I watched this with intrigue and found it interesting enough to keep watching until Tammy Faye Bakker started talking. Opps, I meant to say Wendy Nelson. With her heavy makeup on, she didn't add anything noteworthy to Rusty's story and I couldn't watch anymore. When Wendy starts talking, she looks directly at the camera and that's when I had to shut it off.
Do I believe Rusty? I believe that he has a story that suits him fine and he loves the attention he gets when he tells it. I believe that he believes that he believes, but I DO NOT believe him. He would do better in telling this tale if he dumped Paint Face and stuck to the plot.
Yes Painted Face did take away from this as well as telling the story to the family. If it had not been staged and just Dusty Rusty reading it it would have had more of an effect. It seemed that Wendy had to get her 2 cents in there so as to feel important. Was that presentation in their house and kitchen?
Do I believe visitations from the dead are possible? Not especially, but I’m open minded about it. I’ve had a couple of strange experiences myself but they were open to interpretation and I draw no conclusions. Do I believe this actually happened? No. However he is reiterating a story passed down to him, so perhaps he believes it. But I think if the dead could visit us it would happen a lot more than it reportedly does. Of course the mormons think they are special so they don’t question these stories. The spirit in this story said he was preaching the gospel to the spirit world, so if we believe this happened, it means believing the mormon gospel is true also. I’m seeing obvious bullshit.
I’ve never understood the mormon teaching of preaching beyond the grave. Surely it will all be a lot more obvious once you are dead and you see that there is an afterlife. I’m assuming the mormon leaders created this doctrine to explain how everyone who ever lived will hear the gospel. Very convenient, but obviously still stupid.
Mormon rabbit holes are created to allow themselves escape out of graves they dig for themselves.
A couple of observations: They must have a huge kitchen for that much of an echo, even allowing for the microphones! I can’t find words to describe his wife. I want an analogy but...I can’t find the words. But Nelson reminds me of Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious. I wasn’t looking for that, it just popped into my head. Granted I’ve watched too much sci-if but does anyone else see it?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2020 02:41PM by Third of Five.
Death could be like waking from a dream into another dream, like Inception. The dead would then be living in a collective dream-like state that’s less “dreamy” than this one. Their life beliefs would inform their after-death experiences, which is what NDE data indicates.
That would fall within the (pre-Mormon) doctrine of purgatory. If someone is preaching in the spirit world, they haven’t ascended to Heaven. It doesn’t validate Mormonism.
About Nelson and Palpatine, maybe evil is the point. If there is transcendent good then there is transcendent evil. Something that took hold of Joe Smith and used him to do its bidding. Imagine dying and learning you wasted your life for a crock? That’s Hell. Good luck with your special handshakes there.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/08/2020 05:27PM by bradley.
I only watched Wendy for seconds after moving forward so I could see what everyone else was talking about. I can't stand the woman. Can't wait until she gets booted off her imaginary throne.
I also don't believe in the idea of all the missionary work in whatever there is after this. I tend to believe in an afterlife, but I don't believe it is the mormon afterlife. When I finally allowed myself to let go of mormonism, it was a huge relief that mormonism wouldn't be part of my afterlife if there is one. The temple is what I imagined the CK to be and I wasn't impressed with the temple AT ALL.
Um, she's from Raymond a heavily Mormon, practically podunk town. He's not a great speaker, not very impressive. In this vid they look a little bit like a cross between televangelists and a polyg clan!
It's really astonishing that the young man clearly says in the journal that he had "a dream or vision" while asleep, yet Nelson creates "this document" looking very much like the Proclamations the church puts out and looking very much like canonized scripture. He turned the dream into private family scripture as if it were not a dream with symbolic and emotional influences but rather a literal reality.
It's a great example of how Mormons confuse psychological events such as perceptions and impressions that come from our minds and feelings with objective facts.
The son of one of Nelson's deceased daughters then concludes as fact that he now understands why he can't always feel his mother's presence in the temple because she's busy doing missionary work at times that he hoped to feel her presence in the temple. What a great way to explain away why the temple isn't a portal to connect with the dead as he was lead to believe.