My wife's parents who are pretty obsessed with the Watchtower religion are going on holiday more than they are at home these days and spending money like it is something evil to be got rid of. I have not been to a meeting in a long time but after reading the thread on hysteria by Campaign Of Hate and the whole TV broadcasting thing I got to wondering if they really are ramping up the 'sense of urgency'. Many on here are better informed than me so I'd be interested to hear whether this is a common thing.
End times madness?
by erbie 10 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Finkelstein
If you reflexively look back at the teachings of the WTS. decades ago you will see that there wasn't a time when they weren't ramping up the urgency, its been one of the most viable and potent marketing strategies used by this religious publishing house.
1950's, 60's 70's 80's 90's etc.
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Ignoranceisbliss
It's the same ol rigamerole.
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Half banana
The Bible students were only a new name on a continuum of Adventist belief. There was no evidence of any divine intervention at the emergence of Russell’s attempts to fix a date for the return of JC. His contribution was a cunning one, he said: “It did happen after all, just as the Adventists predicted; that in 1874 he did come... but invisibly”. Snake oil never worked better than this! For on this exquisitely unprovable statement, the whole wretched edifice of the Watchtower and subsequently Jehovah’s Witnesses was built. Fudging and moving the dates as time proved them to be entirely false...thus setting a template for Watchtower tactics and morality.
The Adventists too were part of a longer experience of human imaginings. Not just 1844, the year of " the great disappointment" and 1799 etc. The “end of the world” has forever been a part of human culture. The oldest reference I have found goes back to Mesopotamia;
“According to Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts (1979), an Assyrian clay tablet dating to approximately 2800 BC was unearthed bearing the words "Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common." This is one of the earliest examples of the perception of moral decay in society being interpreted as a sign of the imminent end.”
This innate idea leads me to think that our being aware of our own mortality is just another way of saying that “It is all going to end”. Sublimating perhaps the idea that we individually die and projecting that onto the world?
Whatever the psychology, the WTBTS like all doomsday cults, feeds off this entrenched idea and rakes in the money. We have records of the society making a million Dollars in the early days and one hundred and forty years later they are making tax-free billions.
One significant change that we can observe is how they will present their credentials to any potential new punter that they have God’s special attention. Formerly they deceitfully pointed to 1914 and conflated it with World War 1 as if that were their prediction by God's hand. On this basis they then falsely predicted “the end” before the demise of the generation which saw 1914. With the pathetic “overlapping generations” cop-out this must now be seen as a farce. But we should not underestimate or ever forget the tragedy of countless millions of lives misspent and sacrificed in pursuing Watchtower deceptions.
Doomsday merchants rely on the grim ignorance of both their members and the public, their history shows that they can and do earn prodigiously from "ramping up the urgency" and perpetual disappointment... but now we have universal information...how long can they last?
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Splash
Didn't you know? The end is very, very near!
w69 2/1 p. 92 They Feel the Urgency
"The end of this system of things is very, very close, and we all know it!"w77 4/1 p. 198 par. 5 How Can You Find Real Security?
evidence from fulfilled Bible prophecy shows that we are very, very late in the "last days" of this present wicked system of things.w81 12/15 pp. 28-29 Active Christians in a Critical Time
what indications do we have that it is going to terminate very, very soon?w97 1/1 p. 11 par. 18 Let All Glorify Jehovah!
...the end of Satan's system is very, very near!w98 8/15 p. 24 Living and Preaching in the Shadow of a Volcano
Though no one knows exactly when that end will come, there is no doubt that it is coming and that it is very, very close.Splash
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bemused
Looking on the bright side, perhaps they're waking up and deciding to have some fun with their lives.
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erbie
Okay, I get it guys. The end is as close as ever.
Just the same old shite but on a different day right?
I genuinely feel sorry for them.
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William Penwell
It is our ego and our fear of death that makes us feel we are so significant that a god would have chosen our life time as being so important. In reality we are not anymore important than any other generation and in a thousand years who will even care or know what we did in this time. That is why it is so important to live each day to the fullest knowing it could be our last. -
Separation of Powers
For the JWs it is always "end times madness." It is like that furniture store that is having the perpetual "GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE!!!" Having gone through the fiasco that was 1975....it is no different today. There is always something somewhere that somehow has some bearing on the so-called end. -
Vidiot
erbie - "I got to wondering if they really are ramping up the 'sense of urgency'."
Your perceptions are correct.
There is a tangible sense of semi-desperation coming out of the Society, these days, and with desperation comes increasingly irrational behavior and rhetoric.