by Big Dog 77 Replies latest jw experiences
I may never talk to her again, and I really don't care. I have disfellowshiped her.
Larc ...
that's really sad and I'm sorry to hear that. My mother pushed away a younger sister years ago when she was disfellowshiped. I was a teenager then. She's a drunk now and hates my mom with a passion. She calls every few years just to cuss her out. My mom loves her. But sadly, she loves Jehovah more.
tS
I started High School in the fall of '74. We had been around the "troof" for about 4 years prior and Dad was an elder. My mom had sewn a few books into furniture etc. People were constantly telling me I'd never finish high school and were counting down.
My folks came in around '70-71 and gave up a middle- class income and house based on "the time we are in". The '75 idea was a big point in our studies. My folks were converted by Steven Lett's (current GB member) folks Mark and Jeanne Lett. They were pretty emphatic about '75 from the start. Mark went into the Circuit work later.
Yea.... they were expecting '75 to be the start of the Big A.
I remember Nixon using the phrase "true peace and security" in speach he gave before he left office (seems like late '73). Our Hall went nuts...."must be the start". Seems like Ford and Carter worked the same phrase in later with similar reactions.
The Public talks got pretty specific about '75. Wasnt there a WT study that detailed Adam's creation right down to the month? Then it dialed in a fudge factor of a couple of months and put the End of 6000 years right about OCT 75?
Ahh.....the Joys of revisionist history!
~Hill
My father and stepmother became JWs in 1972. We were in a very 75-thumping cong. I remember asking an elder: "What will you do if it doesn't come in 75?" He said: "I don't even think of that: it will happen in 75!"
At first my father didn't believe that too much (he was the one quoting "the day or the hour nobody knows" back then). But when the first European oil-crisis came up and some temporary distribution shortages due to panick effects he changed his mind. He bought a quantity of basic food (flour, sugar, etc.) for the great tribulation -- most of it was eaten by weevils in the next years; he sold some nice vineyard he had in Beaujolais (it would be a fortune now! ) and shortly afterward left his job.
Strangely enough, when 75 came and went, we didn't think of it too much (sometimes joking about it, while still believing the end was near). There was no massive defection around us.
I also remember ...in early 1968, our Circuit Servant, brother Anthony Conte... "Brothers!" he said, "Do you realize that there are only 88 months left until 1975?"
Many influential elders said things like this. In early 1975 I was in a KH audience on a Sunday when the speaker, a "prominent elder," wound up his talk in this fashion:
"And, brothers, that new system will be here in... (he paused to look at his watch) ... just 8 months, 3 days, 12 hours and 35 minutes!" (he used specific numbers like these, but I can't remember what they were).
As the various posts on this thread make perfectly clear, the "weight' given back in the day to the 1975 prediction depended a great deal on where you were. There were some congos where this was largely ignored, expecially as the date drew closer. In some congos, by 1974 all talk of '75 had been dropped or muted, and in other expectations ran rampant. A lot depended on how grounded to reality the elders in your congo happened to be.
In the case I cited above, the PO took the speaker back to the library after the talk and "counseled" him about his inappropriate remarks. Interestingly, the speaker "left the truth" a year later and was DF'd for apostacy. Isn't that amazing? What a price he paid for his unflinching loyalty to the "faithful and discreet slave" and its chronological fantasies.
Strangely enough, when 75 came and went, we didn't think of it too much ... There was no massive defection around us.
It was this fairly universal dub reaction, I believe, that emboldens the WTS to this day. They're bullet-proof, in their view.
But that Awake! article clearly states "Does this mean that the above evidence postively points to 1975 as the time for the complete end of this system of things? Since the Bible does not specifically state this, no man can say."
So why write and elude to it, again and again ?
My understanding, is that each time they allued to 1975, they also mentioned and pointed out that it does not necessarily mean the end will come then. It only means that 6,000 years of man's existance on earth will end in 1975. Even after the Freedom Sons book came out, Franz said that no one should be saying anything about 1975. And you were even allow to reject the chronology presented. Note what these WT publications stated: WT - 10/15/66 - "Rejoicing 'Over God's Sons of Liberty' Spiritual Feast"
At the Baltimore assembly Brother Franz in his closing remarks made some interesting comments regarding the year 1975. He began casually by saying, "Just before I got on the platform a young man came to me and said, ?Say, what does this 1975 mean? Does it mean this, that or any other thing??" In part, Brother Franz went on to say: ?You have noticed the chart [on pages 31-35 in the book Life Everlasting?in Freedom of the Sons of God]. It shows that 6,000 years of human experience will end in 1975, about nine years from now. What does that mean? Does it mean that God?s rest day began 4026 B.C.E.? It could have. The Life Everlasting book does not say it did not. The book merely presents the chronology. You can accept it or reject it. If that is the case, what does that mean to us? [He went into some length showing the feasibility of the 4026 B.C.E. date as being the beginning of God?s rest day.]
?What about the year 1975? What is it going to mean, dear friends?? asked Brother Franz. ?Does it mean that Armageddon is going to be finished, with Satan bound, by 1975? It could! It could! All things are possible with God. Does it mean that Babylon the Great is going to go down by 1975? It could. Does it mean that the attack of Gog of Magog is going to be made on Jehovah?s witnesses to wipe them out, then Gog himself will be put out of action? It could. But we are not saying. All things are possible with God. But we are not saying. And don?t any of you be specific in saying anything that is going to happen between now and 1975. But the big point of it all is this, dear friends: Time is short. Time is running out, no question about that.
WT 5/1/68 "Making Wise Use of the Remaining Time":
Does this mean that the year 1975 will bring the battle of Armageddon? No one can say with certainty what any particular year will bring. Jesus said: "Concerning that day or the hour nobody knows." (Mark 13:32) Sufficient is it for God?s servants to know for a certainty that, for this system under Satan, time is running out rapidly. How foolish a person would be not to be awake and alert to the limited time remaining, to the earthshaking events soon to take place, and to the need to work out one?s salvation!
WT - 8/15/68 - "Are You Looking Forwarded to 1975?":
30
Are we to assume from this study that the battle of Armageddon will be all over by the autumn of 1975, and the long-looked-for thousand-year reign of Christ will begin by then? Possibly, but we wait to see how closely the seventh thousand-year period of man?s existence coincides with the sabbathlike thousand-year reign of Christ. If these two periods run parallel with each other as to the calendar year, it will not be by mere chance or accident but will be according to Jehovah?s loving and timely purposes. Our chronology, however, which is reasonably accurate (but admittedly not infallible), at the best only points to the autumn of 1975 as the end of 6,000 years of man?s existence on earth. It does not necessarily mean that 1975 marks the end of the first 6,000 years of Jehovah?s seventh creative "day."
To anyone who thinks the WT didn't promote 1975 was either in la-la land, or was so weak in the "troof" that they didn't pay attention. My mother, who is a die hard JW to this day, has repeatedly told me how when I was a little tyke (I was born in 1967) that she attended an assembly. At this assembly, the speaker announced that all the mothers holding their young ones on their lap, they would never have to send their kids to school because the big "A" would be here before then.
She bought into it, and has admitted to me that she knows the Society promoted it. (duh...do ya think?) But she defends them, as all JW's do, that it's an imperfect organization, destined to make mistakes. That's pretty much sums up the thinking of all JW's. It's God's imperfect organization and they will make mistakes. Typical of the JW mindset. They can't think outside the box for one moment, cause if they did, the box would collapse in front of them!
David2002, you obviously were not there in the lead up to 1975 - otherwise you would have no need to raise that question!
I was an avid reader of all their literature from 1966 until 1994.I know what they said, what they emphasised - and what they later tried to deny that they meant!
While the WTS may not have written it in so many words, it is obvious that they wanted their readers to believe that the end was coming in 1975 - by the way that they left that thought hanging there.
AlanF is correct: anyone who thought otherwise at the time was branded 'spiritaully weak'.
And it is not what was wriiten that condemns them - it was also the Assembly programs. I can recall a Circuit Assembly late in 1974 - in which the District Overseer proclaimed "We still stand by our date of 1975".
(On hearing this, I can recall the audience wildly applauding).
AFTER 1975, I met some JWs who reckoned that they never believed all about 1975. But I tell you what, I never heard any speak up before 1975. What does that tell you!
No, as we say in Australia & NZ - by not saying so in so many words, but in still leaving the thought hanging there - the WTS was being "as cunning as a Shithouse Rat."
re speculation about 1975 It's most interesting that you should perceive that "the wtbs didn't do a thing to put a stop to it".
On the one hand some may feel that the organisation is 'too controlling'. On the other that it does not control enough. Which do you prefer? As Jesus said about Matthew 11:16-19. About the sulking generation who kept changing their tune and then complained that the witnesses of that time would not dance to it. If posters to this forum insist on playing the dead march from 'Saul" they should not be surprised that ticket sales at the door are down. Better to consider the example of the sensible woman who said to her husband "waltz faster dear, they are playing a rhumba'.
Jimbob First of all it is that 'they all think the same' and then 'they dont all say the same'. This encouraging people to have a mind of their own must be why 'they' are still witnesses. Yes, in the 60's and 70's 'they' went to all those assemblies sporting sideburns, wearing flares, stilletto and cuban heels, loved the beatles, beegees and abba and now they have the effrontery to change! And still put on this pretence of being human? Can't something be done to make them conform?
Heinrich Himmler had an excellent programme for them but unfortunately (for him) his time was cut short. Surely there must be some like-minded authority out there to create a programme to bring these miserable imposters into line.
