Just including all my notes here...

Wednesday,

February 19, 2020

I was

listening to the car parts episode. That was a good one. I think we need totake more seriously the duty or whatever to be able to explain how somethingworks, like depression and anxiety. We take time, and I’m thinking of atextbook, going through each individual theory and explaining how it accountsfor why something or other happens, but we don’t take enough time synthesizingthe insights of those theories to explain in a real, substantive, helpful wayhow they help to explain how something happens actually. I remember inundergraduate school studying psychology, and after having read this entiretextbook which had the above approach meaning that of treating each theory kindof separately, somewhere at the end as if in a little footnote, it was statedthat the authors believe that all of the theories help to explain a differentaspect of what’s happening. Well if that’s the case, don’t you think you shouldsynthesize them and use them to explain what’s actually happening??? What areyou trying to do anyway? Aren’t we trying to understand these things? A lot ofgood you do telling students about all these different theories as if theyindividually can explain everything, and then move onto the next theory thatthinks it can explain everything too. They obviously contradict each other. Atleast if you try to do it that way. They can’t all be right.

And

don’t theorists need to be a little more responsible and a little less dumb andrealize that one insight will not explain every phenomenon in psychology?Surely we can be better. And surely we can have more discussions about how thedifferent theories work together and what might be missing and surely otherthings. Lots on the spiritual side for sure. Which psychology wants to shunsince it’s not scientific. You’re right it’s not scientific. It has to do withthings of the Spirit, which is the part of matter science doesn’t see. Itdoesn’t deal with it. Science deals with things you can see.

Wednesday,

Feb 19, 2020

Every

thing that has knowledge has the ability to act according to that knowledge. Agnat has knowledge, and is free to act thereon. Beasts don’t have a knowledgeof good and evil, so they can’t act on that, but we can. Beasts can act uponother things, including us.  Just not per good or evil. We can act uponthem for good or evil. A rock doesn’t have knowledge, and so can’t act. Only beacted upon. 

So

that is how we get our ability to act, by our knowledge.

We

were given a knowledge of good and evil in the garden of eden. Before that Adamand Eve didn’t have it, and were therefore like children. Can I say likebeasts?  No, they could speak and stuff, right?  That I don’tknow. 

But

they were at least like children. Power isn’t given unto children to sinbecause they don’t know sin from righteousness. They don’t know good and evilyet. That’s how the power isn’t given unto them. 

Thursday,

Feb 20

A lot

of good it does to go through the more famous theories of psychology as theytry to explain everything all by themselves in turn.  Do you have students think about these thingsthemselves?

Adam

and Eve must not have had self-reflection before the fall, before they partookof the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  They didn't know they were naked before, andthen all of a sudden they knew they were naked. They could see themselves from another person's point of view.  They could see themselves from outside ofthemselves.  They could imagine what theylooked like from another person's perspective. They became self-reflective.  Andit all happened when they gained a knowledge of good and evil.  How did that happen?  We have the time correlation, but not thelink between knowledge of good and evil, and self-awareness or whatever.

It had

been given unto them to choose, before they transgressed.  They had the commandment not to eat of thetree (it was forbidden), while they were yet child-like and innocent.  Only after they made the choice to transgressthe commandment did they gain a knowledge of good and evil, right?  Only then did they become self-reflective,and see that they were naked, and were ashamed. 

Saturday,

Feb 22, 2020

Just

read something online that put brain chemicals at the top of the list ofpossible causes for mental illness. You're trying to be nice.  Butyou're not helpful.  You're the coach whotells the basketball player it's not their fault they keep missing.  You're trying to make them feel better bytelling them it's out of their control. Big help.  Thanks a lot.

Brain

chemicals.  Same website linked toanother website that said brain chemicals as a cause is a weak argument oftenmeant to make it feel less personal and easier to talk about and get treatmentfor.  Well which website it right??  I say the latter.  The latter cited a number of differentfactors, called it a complex combination of factors, but it didn't put brainchemicals and head trauma at the top of the list.  My goodness!

Friday,

Feb 28

It's

an addiction.  It is an addiction.  Surely it is an addiction.  Depression and anxiety are addictions, thesame as alcoholism or drugs or pornography are addictions.  They're a trap.  They come in grades - or it runs on acontinuum from none to mild to serious. The more serious it is means the harder it is to escape.  It's a trap of Satan.  And yes, Satan is involved indepression.  Sorry everybody.  But it's a disease, you say, and it comes onat no fault of the person involved.  Welldiseases sometimes do and sometimes don't, right?  Lifestyle and other things that happen can befactors in diseases forming.  But you'reright - it is a disease, and it can come regardless of the actions of theperson involved.  Still involvesSatan.  I'm sure you think diseases don'tinvolve Satan either - then how does Jesus rebuke them at his word?  Why does it say Jesus rebuked the fever? 

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Stop

blaming it on the brain, guys!  Stopblaming it on the brain!

The

brain is like gravitons.  It's anunnecessary postulation for explaining stuff. Nobody understands it anyway.  Wepush it off to something we can't understand, phenomena that nobody's observed,to explain what self-deception can explain just fine.  Like the theory of relativity.  Genetics is like gravitons.  Genetics isn't understood, and while allthese people think it's going to soon explain everything, let's face it, it'snot.  But why wait?  We can see how people learn from the modelingand so forth of their parents and others how to behave and cope and think andfeel and everything else, for one, and genetics isn't needed.  You people! Why push off the explanation to something that nobody understands, whichnobody can see?  The Jews sought forthings they couldn't understand, and so the Lord gave it to them.  They didn't like plain things.  They didn't want the simple explanations, thethings right before their eyes.  Theywanted to look beyond the mark.  Isn'tthat what we do when we push the explanation off to the brain, the mysteriousbrain, and to genetics?  Who understandsgenetics?  Very very little is understoodof genetics.  A few physical traits, maybe understood.  But people give it waytoo much responsibility.  Stop blamingeverything on genetics, guys! 

Stop

blaming everything on the brain.  Let'sface it, you don't know that the explanation lies with the brain, you're justpostulating that!  You haven't seen it inthe brain! 

Q:  Do we have a sixth sense? 

A:  Whatever you want to call it, we definitely

have the ability to sense things spiritually, just like we do physically.  We are half spirit, you might say.  We're spirits housed in a physical body.  And just as we have sight, hearing, touch,taste, and smell, do we not have similar senses on the spiritual side?