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Never. I never did believe that Armageddon was ever going to be a reality. I was drug to meetings beginning about 1953. Didn't believe it then, don't believe it now, nor at any time in between.
Just don't think God is the type to murder off 99.98888888888% of his children for what amounts to a ritual error. That's a pretty small-minded and mean concept of God's nature and character.
Love & Peace,
Franc
My $0.02
Not being - or ever have been - a JW I can't speak for myself.
I have how ever heard my wifes sisters husband say that he once thought that "If the end doesn't come before 2000, then something is wrong!".
Well year 2000 has come and gone - and he's still a JW..
Me father in law volunteered to get fired from his work when they were to fire some people. He did that because he expected the end to come in '75.
Stay Alive Until '75!
Take Care
Mr. Magoo
Comment,
Nuts as it seems now, I just wanted to see Pompey get promoted up into the old first division before armageddon put a stop to soccer matches.
We actually made it in '88, only to be relegated back down the following season.
As I'm 54 now, and judgeing by the way that we've been playing lately, I'm wondering if promotion will come again this century.
Englishman.
..... fanaticism masquerading beneath a cloak of reasoned logic.
From 1966 to 1975, I really thought Armageddon would start sometime during the fall of 1975. I remember vacationing with another JW family during fall 1974, and talking about this being the last time we would vacation together in this system of things. When I asked them about our expectations a few years later, they shut all communication off to me because I was trying to "stumble them." Talk about a cult mind-set . . .
Don’t miss Jehovah Will Murder Billions
Having been in it pre 1975 I fell victim to the hype for that year. Also the Cuban blockade as well.
I remember that when I was a little kid, I would count up in my head how old I would be when Armageddon came and I would have to endure torture for being a witness. I was 17 in 1975.
But, I stopped believing that when I was about 15. All the things that needed to occur were no where near happening. I forget the order specifically now, but it was something like.
1. Nations declare peace and security.
2. Religion is destroyed.
3. Great tribulation starts (JWs are hunted down simultaneously)
4. Armageddon comes where Jehovah destroys the nations attacking his people.
None of these of course happened in the 70s. Neither does Religion look like it is going anywhere now. It would certainly take a major event to turn billions away from religion in a short period of time. Thing is, most people get more religious during bad times.
I don't see it happening sociologically. People mistrust their governments far more than they mistrust their religions. If anything, I could see religion destroying government before the vice versa occurred. Look at the Muslim countries where religion is the state. Can you see Iran and Saudi Arabia outlawing Islam?
But, I continue to spectate and see what happens.
hugs
Joel
I was born into it in 1972. I remember walking out of "Return Of The Jedi" thinking that George Lucas would never get the chance to make the prequals that he had promised.
lol, slayer, i was about to say the very same thing! as a child, i think the biggest impact i expected armageddon to have on my life was that i would never get to see the prequels (or sequel episodes 7-9, which lucas orignally planned) when Ep I was getting hyped, i had to explain to my wife (JW but not very familiar with star wars) this whole culture among JWs my age, how we were all secretly dissapointed that we would never see any more star wars, and how relieved we secretly were to get the chance!
mox
Well I KNEW that it would come before I graduated, but I was kinda hoping it would wait till right afterward, I wanted to graduate, but not really have to pioneer hahhaha well I did that for 4 years, and then fortuenly got struck with the truth ast spring, so I didn't waste anymore time. All my JW friends were acting as if life was usual, I don't think any of them expect it to come soon, they're all getting married and working full time, so I don't see the urgency anymore at all!!!
Ven
"I'm gonna wash that borg right out of my hair,I'm gonna wash that borg right out of my hair,I'm gonna wash that borg right out of my hair, and send it on it's way"
Pearl Harbor in 1942, of course. Having a parent read all those horror stories of Nazi German persecution--weeping, frightened.
In those days there was not just a Watchtower reader but also someone who stood up and asked the questions (rather than the conductor). Older brothers would pat me on the head, tell me it was too bad that I would never have this service privilege, because you had to be 10 years old--and the end would come before that. That's waaaaay over half a century ago.
Ah but Jehovah held back the cataclysm to spare recalcitrant ones. "You'll never have to register for the draft." (Had to be 18.) Had an enormous fight with my draft board, evening getting classified as 1-A, although in full-time service.
Fast forward to 1966, when Fred Franz released the "Life Everlasting" book. We had gone back to date-setting yet one more time! The crowd was electrified, I cringed, talked to older men in Writing, who shrugged it off that Freddie had gone off the deep end, wanting to see it so badly, and thinking it to be a stimulus even if it were wrong. After all, Paul had thought that way.
I knew that 1975 would be an enormous problem. Older folks, wiser, took me aside and pounced on my lack of faith. Family members gasped at my disbelief, were stumbled. Watched peers in traveling work do the countdown in months and even in DAYS from the platform. (Funny, in around 1980 I would never get any of them to own up to that. "WEH-ull! I never really believed that. I was just loyal.")
This is not the place to describe the surgeries I watched postponed, the homes sold, the lives completely disrupted ...
Wonder why I become unglued when someone who brags about being "in the truth" for 20 years (!) tells me the 1975 fiasco was all made up by apostates? About like when I'm told the Society does not discourage college.
Let me make a point: A few hardliners on the governing body are wild-eyed true believers who feel the Day is going to come any minute, and that's what drives them to make sure all the hardline stuff is shoveled out at the conventions such as at this summer. In their not feeling such certaintude, the progressives have a hard time of it. Were it simply only money!
Those of you who in their Journey have come across Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer" will understand.
Can't help but comment on something very ironic. For years the two Bible dramas at conventions were written by Ulysses V. Glass and Ed Dunlap. The Korah drama was Ed's. (Someone posted he was in the bindery when this brilliant Gilead instructor and writer was banished to a machine, saying, "Well, the doctor said exercise would be good for my health." Lord, I weep for Ed, who was as decent as he was brilliant.)
Anyway, Ed's old drama was just coarsened to an in-your-face diatribe this year, coming off much like the days of the Inquisition. "Yes, these are imperfect men, but they are INFALLIBLE when they speak as the governing body." Yessireee. Not much of a distinction when you are in a back room with the Torquemada bullies.
Can anyone confirm the figure I hear that 22,000 elders resigned during the last three years? (That's twenty-two thousand.)
"How'd he know?"
Maximus
My dad would invite me to go fishing with him on Sunday morning, he was never a believer, and before I would agree to go with him I would run outside to make sure it didn't look stormy. I was afraid armageddon would show up while I was fishing with my Dad instead of at the meeting. Of course I was excited about the whole '75 thing. In the late 60's I was in High School and most of the older ones felt that the world wouldn't make it till '75. Everything was just too rotten in the world for it to last that long. Got married in '73 and the wife and I never thought we'd have kids before the end. Well, we had kids but never thought they would have to go to school. Well, they went to school but we never thought they would graduate. Well, they graduated and so on and so on.
