^{Just a cursory glance at the history of the past 100 years demonstrates clearly that as civilization and science advance, religion retreats. With the sole and we believe temporary exception of the United States the more civilised the country the less religious it is. Some may argue that in this situation all the rest of us need do is just wait for religion’s ultimate and inevitable demise… and if all religions were benign or on life-support that would certainly be true. But a few religions are so insidious and so evil they do not deserve the luxury of being allowed to die slowly and relatively peacefully.}

^{One such insidious religion is the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (Jehovah’s Witnesses). We believe the evidence is overwhelming: this religion is a family destroying, brain-washing scam! Details of their current beliefs, the ones they want you to see, can be found at: www.watchtower.org. Details of the history they don't want you to see, including their paedophile protecting tactics, their doctrinal flip-flops and their hypocrisy regarding blood transfusions, can be found at the excellent website: www.jwfacts.com}

^{Like all fundamentalist religions Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that they, and they alone, are God’s chosen people. All of them are looking forward to the coming battle of Armageddon when apparently their "loving" God is going to exterminate approximately 6 billion men, women and children leaving a world inhabited by only the faithful followers of Jehovah! The imminence of this “glorious” event is the chief motivation that gets them knocking on doors and trying to replenish their religion’s now declining membership.}

^{When confronting Jehovah’s Witnesses at your door it is useless to try to reason with them. Every one of them is brainwashed. They are bible carrying robots! Anything you say that conflicts with their religious programming, even the simplest most obvious logic, will be rejected as a Satanic trick or “stumbling block”.}

^{However, this religion does have an Achilles heel – its own literature!}

^{It is very important to understand that Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the articles published in their Watchtower and Awake! magazines are divinely inspired by the perfect creator of the universe. Therefore the doctrine in those articles is perfect - it cannot be wrong! When the religion’s leadership, the Governing Body, make changes to doctrine it is usually explained as, “increased light”. Apparently the creator doesn’t consider His chosen people able to handle the whole truth in one go so He, “illuminates” them in instalments!}

^{“Increased light” is a very clever concept that, most of the time, allows the Governing Body to cover its policy changing tracks – as long as “the sheep”, yes, that’s what the leadership of this religion calls its followers... as long as the sheep just do as they are told and don’t start comparing new “enlightenments” with previous ones proclaimed in past issues of the Watchtower and Awake. But that’s exactly what the authors of jwfacts.com have done. They have uncovered an incredible list of errors, hypocrisies and bare-faced lies, all published in the allegedly divinely inspired literature of God’s chosen people!}

^{“1914, the generation that will not pass away”.}

^{And then in 1995 something happened. On November 8th the Awake! masthead changed its wording. It now read,}

^{“…this magazine builds confidence in the Creator’s promise of a peaceful and secure new world that is about to replace the present wicked lawless system of things.”}

^{The November 1, 1995 Watchtower declared that what Jesus really meant when he used the word “generation” in connection with Armageddon was,}

^{“contemporary people of a certain historical period, with their identifying characteristics.”}

^{With this dumbing-down of the definition of the word “generation” the Governing Body removed all connection between the date of Armageddon and the people who witnessed the year 1914. In just a few sentences they swept away, what for nearly 100 years, had been the central doctrine of their religion!}

^{Surely any Jehovah’s Witness interested in the truth would have to ask, “Why?”}

^{The February 15, 2006 Watchtower lists all the instances of “increased light” that Jehovah has provided for His people. It is highly significant that nowhere in this list is the dropping of the link between Armageddon and 1914, or the change in the meaning of the word “generation”. So if “increased light” from Jehovah God was not the reason for this change, what was?}

^{The truth is that the link between 1914 and Armageddon was always a man-made invention! As the years marched on and that generation gradually died out the Governing Body realised they were between a rock and a hard place. Doing nothing was not an option because if the last person of the 1914 generation died with no sign of Armageddon the Governing Body would all be exposed as liars and con men and the religion would likely fall apart. So what to do? “Increased light” was not an option because that would only highlight the fact that for many years they had been preaching false information. Of course they could have just admitted that they had made a mistake… but God is supposed to communicate instructions and enlightenment to His flock through those men. Admitting that they had been in error for all those years would mean admitting that they could not possibly be the leaders of God's chosen people!}

^{Having rejected all these options the Governing Body was left with just one course of action. The link between Armageddon and the year 1914 had to be severed and this was their explanation, again from the November 1, 1995 Watchtower:}

^{“Eager to see the end of this system, Jehovah’s people have at times speculated about the time when the ‘great tribulation’ would break out, even tying this to calculations of what is the lifetime of a generation since 1914. However we ‘bring a heart of wisdom in,’ not by speculating about how many years or days make up a generation, but by thinking about how we ‘count our days’ in bringing joyful praise to Jehovah”.}

<sup>Re the words, "at times", this gives the impression that there have been times when Jehovah's Witnesses didn't link Armageddon with the year 1914. Well, unless they are referring to the very beginning of this religion in the 19th century the 1914 link has been consistent.

Re “calculations of what is the lifetime of a generation since 1914”. It is very simple: when the last person who was alive in the year 1914 dies of old age, the 1914 generation will have ended. In this context the word "calculation" is erroneous and misleading.</sup>

^{Re, “Jehovah’s people” having “speculated” about the arrival of Armageddon, firstly, no rank and file Jehovah’s Witness “speculated” on any aspect of this issue. All they did was read their Watchtowers and Awakes and take the words written there at face value. The only people who “speculated” were the Governing Body who invented this 1914 link in the first place. The reference to “Jehovah’s people” is a disgraceful attempt to spread the blame around and avoid doing the honest and honourable thing of admitting that they, the Governing Body, were entirely responsible for preaching this false prophecy for so many years.}

^{The Awake! magazine of December 22, 1949 described the then new science of organ transplants as,}

^{“wonders of modern surgery.”}

^{But in the November 15, 1967 Watchtower the Witnesses learned that,}

^{“Enlightened by God’s word, God’s people understand that transplants are against divine principles and cannibalistic”.}

^{Imagine during the 1970’s a situation where the child of devout Witness parents needed an organ transplant to survive. Those parents, following the then current published Witness doctrine would have refused permission for that transplant and as a consequence their child would likely have died. Now imagine how those same parents would have felt after reading the March 15, 1980 Watchtower:}

^{“There is no Biblical command pointedly forbidding the taking in of other human tissue…. It is a matter for personal decision”.}

^{How could a published divinely inspired policy change 180 degrees and then change again back to near its original position and still be called “enlightenment” from a perfect God?}

^{Jehovah’s Witnesses base their beliefs regarding blood transfusions on their interpretation of one or two bible scriptures. But this interpretation was not always so. This is another instance of God providing “increased light” – this time in the July 1st 1945 Watchtower which informed the Witnesses that from then on blood transfusions were banned. But what the Witnesses were not told was that the technique of transfusing blood successfully was mastered in the year 1916. If Jehovah God, truly “knoweth all things” (1John 3:20) then surely He was fully aware that His chosen people were giving and receiving blood from 1916 onward. If for 29 years between 1916 and 1945 God gave no enlightenment on this issue doesn’t that indicate that He saw nothing wrong with it? If having a blood transfusion is such a serious offence that Witnesses can be disfellowshipped (excommunicated) for having one, how come God didn’t provide enlightenment in 1916? From God’s point of view why would it be acceptable to have a blood transfusion up to June 30,1945 but not the next day?}

^{The truth is in 1945 the Governing Body dreamed up this no- transfusion rule as a way to distinguish their religion from other similar ones claiming to be God’s chosen people. But as soon as the first child died because a blood transfusion was denied this new policy was widely recognised as a monumental error in judgement - one that all subsequent Governing Bodies would have loved to reverse, but could not. They knew that to claim more "increased light" that permitted transfusions again would tear the religion apart. So instead what they've done is to softly back-peddle on the ruling by gradually permitting the infusion of blood components. So eating a ham and cheese sandwich is not allowed but eating the ham, and the cheese, and the bread, separately is allowed. How ridiculous and insulting it is to ascribe this convoluted and contradictory ruling to an allegedly perfect God!}

^{Jehovah’s Witnesses need to ask themselves what is more likely: that the change in meaning of the word “generation”, the flip-flop on organ transplants, and the 1945 change in blood transfusion policy all originated with an infallible creator of the universe, or did they originate inside the minds of misguided and fallible men? In the February 1881 issue of “Zion’s Watch Tower” (the predecessor of the current Watchtower magazine) the Jehovah’s Witness founder, Charles Russell wrote,}

^{”If we were following a man undoubtedly it would be different with us; undoubtedly one human idea would contradict another and that which was light one or two or six years ago would be regarded as darkness now; But with God there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning, and so it is with truth; any knowledge or light coming from God must be like its author. A new view of truth can never contradict a former truth."}

^{The July 15, 2006 Watchtower acknowledges that ”a very small number among God’s people have become disgruntled with some aspect of Christian teaching and have murmured against the earthly part of Jehovah’s organization.” If this number of dissenting Witnesses really was “very small” we doubt it would get any recognition in the Watchtower. Our hope is that this “murmuring” indicates that the sheep are at last waking up to fact that they are not sheep, that they are free-thinking human beings who have been manipulated and lied to by a truly evil organization.}

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