Reflections on Circuit Assembly - Satan's gonna get you!

sir82

Had our CA recently.

Others have posted on the program contents in other posts here, so I won't do that here.

But I was struck by something over the 2 days of mindless repetition and out-of-context scriptural quotations: The number of times "Satan" was referenced. He was easily the 2nd-most referenced Bible character, after Jehovah of course, but far outpacing Jesus, Paul, David, etc.

"Don't view porn, because you'll make Satan happy..." "Satan wants you to fail..." "Satan is doing everything in his power to destroy your family..." "Satan has succeeded in causing some brothers to give up..." "Satan.....Satan....Satan....SATAN!!!"

Virtually every talk included something about how Satan is just waiting to do something perfectly revolting, to US personally.

I imagine this topic is covered at virtually every assembly, but this time for some odd reason, it really struck me.

What do you suppose the effect of all these "Satan is going to get YOU! Not your friend, not your neighbor, but YOU!" messages have on the psyches of a typical JW believer?

I think of a friend of mine, elder, enormously brilliant, has a degree and works in a field so complex I don't much understand it, much less am able to describe it - geothermal something or other. It's a very niche field, but he is recognized as one of the world's foremost experts in it.

Yet he talks about Satan and the demons like they were over in the next room. Satan is attacking families in his congregation, Satan wants him to stop his field service, Satan did this or that...

It's simultaneously fascinating and depressingly sad. It's like he's emotionally & mentally crippling himself with these irrational beliefs.

Multiply that by 7 million and you've got the JW religion.

sspo

My ex committed adultery a few years ago...........was not her fault at all, it was Satan's fault.

dinah

They drone on and on about Satan to scare people into towing the line. If you miss too many meetings, you get weak and are a prime target for Satan. Just your typical Watchtower fear mongering.

Olin Moyles Ghost

Thanks for the synopsis, sir82. It is amazing to me that grown men and women talk about Satan, demons, etc. like they really exist and are out to get them.

I guess if you repeat something over and over for decades, you'll tend to believe it...no matter how fanciful it is.

As I reflect on my life as a JW, I'm not sure I ever really believed in Satan and demons. Whenever a JW had a "demon story" I typically dismissed it as some combination of paranoid delusions and natural phenomena. I also recall noticing that the folks with demon stories weren't "strong JWs"--they were typically the crazy ones. You know who I'm talking about--the ones with whom you didn't want to get stuck in a car group out in service.

keyser soze

I wish he had gotten me sooner.

awildflower

It's all about fear. And my thoughts are 'you get what you ask for'. So the more they talk about Satan and the demons, the more it will appear to manifest itself in their lives. The last function I went to before I left was last Jan. CA and I noticed the exact same thing! Like you, it was weird that, that is what I picked up on. I thought to myself then "Satan must be really happy for all of this attention on him". You know, negative or positive, it's all attention. Since I've left, the whole "satan will attack you and get you and make you do and get involved in horrible things", has never happened. In fact I was more susceptible to "wrongdoing" as an active jw! Like I said, you get in your life what you focus on. Satan, or I would say bad energy, is out there and if you talk about it and give it enough attention it will show up in your life. That's all it is to me, bad energy. No wonder jw's are sick and sad and depressed and stressed. Think of all the good energy that could flow through these people by talking about positive things at their conventions like the love Jesus had and the enlightened message he tried to share. I'll bet those people would walk out of a convention in a whole different frame of mind! But they have to scare them to keep them there.................wf

teel

If you miss too many meetings, you get weak and are a prime target for Satan.

In effect they are right, except the misattribution: the truth is if you miss too many meetings, the mind control techniques get weaker on you, and you might begin to actually think. And we all know that thinking is Satan's work right?

blondie

The Church Lady: Oh, I don't know, could it be.... SATAN?

WTWizard

They try to get people to totally miss what Satan was actually trying to do. If the human pair were truly happy, why would they have accepted something else? And if they were not, that proves that Jehovah was not really trying to provide for them all they needed for true happiness.

In their original condition, Jehovah was to determine what was good and what was bad. Now, this might make sense if you are a baby. However, they had some time to explore and learn. At some point, it becomes time for them to make their own decisions. But, Jehovah wanted to reserve that right for His fat Self. Ultimately, what was "good" would have been good only for that Almighty Lowlife Scumbag (and bad for mankind). Everything they did would have to be what Jehovah told them to. Stagnation and oppression would have been the result.

Now, Satan was assigned to watch mankind. Satan saw this problem at an early stage, before Jehovah could pull off the Tyranny. So, he had the humans eat off the tree of knowledge of good and bad. After doing that, they would have the ability to decide for themselves what is good and what is bad. They could learn from their mistakes, and improve things. Eventually, they could have had a paradise in freedom, without God interfering. At least, it would have been had that Almighty Sore Loser not busted it up.

This is what the witlesses do not want their members to know. In that context, Satan is not going to try and get me. Rather, he is going to try and get me to do my own thinking. True, a measure of suffering is inevitable as I learn what is good and bad (and make mistakes along the way). But, that would be less than the suffering involved with the stagnation of everything I do being what some Almighty Lowlife Scumbag tells me to. And I am not afraid of this Satan getting me--if anything, it would give me the opportunities for fulfillment that Jehovah wants to prevent me from ever happening (if only that Almighty Loser would get the f*** out of Satan's way).

Room 215

All this "Satanic" talk.... sounds like they're getting into the Halloween spirit!

Reflections on Circuit Assembly - Satan's gonna get you!

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