How did 1975 affect you? (page 4)

startingover

I was going to be 21 in 1975. As a result of actually believing what I was hearing and watching the actions of those around me, I didn't bother applying myself at school. Why go to the work of studying if the end was coming? As I got older I had aspirations of becoming an arthitect. But the schooling would take too long, past 1975 so that wouldn't work.

I made a big move across country in 1975 and the excitement of the new life it brought in a new environment made it so that I didn't notice when 1975 came and went.

When confronting my parents with my beliefs and actions at that time, they tell me that they don't know where I got those ideas as they didn't feel that way. My response is thanks for telling me. If I didn't hear it at home I know I heard it well at the KH. I really don;t think my parents are being honest with me. I think they did believe it.

rosemary

I was never a JW...(but recently i could have almost been)....I was 11 in 1975 and i never heard of a Jehovahs Witness....nor the end of the world.....BUT...just over a year ago I was given lessons by an internet friend in the USA....i had known him for about 18 months previously.....and so I had on line Bible study....he went on about the importance of Paradice on Earth....it was his selling point to me...and also Noah's Ark....he kept on saying armageddon isn't to far away...i need to draw closer to Jehovah.....i had doub't on things in the Bible and esp over their belief Jesus died on a spike/stake.....one doubt lead to another....and in the end he said the next armageddon is 2012....i'll wait and see.....

So i asked him why the change in dates....he said it was becoz they were refining their belief and improving it.....

1975.....i was young and innocent and none of this was in my head then.....and i believed in Jesus....i went to the Good News Club at school.....i learnt to love other people and to be good and polite and honest.....

Undecided

Thanks Liberty & Swan,

That was a good summation of what has happened, at least I think so, since I haven't been back to see the changes. Thanks for getting me up to date on things. I hadn't really thought about the way things are now in the congregations as a whole. I've read the experiences of many but haven't really thought of the overall changes in the congregations.

Ken P.

undercover

How could it be the Watch Tower Society's fault since they are "Spirit Directed"? They hoped that the average JW would be too stupid to remember where they got their ideas about 1975 and by and large they were right. Ask an active JW today about 1975 and they will swear that the W.T. Society never made such an error.

I can attest to that. I was a kid in the 60s and I remember all of the "Big A" talk from about 68 on. The pictures in some of the publications were scary to us kids. I was a young teen by 75 and had pretty much conceded to the fact(or what we thought was fact) that I wouldn't graduate high school, every own a car or have a girlfriend let alone get married in this sytem of things.

Well, thirty years later and nothing happened. Except that I did graduate high school, I've owned many cars, trucks and motorcycles and had several girlfriends before getting married.

I was talking to one of my parents about the 100 years of failed predictions and when I mentioned 1975, they immediately interrupted and said that the WTS never, ever said Armageddon would happen in 75. While correct on a technicality(they were very coy and never came right out said it would definitely happen) it's still confirmed by what was printed and by what people from all over remember from that time that the WTS did point to that date as very important and that Armageddon was very, very close.

Now thirty years of denying that they ever said it, people believe it. People who were there and experienced all the hype today have fallen for the denials. There's where you see the mind control. They got people to believe something. Then it didn't happen, so they blamed the followers and the followers(most of them anyway) bought it and blamed themselves. Decades go by of telling people "we never said that" and the people who believed it the first time now believe that it never happened.

littlemike

I was only 16 in 1975 and as a clever (cocky) teenager I always thought it would come in 1976!

The change in the generation doctrine affected me most as it started to confirm my suspicions that all was not right

I beleive the generation change was the single change that had the most effect in their history. 5 million people at that time had moulded their lives on that "end time" prophecy and then they moved the goalposts.

The sad thing is in 5 years time witness who are then in their 20s wont even remember this doctrine and the movement will just carry on

rosemary

sorry...

for the typo's.....

TresHappy

We were contacted by the JW's in 1973. I was in elementary school and my parents informed us no more Christmas, but don't worry, 1975 is just around the corner so everyone else will be dead but us so it didn't matter. What a thing to tell a child...1975 came and went but we were still here and still no Christmas.

Just think, if 1975 had come true, there would have never been a TV show called "Love Boat".

littlemike

I was only 16 in 1975 and i always thought it would come in 1976

The generation doctrine was the change that affected me most. I think this is the change that has had the most effect on the movement. 5 million people built their lives around that certain "end time " doctrine then they moved the goalposts with no end to it at all.

People are lost because of that

The sad thing is in 5 years time it will be 15 years since thay changed it and anybody aged about 20 will know nothing about how certain this doctrine was. Then they will say the society never really said that it was the brothers fault!.

BrendaCloutier

I was 18 in 1975, and got married in June of that year.

The congregation AK-Jeff described was similar to the one I grew up in. Families would get together for picnics in the park, anyone (JW) was welcome. Kids would play football (My dad was shocked when I actually caught the ball). I remember one snowy cold winter when my dad took me and we drove around in his VW bug delivering boxes of food. I remember phonecalls to the JW in the other congregation who owned a heating oil company and was told to go deliver $XX heating oil to so-and-so, and they could come buy for the money. When sister so-and-so showed up faithfully in the winter wearing a light weight overcoat and summer flats with no stockings, my mom took her shopping instead of out in service for shoes and stockings and gave her a wool coat.

I don't think the congregation changed it's flavor in 1975 at the flip of a switch.

However, when I got married I moved to Vanc. WA, Central cong. where I had friends, or thought I did. My dad gave several talks over there and was a respected elder. Well, I married the wrong family and I was shunned by everyone there! The Elders in that cong. were a pack of wolves.

When I was 11-12 (cant remember exactly) I questioned my mom why that wonderful baptist woman who fostered children, and invited the neighbor children in for meals, but loved her church and loved Jesus, was so wrong and was going to be killed at Armageddon. The weak answer I got about the truth, and her having heard it, etc. I finally heard for what it was: a Lame Excuse!

Add at 14 when I got baptized I expected some sort of change to take place in me. Something. Anything! Nada. Nothing. All I got was dripping wet and cold in front of 10,000 people.

So when the Vancouver sh*t hit the fan for me, It just reinforced the doubts I had been developing.

One very possitive way it affected me? I chose not to have children for 5 years. At 5 years of marriage to that "wonderful JW man" the relationship was so bad, there was no way I was going to bring a child into it. Because of my journey in this life, I made a final choice not to have children when I was 30. The best decision I ever made.

Glad 1975 came and went. Glad Armageddon didn't.

AlanF

I learned about the significance of 1975 in 1968, best I can remember. It changed my outlook, that's for sure! I failed to go to college, and pittered away my life until 1975 came and went. Then I smartened up and went to college, and life got way better. I lost nine years of career path; and will never recover financially.

AlanF

How did 1975 affect you?

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