theenemyatthedoor

^{Even a cursory examination of recent history 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 if this is so then all atheists 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. Other details they don't want you to see, including their paedophile protecting tactics, the history of their doctrinal flip-flops and their murderous culpability in denying essential blood transfusions to children, 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! Because this "glorious" event is, "just around the corner," this religion actually counsels its followers to forgo a formal education and to delay having babies - nothing is to get in the way of their most important duty: to knock on doors and gain new recruits (and income) for the Society!}

^{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”.}

^{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!}

^{The following three examples of Witness error, hypocrisy and lies have been presented to many Jehovah’s Witnesses, including their head office in New York. The response from all of them is always the same: a deafening silence, or, “We’ll get back to you on this” followed by... a deafening silence! Because all the evidence comes from their own literature they cannot dismiss it as Satanic or even innocently misguided. On reading the following their choice is stark: turn away from the evidence and continue to live a lie, or face up to the evidence and its logical conclusion:}

^{For most of the 20th century up to 1995 the central plank of Jehovah’s Witness doctrine was that the generation that witnessed the year 1914 “shall not pass away” before Armageddon arrived. During all those years, at every Kingdom Hall Sunday afternoon sermon, in every country in the world, the link between Armageddon and the year 1914 was not just mentioned... it was proclaimed! From the standpoint of the religion's leadership this link was a wonderful tool that promoted solidarity and created a sense of urgency that spurred the sheep into devoting their lives to knocking on doors and gaining new recruits. In 20th century Witness literature there are literally hundreds of references to Armageddon being linked to the year 1914. Here are just a few examples:}

^{The October 15, 1980 Watchtower stated,}

^{“We can be happy therefore for Jesus’ assurance that there will be survivors of ‘the generation of 1914’ that this generation will not have completely passed away when the ‘great tribulation’ (Armageddon) rings down the curtain on this wicked world system.”}

^{Every issue of the Awake! magazine masthead read,}

^{“…this magazine builds confidence in the Creator’s promise of a peaceful and secure new world before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away.”}

^{The front cover of the May 15, 1984 Watchtower showed pictures of elderly people with the caption,}

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

^{With this change in the Awake! masthead and the fudging 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 the link between the 1914 generation and Armageddon is, and always was, a man-made invention! As the years marched on and those people 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 they, the leaders, would all be exposed as liars and con men. 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 literally decades they had been preaching false doctrine. 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 on such a fundamental tenet of their religion would mean admitting 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:}

^{The phrase, "at times" in this context is deliberately misleading. Jehovah’s Witnesses have always linked Armageddon with a date. As these dates came and went (with nothing happening) their significance was "adjusted" i.e. downgraded and eventually forgotten. To that long list of dates we can now presumably add the year 1914.

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. No definition of the word "generation" exceeds a lifetime. In this context the word "calculation" is erroneous and misleading.}

^{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 and their predecessors 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 doctrine for so many years.}

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

^{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:}

^{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 have torn 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,}