DCP Accuses NDE Reportees of Lying

[Doctor Scratch]

It's quite revealing about his psychology, though. I mean, we can't just have everybody meeting Jesus. People need to learn something about Mormon organizational bureaucracy before sharing their visions. Even Joseph Smith originally claimed only to have seen an angel and not God himself. People need to understand that they just aren't that important. If you have a perplexing gospel question, you can write to the Brethren but expect an answer back from the secretary of a secretary directing you to your bishop. And if you die, expect to be met by a low-ranking regional authority from the Spirit World. Believe it or not, the Church leaders actually endorse the Proprietor's vision of eternity as I've heard things similar straight from Henry Eyring not very long ago.

It's reminiscent of what parents say when their child discovers that the department store Santa is wearing a fake beard: "Don't worry, honey--it's not the real Santa; it's one of his helpers!" Seriously, though: what a slap in the face to these believers! They merely encountered "fake" Jesus? And the new material that Tom quoted is priceless:'

There are vanishingly few cases in which the personage identifies himself as Jesus. (There may well be some but, off hand, I can’t think of any.)

LOL! So that's the ticket, eh? He *has to say* "I'm Jesus" in order for this to be legitimate? Or the "Jesus Figure" only identifies himself if he's speaking to, e.g., a General Authority?

There is literally nothing--nothing--in the way that DCP depicts the afterlife that is in any way appealing. In fact, it's the opposite--it's repellent. Who wants to give up 10% of their income for life, along with a host of other things, and basically be a public laughingstock for life in exchange for some barren, completely boring bureaucracy? The late novelist David Foster Wallace famously set a challenge for himself to write a great book about boredom, and the novel that resulted was the posthumously published The Pale King. That book is about people trying to *transcend* the crushing boredom imposed by the IRS bureaucracy, though: it's not about scoring Mopologetic brownie points in the hopes of making it there.

If you can get access to whatever these folks are seeing in their NDEs without following Church teachings, then why bother? What is the bonus that you get? We've explored this question before and the answer is really quite morally repugnant: it's that you get to sit atop a new hierarchy, where all the people who didn't listen get consigned to the role of "servant." That is one of the disquieting truths at the core of LDS theology, and it seems clear that the Mopologists have fully embraced this idea--hence DCP's fawning over Added Upon. How sick--how morally bankrupt do you have to be to hope that you can go to an afterlife where you'll get to lord over all the people who didn't subscribe to your specific faith practices? Further, how messed up do you have to be to not only *want* that, but then to go off attacking and smearing other people in order to *ensure* that you get it? That's how deranged Mopologetics is.

[Doctor Scratch]

Wait.....What?!

In that same article the proprietor discusses a book by Mary C. Neal, 7 Lessons from Heaven: How Dying Taught Me to Live a Joy-Filled Life (New York: Convergent Books, 2017. In this very same book, the author, Mary C. Neal not only sees Jesus, but has a rather long dialogue with Jesus.

Folks, you can't make this stuff up.

I think that, according to Dr. Peterson, we'd have to assume that this was a "spiritual imposter." Or that Neal was "spiritually weak" and was just seeing what she wanted to see. The real Jesus would have been far too busy with other matters to bother with her.

[Tom]

Interesting that the proprietor seems to have added a few sentences to his original comment:

Wait.....What?!

In that same article the proprietor discusses a book by Mary C. Neal, 7 Lessons from Heaven: How Dying Taught Me to Live a Joy-Filled Life (New York: Convergent Books, 2017. In this very same book, the author, Mary C. Neal not only sees Jesus, but has a rather long dialogue with Jesus.

Folks, you can't make this stuff up.

Did he formally introduce himself to Dr. Neal? If he didn’t, it may very well have been someone else. Using the proprietor’s scientific criterion, I characterize the following as a borderline account:

I turned to look to my left and there stood Jesus Christ. I could see his nail prints in his hands and feet. But they were not in his hands; they were more in his wrist area and angles out as though they were torn from his weight. There was no verbal speaking, just mental telepathy. I ran to him and wrapped my arms around his feet, kissing his feet, and telling him how much I loved him, his arms came down and he held my head close to him as I cried hard.

He turned and looked upward toward his left, at that point, I stood and looked up to where he was looking (on my right) and I could tell that I was standing at the base of a huge stairway, (I called it a huge throne) with the most brilliant light shining down from it. It was God. Jesus was standing on the right hand of God at the base of his throne. I began talking to God telling him how much I loved him and Jesus. But God would not answer me. At that point, I could tell that Jesus was communicating with God through mental telepathy, telling God how much I loved him and believed that he died for my sins.

God then spoke mentally to me and told me how much he loved me. (Jesus was the mediator between God and me) God would not listen to me without Jesus first talking for me.

Jesus or not Jesus? You make the call.

[Bill_Billiams]

I think that, according to Dr. Peterson, we'd have to assume that this was a "spiritual imposter." Or that Neal was "spiritually weak" and was just seeing what she wanted to see. The real Jesus would have been far too busy with other matters to bother with her.

I had an NDE once. I saw a giant white horse but then it turned out to be an albino tapir...

I'll see myself out.

[Kishkumen]

Permit me to just comment here that, although more than a few accounts of near-death experiences mention encountering Jesus, I’m inclined to think that, in almost all of these experiences, the personage who is met is not Jesus. Worldwide, there are something on the order of 335,000 deaths per day, which means that there are approximately 14,000 deaths per hour and not quite 250 deaths per minute. I understand that time may function rather differently in the next world, but I still doubt that Jesus is personally present in even significant percentage of deaths. Indeed, most NDE accounts don’t report encounters with Jesus, though a fair proportion do mention a “being of light” who often remains unidentified but, when named, is sometimes variously identified (often with the name of a prophet or holy personage from the religious background of the person relating the experience. I expect that, in very many of these cases, the dying individual feeling strong love and acceptance emanating from a glorious person simply identifies that person as the most holy figure he or she can name (e.g., Jesus, Muhammad, Krishna, etc.). Doctrine and Covenants 1:38 may be apropos here, with the Lord declaring that “my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same.”

Interesting candor from Dr. P! Given the fact that none of this helps his particular religious views, we can probably count this as an honest admission. People just think they see otherworldly beings that are identified according to the viewer’s desires or preconceptions. Maybe this is why it took the angel so long to become Nephi or Moroni or whoever. It doesn’t matter who the personage or personages at the First Vision were. How could we know? Maybe it was Mork and Mindy? Very interesting stuff. Now NDEs will not be used as evidence for the afterlife because no one knows whether the whole thing was imagined or not.

Reminds me of that movie Contact.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

DCP related his own NDE a few years ago. If I remember correctly, it went something like this:

As the surgeon and the nurses worked to re-start my cholesterol filled heart, I floated above the operating table and found myself looking down on the entire scene. I noticed then that the surgeon wasn't wearing garments. After my recovery, I made sure to give him a 1 Star review on Yelp, but I digress. Soon, I was passing through a long tunnel of light. At the end of it, I saw all my deceased relatives dressed in white temple robes, waiting for me and beckoning lovingly, with the exception of Uncle Bob, who said, “Whoa, someone’s put on a few pounds.” I said, “Excuse me?” And he said, “I’m surprised you could make it through the light tunnel with those hips. Also, what's with your fake accent?” Before I could make a witty retort, my life began flashing before my eyes: a baby in a massive crib, a toddler sitting in a wagon demanding someone pull me, a five-year-old getting a copy of "Added Upon" for my birthday. It was going along like that— flash, flash—until my life stopped in high school, when I had just been elected Student Body president, best dressed and most likely to succeed. My opponent was sitting on a bench crying over the crushing defeat I had just handed him a few hours earlier. I had to relive that awful scene: the crushed and dejected crying of my opponent and my raging anger over his cry-baby behavior ruining my well-deserved victory. What an inconsiderate jerk. Then, intense surges of unconditional love and acceptance coursed through me as if I were being bathed in a warm, healing light. For the first time, I loved myself and all living beings, even Kish, Shades, Drumdude and Dr. Scratch. And then, suddenly, I was back in that grubby little hospital room, feeling like crap. I'm thinking of suing the hospital and the doctor.

ETA *DISCLAIMER*

This story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this NDE are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred. No person or entity associated with this NDE received payment or anything of value, or entered into any agreement in connection with this NDE. No animals were harmed in the making of this NDE.

[drumdude]

You missed the best part, where DCP rising out of his body reads the hidden message on the top of the filing cabinets:

"DCP IS BEAVIS"

[malkie]

Wait.....What?!

In that same article the proprietor discusses a book by Mary C. Neal, 7 Lessons from Heaven: How Dying Taught Me to Live a Joy-Filled Life (New York: Convergent Books, 2017. In this very same book, the author, Mary C. Neal not only sees Jesus, but has a rather long dialogue with Jesus.

Folks, you can't make this stuff up.

Did he formally introduce himself to Dr. Neal? If he didn’t, it may very well have been someone else. Using the proprietor’s scientific criterion, I characterize the following as a borderline account:

I turned to look to my left and there stood Jesus Christ. I could see his nail prints in his hands and feet. But they were not in his hands; they were more in his wrist area and angles out as though they were torn from his weight. There was no verbal speaking, just mental telepathy. I ran to him and wrapped my arms around his feet, kissing his feet, and telling him how much I loved him, his arms came down and he held my head close to him as I cried hard.

He turned and looked upward toward his left, at that point, I stood and looked up to where he was looking (on my right) and I could tell that I was standing at the base of a huge stairway, (I called it a huge throne) with the most brilliant light shining down from it. It was God. Jesus was standing on the right hand of God at the base of his throne. I began talking to God telling him how much I loved him and Jesus. But God would not answer me. At that point, I could tell that Jesus was communicating with God through mental telepathy, telling God how much I loved him and believed that he died for my sins.

God then spoke mentally to me and told me how much he loved me. (Jesus was the mediator between God and me) God would not listen to me without Jesus first talking for me.

Jesus or not Jesus? You make the call.

In the canonized First Vision account, which figure identifies himself as Heavenly Father, and which as Jesus Christ?

[Gadianton]

In this very same book, the author, Mary C. Neal not only sees Jesus, but has a rather long dialogue with Jesus.

bzzt. Jesus wouldn't appear to a woman. The way it would work in the corporate church as it extends beyond the veil is that the being would need to be her husband representing the local low-level authority of that part of the spirit world. If her husband was either still alive, or dead but hadn't converted to the Church, then she'd most likely be out of luck, but perhaps she could be granted a meeting with either the low-level local authority, or another deceased male relative who had converted to the Church and holds the priesthood(perhaps in the spirit world), who had been cleared by the local low-level authority to have the meeting. But even that would only be possible if she was married and acting in the capacity of a mother in this life, such that if her husband were deceased and also converted and active in the Church, that he would then be cleared to meet with her. If she wasn't married then she'd have to have a Sheri-Dew level of an excuse as to why not in order to qualify for any meeting. In Mormonism there is a ton of red tape and you have to go through all of these counterfactuals to understand why someone like DCP might hesitate to believe certain aspects of the story.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

In what is alarmingly becoming more and more frequent, the proprietor of SeN is forced to issue yet another addendum to one of his articles.

ETA: On the other hand, as a friend writes to remind me — I read both of Dr. Neal’s books quite some time ago, and am only now extracting my notes from this one — her own description of her experience seems clearly to indicate an encounter with Jesus. (I don’t have the book with me at the moment to look.) I have no reason to believe that such encounters don’t occur. In fact, I think they probably do. On a slightly different front, at least two other people claim that I’m now admitting that NDEs are all purely subjective or imaginary, but that isn’t my position at all. Quite the contrary. I’m simply saying that, when encountering a being of glorious light, perfect compassion, and supreme holiness, it’s entirely to be expected that near-death experiencers from Christian backgrounds would be inclined to identify that being as Jesus. And that there is actually sound theological reason (in the principle of divine investiture) for the “error.” (Over on the Peterson Obsession Board, my Malevolent Stalker says that I’ve accused NDErs of “lying.” Consider the source. No further response is necessary.)