1975 - Love it or hate it?

by outbutnotdown 27 Replies latest jw friends

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  outbutnotdown

  I find it quite interesting that, due to minimus' thread about "the end", there were a lot of comments about 1975. Everybody who made comments about it here didn't seem very bothered by the fact that they had such high hopes for the year and were let down by yet another false JW prediction. Yet the borg chastises and condemns as being arrogant those same people who may have drifted away because of it.

  To me, that says a lot about how, even subconsciously, great it must be to be out of that high control organization. The ones who were guilty of the false prophecy are bitter and yet the victims of the false prophecy are able to put it in the past so easily.

  Makes me believe even more that it is against good mental health and against human nature to be involved in an organization that teaches us delusional thoughts.

  Brad
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  Sassy

  Actually when I have thought about this date.. contemplated on it. They handled it very well when things didn't fall into place as they expected... it was almost like if you were really paying attention they smoothed it over so you went..........ah.. it was me.. I was speculating.. my mistake.. we dont' know the day or the hour.. just keep on preaching..

  I was 16 in 1975. Maybe that is why it is kind of sketchy to me.. sure I remember being 16 but I remember more details about following boys down the hallways in school.. passing notes at the KH..

  To be honest I almost remembered the 75 date purely as speculation of the brothers in the hall.. NOT from the WTS. I even remember being told that the society never put it in print.. so at the time I thought.. oh.. ok.. I thought they had. guess I was wrong. And I just kept following blindly..

  well since I left I have done more reading and I now know they did too point to 1975, it was not just men talking..

  so how did they pull the wool over some of our eyes? are they that good???

  or is it just that I was a teenager? and don't remember very well??
• 

  ezekiel3

  Check out my post "Thoughts from the inside" in "Beliefs...". I find it most interesting that the Baby-Boomers are the core of the organization now; it was their group that was sucked into the Organization during the pre-75 zealotry. It seems to me they can't let themselves down from that initial ferver, even though its gone stale. They sacrificed their prime times and their children (who have usually DFed or left).

  Remember the mantra: Where else will we go? It is their last and threadbare comfort blanket.
• 

  Sassy

  well maybe they are all just like me.. we don't remember the specifics.. thus why the 1975 date would not be that important when it failed to bring about predictions..

  what kills me is that we followed blindly..

  Its like an argument people have that carries on for years and years.. eventually they even forget what the argument was about. just that they were mad..

  well those people that have been raised in it.. I think it is like that.. they don't know why their parents or grandparents chose this religion.. it was just instilled into them and they can't even remember why the family said they believed in it..

  only to just keep believing..

  ***********************************************

  side note.. what I remember about 1975?

  the young brother in my congregation who I had the HUGEST crush on.. graduated that year..

  NOW THAT I REMEMBER WITH CLARITY
• 

  garybuss

  
  
  At a circuit assembly in 1976, a district manager said about predictions about 1975, "Brothers, if you heard it, you did not hear it here!". I kicked the door on the way out:-)
  
  That's when I knew Rutherford had it right. Religion is a racket and a snare!
  
  
  
  
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  talesin

  Yah, 1975. That's the year I went to another province to serve 'where the need is greater'. Long story short, I came home in a coma, recovered by the summer of '76, and guess what?

  NEVER WENT BACK TO THE HALL.

  There were other factors involved, but the 1975 LIE (which is how I think about it), certainly played a part.

  (note to sassy,,, still waiting, girl! wish I could come to your 'fest)

  talesin
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  onacruse

  Every JW I've ever talked to about 1975 have one thing in common:

  Selective memory.

  No one, and I say with with the greatest possible emphasis...no one, (assuming they have one iota of brain-cells left) who went through that time can honestly deny the hype and expectations that the WTS foisted upon us, and which the vast majority of us swallowed.

  This is not speculation, or insinuation. It's a matter of fact; was there, saw it, know it.

  At risk of being out-of-line, I simply have to say that anybody who disagrees with what I say above, and who asserts that the WTS did not promote 1975...simply has their head stuck so far up their ass that they're looking at the world through their belly-button.

  Craig (of the quattro-decennial class)
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  Gopher

  "Stay alive till '75!" was the battle cry. No it wasn't printed that way in the magazines, it's just the way it was expressed by people at ALL levels of the organization.

  There were a few cautionary "it might not come in that EXACT year" statements going around the organization, but the thought was that if it didn't come in '75, it'd be quite soon thereafter.

  The amount of expectation and speculation was overwhelming. Craig is right, nobody can deny it.

  When 1975 passed, personally I didn't care that much. I just couldn't imagine the frightening scenario coming to pass.

  Now in a way, I'm glad they did it. People who examine the history of JW's can see it was a major goof on the part of the WT Society to print so much about that year, raising expectations, and then later blame all the excitement on the followers.

  The 1975 debacle helps categorize the WT Society in the company of religious charlatans who raise false hopes only to see them dashed. The power trip the WTS is/was on is a sight to behold.
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  Sassy

  Their weird thing is Ona............that I really did think back and try to remember if they has been the ones to promote the date? or just men on the side..

  I feel like I was brainwashed after the fact.. conditioned, so that I didn't see they had been wrong... that they had said something when in fact they did..

  It kind of bothers me because I know my mom wasn't lying to me to cover up for them..she really believes it too.. and I can't tell you how many times I have heard brothers and sisters say THE WTS didn't specify a date, MEN did..

  but that isn't true.. but people believe it..

  how could we have lived through it and not remember that? It naws away at me why I can't remember it with my own ears.. I just keep hoping it was because I was busy watching the boys at the Hall and not paying attention to the meetings..
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  myauntfanny

  But it's just funny, if the WBTS didn't specify the date officially, how come we ALL know that date, all of us who lived through time? Mention 1975 to any JW who was alive and a JW then, they know the date. If it was only a rumour, it wasn't just a local one. And the head office didn't do anything to discourage it, that's for sure. But the WBTS does tend to operate in that shifty, slippery way, so that later they can wriggle out of things later. That alone tells me how cynical they really are about the whole thing.