We do not expect to cease learning while we live on earth; and when we pass through the veil, we expect still to continue to learn...[W]e are not capacitated to receive all knowledge at once. We must therefore receive a little here and a little there.
By definition, it has to be mighty hard to understand the behavior of a being much smarter than you are.
The greatest torment the Prophet Joseph endured "and the greatest mental suffering was because this people would not live up to their privileges.... He said sometimes that he felt...as though he were pent up in an acorn shell, and all because the people...would not prepare themselves to receive the rich treasures of wisdom and knowledge that he had to impart. he could have revealed a great many things to us if we had been ready; but he said there were many things that we could not receive because we lacked that diligence...necessary to entitle us to those choice things of the kingdom."
Optimal lives are designed, not discovered.
Natural languages, such as English are inherently ambiguous. "This is why the United States tax code is 3.4 million words long, but lawyers can still spend years arguing over what it really means."
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.
...Melancholy and awful that so many are under the condemnation of the devil and going to perdition.... they should be cast out from this Society, yet we should woo them to return to God lest they escape not the damnation of hell!
...The devil flatters us that we are very righteous, while we are feeding on the faults of others---We can only live by worshipping our God--all must do it for themselves--none can do it for another
I learned that the strong will always beat the weak, but the smart will beat the strong. Boxing is a tough guy sport. But in the end, the tough guy gets to clean the streets and be a bodyguard. In the ring, the tough guy is going to get hurt; at the end of the day, he's going to talk funny. Only the smartest win. So, I know it's cliché, but power - real power - comes from knowledge, comes from smarts.
Those who try to qualify God's omniscience fail to understand that He has no need to avoid ennui by learning new things. Because God's love is also perfect,there is, in fact, divine delight in that "one eternal round" which, to us, seems to be all routine and repetition. God derives His great and continuing joy and glory by increasing and advancing His creations, and not from new intellectual experiences.
Perhaps it helps to emphasize—more than we sometimes do—that our first estate featured learning of a cognitive type, and it was surely a much longer span than that of our second estate, and the tutoring so much better and more direct. The second estate, however, is one that emphasizes experiential learning through applying, proving, and testing. We learn cognitively here too, just as a good university examination also teaches even as it tests us. In any event, the books of the first estate are now closed to us, and the present test is, therefore, very real. We have moved, as it were, from first-estate theory to second-estate laboratory. It is here that our Christlike characteristics are further shaped and our spiritual skills are thus strengthened.
Some find the doctrines of the omniscience and foreknowledge of God troubling because these seem, in some way, to constrict their individual agency. This concern springs out of a failure to distinguish between how it is that God knows with perfection what is to come butthat we do not know, thus letting a very clear and simple doctrine get obscured by our own finite view of things. Personality patterns, habits, strengths, and weaknesses observed by God over a long period in the premortal world would give God a perfect understanding of what we would do under a given set of circumstances—especially when He knows the circumstances to come. Just because we cannot compute all the variables, just because we cannot extrapolate does not mean that He cannot do so. Omniscience is, of course, one of the essences of Godhood; it sets Him apart in such an awesome way from all of us even though, on a smaller scale, we manage to do a little foreseeing ourselves at times with our own children even with our rather finite and imperfect minds.
Ever to be emphasized, however, is the reality that God's "seeing" is not the samething as His "causing" something to happen.
So much of the secular data men have accumulated is accurate, but ultimately unimportant. Even learning useful things has often diverted mankind from learning crucial things. Furthermore, let us not forget that great insight given us about the premortal world. The ascendancy of Jesus Christ (among all of our spirit brothers and sisters) is clearly set forth. Of Him it was said that He is "more intelligent than they all." (Abraham 3:19.) This means that Jesus knows more about astrophysics than all the humans who have ever lived, who live now, and who will yet live. Likewise, the same may be said about any other topic or subject. Moreover, what the Lord knows is, fortunately, vastly more—not just barely more—than the combination of what all mortals know. Even with the "brightest and the best," for instance, the current scientific competency in predicting earthquakes is a very inexact science. Scientists recently predicted a major quake along Alaska's coastline. When? Sometime in the next several decades. Rather indefinite as to when. Prophecy, happily, springs from very exact knowledge in the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Eternal Father, and it is surely very exacting in our lives as we experience its fulfillment.
God's omniscience is not stressed herein merely to put man down. We are His sons and daughters, and it is good that we seek to be like Him, including becoming perfect in knowledge. But it is the mark of an apt pupil to recognize what he does not know and from whom he can learn more.
He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul: but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding." (Proverbs 15:32. Italics added.)
Our capacity to grow and to assist each other depends very much upon our being "willing to communicate." (1 Timothy 6:18) Communication includes proper measures of counsel, correction, and commendation. Since we depend upon each other to supply these ingredients in our lives, our insensitivity in communicating can be far more damaging than we realize. When we "pass by" others and "notice them not," a degree of deprivation occurs. (Mormon 8:39.) One of the ways, therefore, we will be "proved herewith" is our determination as to whether or not we love others enough to give and to receive such vital communications. We may quickly say that communicating thusly with those close to us is difficult; indeed, it is, but with whom else is it really possible? Are not the people proximate to us our tiny portion of humanity, given to us by God as our social stewardship? We can scarcely attain that attribute of sainthood—being "full of love" (Mosiah 3:19)—unless we are willing to communicate by giving and receiving appropriate counsel, correction, and commendation.
A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.
It may be true that you have to be able to read in order to fill out forms at the DMV, but that’s not why we teach children to read. We teach them to read for the higher purpose of allowing them access to beautiful and meaningful ideas.
And those who urge entrepreneurs to never give up? Charlatans. Sometimes you have to give up. Sometimes knowing when to give up, when to try something else, is genius. Giving up doesn't mean stopping. don't ever stop.
It is the ultimate institution of higher learning. The best education in the world pales compared to what the Grand Schoolmaster will teach us if we are willing to submit to His curriculum taught in His House.
Effective intelligence work requires the wholesale collecting, warehousing and sifting of electronic information for patterns and clues.
Let me remind each of us, however, that education doesn't simply mean that we attend school. Education means that we learn to think. Henry Ford put it in words when he said, "An educated man is not one who has trained his mind to remember a few dates in history. He is one who can accomplish things. If a man cannot think, he is not an educated man, regardless of how many college degrees he may have attained. Thinking is the hardest work a man can do, which is probably the reason we have so few thinkers."
My report card always said, 'Jim finishes first and then disrupts the other students'.
We do not expect to cease learning while we live on earth; and when we pass through the veil, we expect still to continue to learn...[W]e are not capacitated to receive all knowledge at once. We must therefore receive a little here and a little there.
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