My first church meeting in over a decade

[_beastie]

My sweetie and I attended Stake Conference this weekend in support of my mother, who was giving a talk. She is a smart and articulate woman and did a great job. I’m always proud of her. Of course I didn’t agree with much of her talk, but we all knew that going in.

It was the first time we’ve attended a regular church service in over a decade. I dreaded it from the get-go. I had a strong suspicion we’d be treated to the same talks we heard too many times to count in the past. Two hours…. Two hours. And yes, I was not disappointed. Surely we entered into some sort of mystical time warp, because those two hours lasted at least a month in real time. This was especially true for the GA’s talk. He’s on the minor-league GA team, but was still given almost an hour – AN HOUR – to talk. He talked about Jesus, and his talk reminded me of the sealing room in the DC temple – the mirrors reflecting the same image ad infinitum. His words were the same words uttered like a self-replicating chant throughout LDSdom. It’s like the temple film. Really? How many times should a self-respecting human being sit through the same inane film, which – even the first time – was simply a repetition of the most basic and simple Mormon teachings learned in primary?

What strikes me about this hour long GA talk which was full of nothing but repetitious ideas, devoid of one grain of originality, is that this guy felt self-important enough to decide that he really needed an HOUR – an HOUR – to drone on and on. The experience is representative of GAs in general. While their private lives must be different, they appear as the same stuffed suits repeating the same canned lines, boring and inconsequential to anyone’s lives and yet full of unwarranted self-importance. Really? An HOUR????

And all those poor people there with young children – what torture. It’s hard enough to sit through it as an adult, but throw some poor children in as additional victims, and it’s pure torture.

At the end, all we could say is: I AM SO GLAD I’M NOT LDS! It’s like the LDS church uses meetings as a form of slow Chinese water torture. Just the thought of all the hours of my life I saved by leaving the LDS church makes me want to do a happy dance.

[_Tobin]

And they wonder why young people are fleeing in droves. LDS meetings are the definition of boring.

[_Chap]

An HOUR????

I have never in my life heard a sermon in any church that went on as long as that.

Even in the context of advanced education with highly motivated students, all experienced teachers know that it is usually a mistake to talk without interruption for much longer than about 45 minutes. You absolutely have to stop then, at least for a while, to make your audience take an active part in the proceedings, otherwise you will not only not get any more information into their heads, but start to lose some of what has already gone in. It's not the fault of your audience; it's just the way our basically monkey brains work.

And this took place in a setting where children were present? Don't GA's care about the effectiveness of their teaching, or its alienating impact on the young? Don't the education faculty at BYU ever dare to give them any advice?

Doesn't sound like it.

[_Maksutov]

An HOUR????

I have never in my life heard a sermon in any church that went on as long as that.

Even in the context of advanced education with highly motivated students, all experienced teachers know that it is usually a mistake to talk without interruption for much longer than about 45 minutes. You absolutely have to stop then, at least for a while, to make your audience take an active part in the proceedings, otherwise you will not only not get any more information into their heads, but start to lose some of what has already gone in. It's not the fault of your audience; it's just the way our basically monkey brains work.

And this took place in a setting where children were present? Don't GA's care about the effectiveness of their teaching, or its alienating impact on the young? Don't the education faculty at BYU ever dare to give them any advice?

Doesn't sound like it.

Attending LDS meetings isn't to learn things, it's an act of devotion to show your faith. Kind of like the Catholic penitents.

[_I have a question]

He talked about Jesus, and his talk reminded me of the sealing room in the DC temple – the mirrors reflecting the same image ad infinitum. His words were the same words uttered like a self-replicating chant throughout LDSdom. It’s like the temple film. Really? How many times should a self-respecting human being sit through the same inane film, which – even the first time – was simply a repetition of the most basic and simple Mormon teachings learned in primary?

What strikes me about this hour long GA talk which was full of nothing but repetitious ideas, devoid of one grain of originality, is that this guy felt self-important enough to decide that he really needed an HOUR – an HOUR – to drone on and on. The experience is representative of GAs in general. While their private lives must be different, they appear as the same stuffed suits repeating the same canned lines, boring and inconsequential to anyone’s lives and yet full of unwarranted self-importance. Really? An HOUR????

I refer you to my signature quote...

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Oh, man. I declined to attend a missionary farewell a couple of weeks ago because 1) I can't support the LDS church's stance on practically anything these days, and 2) I just couldn't take sitting through what you sat through. The correlated nonsense drove me crazy as a member; I couldn't imagine the head explosion I'd experience as an apostate. Yeesh. Good on you for supporting your mother, though!

- Doc

[_ldsfaqs]

The wicked rebel against the Light..... and taketh the truth to be hard.

Whether one can agree with all content or not, I can find peace attending a Catholic service, chant with Buddhist monks, or otherwise.
Only evil rebels against the light in that which is good.

[_Runtu]

The wicked rebel against the Light..... and taketh the truth to be hard.

Whether one can agree with all content or not, I can find peace attending a Catholic service, chant with Buddhist monks, or otherwise.
Only evil rebels against the light in that which is good.

And the sane rebel against the boring.

[_DarkHelmet]

The wicked rebel against the Light..... and taketh the truth to be hard.

“A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact.”
― Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Prize Winner, 'Thinking, Fast and Slow'

[_Fence Sitter]

I feel your pain Beastie. Over the last 40 years of so, due to family obligations, I have attended many church meetings, perhaps 3 or 4 a year. I feel like I have just walked into an episode of Twilight Zone, stuck in an never ending cycle, when I enter the chapel.

I went inactive long before I became interested in Mormon history, and the main cause of my inactivity was my intense dislike of Sunday meetings.