C.O. talk...You're Heart is Treacherous so watch out! LOL

by RagingBull 8 Replies latest jw friends

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  RagingBull

  Well, the second talk was given by the C.O.

  I didn't take notes (why bother, their always right. Right?) but here's the jist of it.

  The Heart is Treacherous... "Ever heard of the expression follow your heart ? Isn't that just the dumbest idea?" that stuck out in my mind. He said that verbatim. My mind went "Ahhh, say that's dumb so that we can adjust and agree so WE don't seem "dumb" - love the degradation early on. So if you believed one should follow their heart...you won't from then on b/c its "dumb".

  "What you desire...is engrained in your heart before you act upon it. You may think of committing immorality, but if your MINNNND dwells on it then eventually your HEART will motivate you to ACTION!...then you commit sin."

  What are "SPIRITUAL DISTRACTIONS"?? - TV, RADIO, MOVIES, INTERNET, WORK, IPODS, CELL PHONES (anything else under the sun that the WTBTS didn't create.)

  He then went into a story of Satan and his Demons having an assembly. At this assembly Satan tells them to use all of these things to fill up ones heart and the desires for these things so that the spiritual distractions can drown out the voice of Jehovah. (Jehovah = GB, but you guys knew that)

  It is not for man to direct his step. We need guidence from Jehovah (GB. Oh he didn't say the GB or F&DS at all in his talk. clever)..."we can't think for ourselves. we can't direct our own step. See that? singular. The scripture says not even ONE STEP." <--- yeah he SAID THOSE EXACT WORDS

  Anyway...it was just sickening.

  When he finally gave the Congregation stats....he was pleased to see a huge increase in donations to the KH Building fund, and WW Preaching work. Also stressed to start consistent and regular "magazine routes". wonder why? Maybe he saw the magazines piled up in the back counter.

  The BOOK STUDY was funny. I thought... "if the government banned door to door witnessing or Watchtower magazines....why stress? You can't talk to someone with just the BiBLE?" its like they miss the point. Most governments have no problem with people talking about the Bible to others, but some don't tolerate offensive CULT literature.

  (C.O. made a comment that they were to go house to house to preach to those who had not heard the good news. They were told to go house to house, city to city, etc. ) I thought most people I've met in FS have ALREADY HEARD OUR GOOD NEWS MANY TIMES and ARE NOT INTERESTED. Why must they keep going back?

  Sorry for the lengthiness. But I had to get that out. You'll hear more disgust from me on Sunday I'm sure. LOL
• 

  LostGeneration

  Magazine routes? LOL, I thought they were done with those pretty much 20 years ago. I guess gotta keep the sheep busy somehow.

  Its pretty disgusting how they enslave the minds of people. That whole "heart is treacherous" thing is just another tool to keep people worried about their own brain. They may as well stand up there and scream "DONT THINK! DONT THINK! DONT THINK!"

  Its a long road, but those who want out will find a way.
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  sd-7

  It's not surprising that I grew up with low self-esteem, then. When you're taught that you can't trust your heart AT ALL, it's got to have an effect on how you feel about yourself.

  I think we've heard the same talk, RagingBull. Because that sounds identical to a C.O. talk I heard years ago. Also, I'm impressed at just how intimate a knowledge a JW seems to have of what the demons said at their assembly! Oh, right. It was completely made up!

  I remember one meeting where the C.O. said, what if we had an announcement that Armageddon was going to come between now and 4:00 a.m. tomorrow and we needed to be at the KH at that time? (I forget the exact time he said.) What should we do? he asked. He accepted as 'correct' the comment one brother made, which was, "Don't leave [the KH]." My first thought, in hindsight, was, how would the C.O. know when Armageddon was going to come? Did he get revelation from God? (Impressive, if so, because he got to know what even JESUS doesn't know!)

  It's hard to understand why people who usually don't even go to meetings pile up in the KH to hear a man say stuff like that. It's always him going off on his own tangent, but in the end it's the same stuff that's right in the literature, just phrased differently. Big deal.

  But it does call to mind something the hottest girl in high school once wrote to me. "What is more important? The Bible, or your heart and feelings?" As it turned out, it was my heart and feelings. Granted, she totally rejected me, but the question she raised ended up being raised again many times before I left the religion. Fact is, my heart was more true to me than the Society ever was.

  --sd-7
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  RagingBull

  sd-7, you are so right. if everyone knew WHEN the end was coming and where to be...wouldn't GOD know that many were only following the direction out of FEAR and not LOVE! (this is the point JWs miss. They serve out of FEAR. NEVER LOVE)

  Serve God with your whole MIND,...whole HEART, (oh wait, that's treacherous!)
• 

  Dogpatch

  It's always that Jehovah is the bad parent with a stick. "Save me, Jesus, from your maniacal father!"

  And of course, from the organization.
• 

  AnnOMaly

  The BOOK STUDY was funny. I thought... "if the government banned door to door witnessing or Watchtower magazines....why stress? You can't talk to someone with just the BiBLE?"

  Similar sentiments were conveyed recently by one of the local elders in a talk. The aim was to make the audience appreciate the literature (Jah's provisions or some such). If the Org. was put under ban what would we do? Try using the Bible, I thought - no biggie - it'll do y'all a lot of good and perhaps move you closer to teaching the real gospel.
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  sd-7

  Well, there's no money to be made if it's just about the good news! If there's no avalanche of literature every month/year, the donations would slow down, I should think. If the Bible was the only thing used, maybe they could become a Bible Society instead of a Bible and Tract Society. But that's crazy talk! We'd all go into darkness within two years without the literature! After all, our treacherous hearts might prod us to dabble in a little independent Bible reading. How disastrous that would be! The Bible is an organizational book, you know! It wasn't even written to most of us, so how presumptuous it would be to try and interpret a letter from someone else's Heavenly Father!

  Wow. Not being 'sons of God' can really suck! Oh, wait, he only has 7 sons on earth who can understand the Bible. Never mind!

  --sd-7
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  carla

  I guess my jw will be in trouble! scratch that, he will end up just going along with the company line. At one point I had asked him if he believed God wrote upon the hearts & minds of mankind, he said yes. I brought up that throughout history men in general have had rules, laws, (pick your word of choice) or commandments that are similar throughout all the world, was this because God wrote these 'laws' upon our hearts? He truly believed that yes, He did. Now the wt wants to tell him that to follow his own heart would be treacherous?!

  (by rules/laws, etc... I meant for instance in almost all cultures incest, rape, murder, theft, etc..... are 'against the law' and there are consequences within each society for breaking such laws. This includes tribal peoples as well as more 'advanced' societies.)

  "The BOOK STUDY was funny"- I was so relieved when my jw quit calling it a Bible study! When he was new convert he couldn't understand why it upset me so much. Slowly he began to call it a book study. Whether he realized they did not use the Bible or picked up on jw-ese I don't know. All I know is he quit annoying the hell out of me! I used to tell him I wish he was really going to a Bible study! not a wt study.
• 

  WTWizard

  "The heart is treacherous"? Maybe it's because there are rules that shouldn't even be there.

  Example: Music. If a song is genuinely bad, people are not going to want to listen to it. You take a song about drugs--people listen to it, because the song is not bad despite being about doing something that will hurt you if you actually do it. But just listening to the song doesn't inspire you to take drugs because it's entertainment value only. Or drinking and fighting--I listened to one such song for the entertainment value (and because it was about something totally different to me--like a vacation trip) for around 15 years, including a period where alcohol was everywhere, and did not get drunk and start fighting because of the song. Hence, it can't be all that bad.

  Example: Field circus time. The optimal amount of field circus is easy to determine. You determine how much benefit you are going to achieve by doing the next unit, and the total cost. When the total cost just starts to exceed the total benefit, you're done for the day. If the benefit is zero or negative, you should do none.

  Example: Wearing reasonable attire. How often do you see women in business wearing dresses? These days, not very. In freezing weather, it makes more sense to go out with pants that protect you from the cold and/or snow. A suit coat is not good in very hot or muggy weather or if it is going to rain. You can get nice clothing that is wash and wear, cutting down on dry cleaning costs, that is acceptable without being excessively rigid.

  And what about the other rules? You should calculate the total cost and benefit of going to college--realistically, not idealistically. If you are going on full scholarship, that is going to slash the total cost. If you are going to realistically get more benefit from college than it's going to cost you, you should go regardless of what some Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger orders you to. If it is going to cost too much (meaning you will pay more than it's worth), you don't go--again, realism should rule because inflating the time cost is going to shortchange you out of a fair decision.

  Also, what about that rule that you need to abide by and teach a bad doctrine until the Filthful and Disgraceful Slavebugger itself changes it (as likely making a bigger problem), even if you can use their own Bible to prove it wrong?