(Full Notes)Saturday, July 4, 2020The thing with the learned behaviors mentioned in the last podcast is that it can be explained in terms of self-deception.Again about animals being used for experimentation for psychology.  I don't know.  I know I don't like it, and I'd far prefer to see how far we can get by studying self-deception, as opposed to the brain, personally. Saturday, August 1, 2020So with every case there is probably an element of the trap and an element of personal responsibility, or an element of being a victim and an element of personal responsibility.  Hard to know how much of which it is, and what a person needs to hear.  In the church sometimes there are things, I think, that most people need to hear and so in public addresses that may be what we hear.  But surely there are those who that doesn't apply to, for which it might make a person do the opposite of what they should.  I'm thinking of the term "damaging", that gets used, and sometimes erroneously I believe, especially in teachings of the apostles.  But I suppose there is that possibility.  We are told they teach the rule, not the exception.  But then you admit there is an exception sometimes.  I just wish we could teach both sides and say maybe that many of you need the following advice, and some of you probably don't need it and need the opposite, and you must judge honestly for yourself.  That's what I wish we could do.If there's always an element of victim-hood and an element of personal responsibility (hard to know how much of which) then a person can't just snap out of something, and sometimes they can.  Yes, sometimes they can.  This is when it's, I guess, mostly personal responsibility that is the problem and they're not in the trap so deep that they can't snap out of it.  Other times the reverse is true, then, where somebody is caught in a snare and, not that somehow miraculously you can't get out of a deep pit fast, but sometimes you can't, right, and it will take longer and no matter your willpower you just can't snap out of something.  No way.  Miracles happen, and maybe it's not a matter of it being a miracle or not that you are able to get out of a deep pit suddenly or whatever, but sometimes it ain't going to happen.  Not right away, anyway.  Have to make small choices along the way, and, maybe, still have a miracle to get you out of the trap. In any case I can see how basically sometimes you can snap out of something, and sometimes you can't.  I want to understand about anxiety.  And depression.  The big thing I have is that self-deception is a part of it.  Right?  That's the whole hulabaloo.  Why didn't Terry Warner take it there?  He knew about mental illness.  But why wouldn't he apply his principles to it?  Because he looked at people who struggled with that and maybe himself and just couldn't bring himself to condemn them?  Well why condemn anybody else?  Of course you don't condemn them.  Don't condemn anybody.  Leave the condemnation out of it.  That's for God, right?  In every case, surely.  Is the theory of self-deception one of condemnation?  I say it doesn't have to be.  It can be, if you do that, but it doesn't have to be.  We can love people who are self-deceivers, as you might call it--it's all of us!  That's the thing with my wonderful mentor, Terry Warner.  I think you can take what he thought even further--it applies to everybody and everything.  It's just the mechanics of a world of light and darkness.  That's how I've always felt, I mean at least I've always felt that it extends beyond interpersonal relationships and beyond the cases where he illustrates it.  How can I find the basic insight?  The basic insight.  I see it most readily in the religious self-dec