The recent Canada Post strike has been a welcome respite from the flow of pre-cycling that is the lifeblood of our postal system. No unsolicited real estate flyers, coupon bundles, requests for donations, takeout menus, or credit card offers. This made the lonely single page hanging from the lip of my mailbox all the more compelling. It's like the universe knew I needed material for my first piece for the Huffington Post.
I'd like to speak to the marketing savvy of the Jehovah's Witnesses. They totally missed me in terms of my psychographic profile. I am an atheist, and I subscribe to the idea that humanity and all of its works are essentially the sum of water, carbon, and random electrical impulses.
To be fair, it's not like the JWs could have known that in advance of leaving their message -- I'm not sure that database marketing is that advanced yet. On the other hand, perhaps I am in some way indirectly spreading the gospel through this testimony, and that is the real mission. Maybe He is the Social Marketer of all Social Marketers. Mark Zuckerberg may have competition even he can't dismiss.
To the copy editor's credit, the headline on the piece definitely grabbed my attention: "Will Humans Ruin the Earth?" Outside of calling the date for the Rapture you can't get more direct than that. Unfortunately, the answer to this particular question is "yes"; that sum of water, carbon and electrical impulses just can't sustain itself. Al Gore explained it all in An Inconvenient Truth back in Ought Six, and since then I've just tried to get comfortable with the idea.
Being Canadian, my country is An Inconvenient Proof; with King Harpernicus now at the center of our little corner of the universe if we can dig it, cut it, drain it and ship it, we will. Whether phony science, or prophecy, or phony science posing as prophecy, I have to admit that the JWs and I seem to be on the same page as to where we're headed.
The rest of the letter invited to me to come and hear about how God's Kingdom is coming. Now, as far as I am aware of things religious, God's Kingdom happens when we kind of, you know, wipe ourselves out. Then Jesus comes back as our tour guide or something. I am not well versed in these matters, but given how we treat our planet, and lead by example, perhaps Canada has a future in post-existential tourism and the JWs are just trying to get ahead of the curve in an emerging market.
Then came the hard sell. I mean, Al Gore had graphs and charts and some awesome footage, but these guys are promoting "paradise" and my family could qualify. I didn't see anything about condos or fine print about introductory interest rates and the "admission is free". This was a no-strings offer unlike any other I get when there's regular mail delivery. The only piece missing was whether it was close to my house and provided free parking. I hate commuting to paradise.
Ultimately, that's where these guys let me down. Brilliant sell job, but I'd have to get to Kitchener. I live in Toronto, which is about two hours away if you're a crow and four hours if you invoke the glories of the internal combustion engine. It might as well be in another province. Someone has to tell the Jehovah's Witnesses that the Earth God created is a big place and that while the highways don't necessarily lead to hell they are intrinsically of it.
At the end of the day, the key to any direct marketing is to understand the geography of the market. Am I going to try the new greenhouse gas burger at Omnifood? If there's a drive-thru at a franchise a block from my house and I don't have to wait 15 minutes, then yes. Tell me I have to drive to Kitchener? Not even if I get a two-for-one coupon in the mail.
Keith Beardsley: NDP Filibuster: The Wrong Political Discipline
2012: Six End-of-the-World Myths Debunked
October 21, 2011 Judgment Day and End of the World! Tract - eBible ...
How Harold Camping marketed the Rapture - CBS News
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Apocalypse Now?: Is 'Rapture 2011' Really the End of the World?
Mass suicide fears as French worry end of world is approaching
If any of us designed and built anything, unless there was a very good reason for standing by, none of us would just accept anyone messing up what we had done well. Why expect God to be different?
Psalms 37 tells repeatedly of how God will BOTH destroy the wicked and the meek or righteous ones will both watch and continue to live on earth in peace forever. That follows when the wicked ones causing the problems are all dead. Ecclesiastes 1:4 records that earth will always be existing. Proverbs 2:20 as well points out the meek righteous ones will live here forever.
We also know from the Bible, of an open call for right hearted people to get out of false religion to safety before the big battle occurs. Thousands each day are doing just that. If Armageddon had happened in 1914, none of us would be here. Instead of wishing for it now, we wait on Jehovah's perfect timing for those thousands more to come out of false religions.
With Harold Camping's *rapture reloaded* in the news the apocalyptic themes of the Jehovah's Witnesses is getting attention.
I was born a 3rd generation JW in 1957 so had spent a lifetime with the Watchtower's end of the world drama.
Jehovah's Witnesses dates:
1884 was originally set by Charles Russell as the end of the Gentile times. 1914 was actually predicted as the start of Armageddon. When Armageddon did not happen in 1914, the date was set one year forward to 1915.
Nothing happened again and so after Charles Russell died in 1916, 1914 was set as the start of the gentile times and 1884 dropped altogether. Then the next Watchtower president JF Rutherford predicted the end in 1925 and after that 1941. The end was predicted once more by the Watchtower organization in 1975. Since then the *end* has been imminent for the last 35 years.
The Watchtower used not only 1975.The Watchtower has predicted "the end" to happen in 1874, 1914, 1925, 1942, 1975, and before the end of the 20th century. These predictions are in Watchtower documents and were part of Watchtower doctrine.
We Jehovah Witnesses had a slogan back in the early 1970's -*Will you be alive in 1975?*
Armageddon-aint-a-coming-so-im-a-getting-outta-here...
Actual news releases on Armageddon 1975 prediction
http://www.dannyhaszard.com/1975.htm
---Danny Haszard been there!
Jehovah's Witnesses take the cake as they have predicted Doomsday more than any other other doomsday cult.
1874, 1914, 1915, 1918, 1925, 1942, 1975 and now they simply say "ANY MOMENT"
D.H. seems to show up on every site on the internet connected with JWs. Isn't this in-fighting?
Today very few care about religion at all, let alone, apocalyptic squbbling details like this! You have missed the point.
When a JW quotes scripture and shows that the end could happen at 'Any Moment'... Do you say different? Matthew 24:44 "So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." NIV - The point is that you must always be ready.
The tract in the article above is raising the question 'Will humans ruin the earth?' - With the idea that "God's Kingdom" will prevent such an outcome -
Because in Revelation 11:18 - he mentions that he will 'destroy those who destroy the earth', and that he is angry with the nations. That is one clue anyway.
With developing nations full of people losing faith in deep doctrines, and in God in general. There is no need to bring up stuff like the above that people will not care about anymore Danny.
I personally had thought the end would have been much sooner myself. As Habbukkuk 1 verser 4 says 'How long oh Jehovah... will you look upon'... think about how bad this world is getting, and yet the things are still getting worse.