One of the purported purposes of this life is to gain experience. The ultimate objective of gaining that experience is to have joy. (See 2 Nephi 2:23-25.) Gaining experience, for the most part, requires having opposition to work against.
A day without strenuous challenge is a day hardly lived. It's like going to the gym without lifting any weights or playing racquetball without having anyone to play against. Without opposition, we are just "putting in our time". Nothing changes...except we grown a day older and advance a day closer to death.
It was boring living in the bush! Our human capacity to acquire knowledge (truthful information) centuries -- even just one or two decades! -- ago was far less than it is today!
Today knowledge practically flows to us in a stream as constant and voluminous as the time we spend surfing the web.
"Book" knowledge is not to be confused with experience. We only know for a surety what we experience for ourselves. Everything else is just "book knowledge": untested, untried (by experience), really just very strong beliefs.
What "book knowledge" we "learn" vicariously through others may even be flat-out false.
However, what we "learn" nonetheless influences what we think and do. We are very susceptible to "programming" and propaganda -- unless we learn for ourselves. We must have our own experiences.
The internet (and other media) provides a "pipeline" of information (and, thus, "book knowledge") to our minds that is unparalleled in human history. We can "learn" more today in less time that at any time that ever was.
I have a friend who taught himself how to do drive a tractor-trailer rig (and thus get his commercial driver's license) in one day by just watching Youtube videos! I learned how to change brakes, replace half-axles, repair suspensions and re-mount tires all by watching videos. (That saved me a lot of time, money and -- potentially disastrous! -- experience. I "learned" a lot faster that way!)
We now enjoy the greatest opportunity to "learn" in all of human history.
What are we "learning" on tv, the internet, our cell phones and Snapchat?
What we "learn" is what we do.
At no time has our ability to learn (and thus do) been greater than it is now. At the same time, in no time in history (that I know of) has the "knowledge of good and evil" been more widely broadcast than it is now. We may drink from the fountains of life whatever pleases us, for good or evil, filthy waters or pure.
But one thing is for certain: we are what we "eat".
The "instruction" of humanity is being greatly accelerated. The "formation" of characters -- by "learning", picking and choosing, taking sides, if you will -- has never advanced so rapidly or so universally as it is now. Just a few decades ago, half our planet had never spoken on a telephone. Today cell phones -- and information -- are ubiquitous.
Soon everyone will have access to "knowledge" and be held accountable for what they "know" and then do.
Adam was warned not to partake of the forbidden fruit. (Even if he didn't "know" better, by his own experience, not to do so, he was still held accountable.) The flood of information now sweeping the earth -- for good and evil -- is preparing the world for judgments to come.
*Attenuated means to weaken or to make thin. Man's capacity to commit sin in the garden was minimized, for he lacked knowledge.
The old Chinese curse goes: "May you live in interesting times."
Not "may you live a long life" or "may you have an easy life", but may you have an interesting one! A life filled with drama, intrigue, twists and turns, unexpected outcomes and great opposition -- even horrible, nasty things! -- is certainly interesting. The best books and movies are made from such stuff.
No one wants to read a boring book or watch a boring movie -- in which nothing interesting happens and nothing ever changes.
No one wants to live a boring life.
As Rob Smith points out in his new book "Seek Ye This Jesus: (Book 1) The Miracle of Repentance":
As Rob Smith points out in his new book "Seek Ye This Jesus: (Book 1) The Miracle of Repentance":
In Eden, without that opposition, mankind’s ability to commit sin was incomparably attenuated* compared to the environment in which we live, but so was their ability to acquire knowledge. (p. 18.)
It was boring living in the bush! Our human capacity to acquire knowledge (truthful information) centuries -- even just one or two decades! -- ago was far less than it is today!
Today knowledge practically flows to us in a stream as constant and voluminous as the time we spend surfing the web.
"Book" knowledge is not to be confused with experience. We only know for a surety what we experience for ourselves. Everything else is just "book knowledge": untested, untried (by experience), really just very strong beliefs.
What "book knowledge" we "learn" vicariously through others may even be flat-out false.
However, what we "learn" nonetheless influences what we think and do. We are very susceptible to "programming" and propaganda -- unless we learn for ourselves. We must have our own experiences.
The internet (and other media) provides a "pipeline" of information (and, thus, "book knowledge") to our minds that is unparalleled in human history. We can "learn" more today in less time that at any time that ever was.
I have a friend who taught himself how to do drive a tractor-trailer rig (and thus get his commercial driver's license) in one day by just watching Youtube videos! I learned how to change brakes, replace half-axles, repair suspensions and re-mount tires all by watching videos. (That saved me a lot of time, money and -- potentially disastrous! -- experience. I "learned" a lot faster that way!)
We now enjoy the greatest opportunity to "learn" in all of human history.
What are we "learning" on tv, the internet, our cell phones and Snapchat?
What we "learn" is what we do.
At no time has our ability to learn (and thus do) been greater than it is now. At the same time, in no time in history (that I know of) has the "knowledge of good and evil" been more widely broadcast than it is now. We may drink from the fountains of life whatever pleases us, for good or evil, filthy waters or pure.
But one thing is for certain: we are what we "eat".
The "instruction" of humanity is being greatly accelerated. The "formation" of characters -- by "learning", picking and choosing, taking sides, if you will -- has never advanced so rapidly or so universally as it is now. Just a few decades ago, half our planet had never spoken on a telephone. Today cell phones -- and information -- are ubiquitous.
Soon everyone will have access to "knowledge" and be held accountable for what they "know" and then do.
Adam was warned not to partake of the forbidden fruit. (Even if he didn't "know" better, by his own experience, not to do so, he was still held accountable.) The flood of information now sweeping the earth -- for good and evil -- is preparing the world for judgments to come.
*Attenuated means to weaken or to make thin. Man's capacity to commit sin in the garden was minimized, for he lacked knowledge.
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