My elderly parents needed help setting up their AppleTV so they could watch the white guys in suits show from Utah. I heard ten to fifteen minutes of that slow drawl, and it was like a hand was reaching out to squeeze the life out of my brain. I don't know how I used to put up with it.

I just needed to tell someone. Thank you.

After my mission I actually TOOK NOTES!!!!! That lasted only one conference. Thank goodness I deprogrammed eventually.

I used to do that too, but it was so that I could pay attention. Gluttons for punishment are we.

So nice to hear from you, even if it was about having the life squeezed out of your brain. Fortunately, you seem to have gotten away quickly enough for intellectual vital signs to reappear.

I wonder if that's part of the idea of it all --- numb everyone so deeply that they don't try to think for another 6 months. And repeat.

Yeah, maybe they're trying to deaden neural activity.

I remember, I watched it, but I was bored stiff. I had to fight my inclination to fall asleep or wanting to get up and go do something else.

As years went by, I would have it on in the back ground, but I wasn't really watching or paying attention.

It just highlighted how spiritually starved my being Mormon was.

It's completely unnourishing spiritually. The things they talk about are either dumb, obvious, or wrong. It offers nothing to a seeker of truth, unless you aren't one and then it's probably just perfect. Glad you got away!

Makurosu Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It's completely unnourishing spiritually. The
> things they talk about are either dumb, obvious,
> or wrong. It offers nothing to a seeker of truth,
> unless you aren't one and then it's probably just
> perfect. Glad you got away!


I'm so glad I am out. So glad.

I've only watched a bit, but I think you're forgetting one key element: Emotional manipulation.

When you don't really have anything of substance to say, make sure you bookend your talk with emotional stories (often vague and not able to be proven) and anecdotes. They don't actually mean anything, and they aren't actually doctrine, but they make people feel the feelings!

I think the Brethren face some insoluble dilemmas in running their semiannual show-and-tell. One is that the reverent hush that make people receptive at the beginning puts them to sleep later. The other is that they simply have too much time to fill. I'd recommend no more afternoon sessions. They got rid of afternoon sessions for stake conferences many years ago.

broad axe stout!

Indeed, it is. ;)

It's time for Polygamy Porter !!!

I've heard that's good.

I really do not understand how any Ex-Mormon can stand to watch General Conference or any other churchy meeting for that matter. Not only is it horrendously boring, but just listening to those VOICES gives me heart palpitations! Seriously, it must be some form of trauma. I just can't do it.

That's a little how I felt. It was a panicked feeling that I was going to have to sit and listen to that beady-eyed crustacean until I could get the AppleTV fixed.

Stop giving a bad name to crustaceans !

oneinbillions Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I really do not understand how any Ex-Mormon can
> stand to watch General Conference or any other
> churchy meeting for that matter. Not only is it
> horrendously boring, but just listening to those
> VOICES gives me heart palpitations! Seriously, it
> must be some form of trauma. I just can't do it.


I let other ex-mo's here who feel compelled to watch report on what was said. Then I will read a transcript if I want to review something.

That's about as much as I can stand too. Life is just too short.

Like I said in a previous post - if you are having sleep issues - watch conference.

I miss the days when BYU-TV broadcast Conference talks, Devotionals, discussions of the Book of Mormon and Isaiah, etc. all night long. It was the perfect cure for sleepless nights.

What gets me isn't so much that I sat through boredom. How many have to sit quietly through boring conferences, presentations, speeches etc for work? Too many, I'm sure.

What gets me is the next step, that we pretended it wasn't boring. In fact we pretended the boringness was reverent, sacred, important and a guide to our lives. No one, not even the keenest brown-nosing suck-up @sshole pretends a boring work conference is revelatory.

At work we are willing to call boring things boring. It takes a cult to get us to call boring things visionary.

Human

I tried to watch one of the talks (on priesthood keys). I just couldn't. Gave me that sense of spiritual starvation all over again.

And for those of us who do believe in an all powerful God, it seems Mormons believe in a very weak and impotent one.

I didn't get beyond 7 minuets.

I was reminded of something else of my experience of when I as Mormon. Conference was intellectually painful to watch

I would be hard-pressed if I had to make a choice between watching GC or one of the deeply disturbing movies that's on my never-watch list (Cannibal Holocaust and A Serbian Film being two of them.)

There's a reason I started getting myself scheduled every GC weekend the second I had a job. If I have to do something boring and repetitive, I should be paid for it.

You're a good son Makkie.....

I can count on my hand how many full Saturday and Sunday (and RS) conferences I have watched in my lifetime. I married a Never-Mo, haven't gone to church in 8 years and still.... I wonder why I think about conference during the first weekends in April and October. My curiosity piques, and I listen to some of the talks on the radio or TV, just to see what is going on. I like to read people's views here, and (gag me) I have more than enough Mormon Facebook friends who post quotes from GAs. It definitely still has a pull on me. I don't know why, maybe it's guilt. I've come a long way in the guilt department. I think living where there are so many Mormons and the news talks about it; it's inevitable.

You're a good son.

I never made it through more than 1 or 2 sessions. I either had to take notes or I fell asleep. Only one year did I actually study my notes. Then I discovered drawing during it kept me awake and so I was done with the notes.

I have some pretty cool drawings from conference. I got pretty good there for a while (which is to say not everything I drew sucked).