Robert Kirby, the Salt Lake Tribune columnist, and his cartoonist colleague Pat Bagley, have published a book called "Sunday of the Living Dead."

Kirby explains about Mormons and NDEs:

“One of the reasons that Mormons believe so fervently in near-death experiences is because we have one every Sunday. It's called church.

“Sitting there on a folding chair, your limbs grow numb, your eyes glaze over and your mind becomes sluggish. Only the shrieking of small children prevents you from slipping completely away and becoming a gospel zombie. . . .”

He tells how one experience in his youth made a believer out of him:

“I found God in a grove of trees when I was 13. I didn't go there to pray or meditate. I went there to fish and instead blundered into a group of college girls skinny-dipping in the creek. Ten seconds changed my life. I've never doubted Him since.”

I remember at times sitting in church, I would be sitting there, staring at the speaker as they gave their talk. No blinking, just staring, and suddenly all my peripheral vision goes black and the person speaking appears that there visible only through a dark tunnel. So yes, sacrament meetings were frequent NDE's for me.

My wife still attends most of the time and she recently had to give a talk. She ignored the suggested topic and just opted to deliver exactly the same talk that she'd given a couple of years previously. Not a single person noticed. In fact she said that as she looked out across the congregation, more people were playing on smartphones/tablets than were actually listening.

What a waste of time. I bet if you asked TBMs to relate the last time they were hugely uplifted from a sacrament meeting, many would struggle to answer with anything specific. Most simply operate like Pavlov's dogs - they simply turn up out of duty and disengage their brains.

Funny!

Yep I see TBM spending the full three hours on their devices every sunday. Even before there were devices we would play games on paper, fall asleep, or talk with friends.

Occasionally someone would comment saying "blah blah blah, our church is the best in the world! Why can't people understand that! blah blah blah" or maybe "Our Prophets were so great!" or "Those other religions don't know how to read" etc, etc ...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2013 01:13PM by David Jason.

Mormon men are the worst. As long as your butt's in the chair it counts; your mind can be anywhere else.

I end up going to lots of recitals and performances. Mostly women are there: they drove and made all the costumes. Men dutifully show up too, but they're always on their devices. They barely look up. Or they blatantly fall asleep in their chairs. There's a head-on-chest pose they assume, and bam! asleep. Eventually, they wake up and sit there grinning away like they were awake and paying attention the entire time. No one acts like they notice. The wife doesn't elbow them in the ribs. It's just one more thing Mormons agree to pretend isn't really happening.

My ability to successfully sleep in church was highly developed skill achieved through much effort and practice.

Then, once there was no one who could compel me to stay at church, I found out it was much easier to just leave and then to not go at all, and just sleep on the bed instead.

Death sounds pretty horrible.