Ask one of Jehovah's Witnesses

[Won2blv]

Does it trouble you that your founder Charles Russell predicted "Christ's second advent," using some bizarre method known as "pyramidology," to occur in 1874, and yet nothing remotely of the sort took place?

There was a fairly brilliant con that Russell or Barbour pulled with that date.  When it came and went without incident, they claimed that Christ had indeed returned... invisibly.  He had taken his place on the throne of heaven and begun to judge mankind using the Elmer Fudd technique ("be vewwy vewwy quiet!").  It kept the flock on a string and avoided the headaches that Miller experienced after 1843 or 1844 when his own predictions of a second coming fell flat and the movement splintered.

Rutherford later discarded 1874 as a meaningful date and claimed that Russell had instead pegged 1914 as the date in which Jesus secretly ascended to the throne.  That date worked a lot better for them (after they changed the initial prediction, which was that the war of Armageddon would be over by 1914) because they could now present it as a "significant year" due to the start of WW1.  The story as told to the membership is that Russell predicted Jesus's "presence" (parousia) and the Last Days as beginning in 1914 and lo and behold!  WW1 started and provided a sign that the metaphysical shit had hit the supernatural fan.  It gave the organization a credibility as having the gift of prophecy and therefore having god's blessing.

Additional whitewashing of the years 1918 and 1919 give the impression of a tiny group of devout worshipers who were under vicious attack by Satan's minions and somehow --miraculously!-- survived to carry on the important preaching work commanded by Jesus.  Since members are strongly warned against seeking outside information into the organization's past, this story has a strong effect on them.

Tonus, this is not something that has ever bothered me personally. The way I see it, the human thing is to figure out when the end will come. I am sure that when you went to meetings you knew about 10 different theories of when the end will come. But it was Jesus that said, after asked repeatedly, that no man knows. So I think it was wrong and inappropriate for CTR to even have that conjecture. I care more about the fact that he sat down with the bible and started reading it from an unbiased view. Like where the dead really are. The truth about hellfire. Or even the trinity. I still don't know where I'll come down on all of this in the end but the dates are definitely a mental fart that you could even argue were inappropriate. I will never serve a god because I know the date when judgment day will come. I'll only serve a god that I love and is worthy of worship

[The Grand Nudger]

On that note...what (if anything) about the god of the kingdom hall is more worthy of worship (or love) than the god of the cathedral, in your estimation?

[Cyberman]

So to the next part of my questions: bearing in mind your earlier statement that you wouldn't want to be a part of the religion if it had a requirement of celibacy from you, how do you feel about two people in a same-sex relationship being subject to such a requirement to the extent that they either "give up homosexuality" or give up their relationship? Would that be tolerated for a 'traditional' relationship? Basically what I'm asking is why a same-sex couple, in these enlightened times, should have to undergo a layer of restriction that opposite-sex couples do not. "It displeases God" isn't a justification.

[The Grand Nudger]

Isn't it?

[Cyberman]

Not a valid one. If I were to be judged for my thoughts and actions, I'd want a better standard than "my god doesn’t like it". Especially when it's people telling me what their god does or doesn't like, rather than the god itself. It's got a problem with something I'm doing? Great, it can tell me itself.

[robvalue]

Why should anyone care what "upsets" or "angers" god? Aren't those very notions giving away that he's in fact not a being of great power, but an all too human figure acting like a psychopathic toddler?

[pocaracas]

The problem is not what upsets god... but what upsets god's followers! (these are known to be very human, very psychopathic, very naive, very ignorant, very... well... very toddlerish)

[Cyberman]

That's the thing. Those of us outside the bubble can separate the god from the followers; whereas someone inside tends not to be able to make that distinction. So their prejudices become their god's prejudices; perceived hatred for and attacks against their god become attacks on them personally. All this from the same people who generally state that we cannot know the mind of this god, and all to sustain the bubble they don't realise is trapping them.

[pocaracas]

And how to make them aware that there is such a bubble in the first place?

[robvalue]

Every person who takes insults about God and Jesus personally is demonstrating our point.