160 YEARS AGO TODAY
Oct 22 1844
Jesus Christ fails to appear to the Seventh Day Adventists, led by Bible scientist William Miller.
William Miller was a farmer and American Baptist preacher from upstate New York. He started telling people in 1831 that the Biblical prophecies described in Revelation were about to transpire.
Miller drew a large following, and in 1840 announced that the second coming of Jesus Christ would occur sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844.
When March 22, 1844 arrived without the return of Christ, it was a problem for Miller. Thousands of followers had given away their possessions in anticipation of the big day. But then one of Miller's followers realized that his calculations had been off by one year, because he neglected to count the BC to AD rollover. So he revised the date to October 22.
In October the same thing happened. Upwards of 100,000 Millerites had expected to finally meet God. Many of them dressed in white robes and climbed up on roofs and hilltops. But the chosen night came and went. The milestone would come to be known as the Great Disappointment of 1844.
Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before. It seemed that the loss of all earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept, and wept, till the day dawn. I mused in my own heart, saying, My advent experience has been the richest and brightest of all my Christian experience. If this had proved a failure, what was the rest of my Christian experience worth? Has the Bible proved a failure? Is there no God, no heaven, no golden home city, no paradise? Is all this but a cunningly devised fable? Is there no reality to our fondest hope and expectation of these things? And thus we had something to grieve and weep over, if all our fond hopes were lost.
Hiram Edson, 1844, on his disappointment
According to one believer: "The world made merry over the old Prophet's predicament. The taunts and jeers of the 'scoffers' were well-nigh unbearable." Nevertheless, Miller hung tough.
Many concluded that the prophecy predicted not that Jesus would return to earth in 1844, but that he would begin at that time a special ministry in heaven for his followers.
Belief in predictions, anomalous events and pseudoscientific phenomena, such as the imminent end of the world, UFO attacks, angelic visitations, and so on, are common despite their repeated failure. However, often, a serious disconfirmation, such as when the UFOs fail to appear, leads not to the believer discarding the belief, but to believing it more strongly, and often increasing his or her spiritual devotion.
Dr Robert Glick, head of the Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, calls belief systems “societal pain relievers”, and it might be that renewed and increased belief is like having an extra aspirin when the pain increases due to evidence of one’s foolishness.
It can be the case that contradictory evidence can even strengthen the original belief. Social psychologist Leon Festinger and colleagues pointed out in When Prophecy Fails, that holding two contradictory beliefs leads to ‘cognitive dissonance’, a state of mind that humans find uncomfortable. The devout might then selectively reinterpret data, reinforcing one of the beliefs regardless of the plausibility and obviousness of the contradictory case.
Dr Jeffrey Schaler, adjunct professor of psychology at American University, says, “When people can't reconcile scientific data with their own beliefs, they minimize one of them – science – and escape into mysticism, which is more reliable to them”.
Some psychologists hypothesise that the basic psychological process involved in this paradox is that when one feels foolish, a possible solution is to proselytise and convert the whole world to one’s folly. The unconscious motivation: if everyone believes what I believe, no one will laugh at me any more.
William Miller died on December 20, 1849. Almost overnight, the remnants of his church splintered over doctrinal differences. This fragmentation ultimately gave rise to a variety of denominations, including the Jehovah Witnesses and the Seventh-Day Adventists.
In the 20th century, an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventists updated Miller's prophecy by claiming a Biblical ETA of April 22, 1959. This group, calling itself the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists, broke into two pieces in the resulting schism. One product of this fission decided to call themselves the Branch Davidians.
-http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/william-miller/
-http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/failed_prophecies.html
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