs back then were fearful yet excited. Some were just excited and happy, awaiting with glee the slaughter of millions of people (pretty sick, if you ask me).
I remember being fearful and fear is not something you easily forget. I remember being fearful for my dad since he had decided being a JW wasn't his thing but he was okay with my mother following her new religion if it made her happy. I was 14, so I wasn't too young to remember.
