My news feed tonight had a headline from the L.A. Times that I couldn't resist: "Stanford scientist, after decades of study, concludes: 'We don't have free will'. It was a great read for any dispensational Bible believer and I will share my insights about it tomorrow. In the meantime, here is an interesting article I posted a year ago, almost to the date, and notice the advice is given to read a book because you're forced to concentrate on the words on the page:
"We are blissfully unaware of how blessed we are to have the most expansive variety of resources in the history of humankind constantly at our fingertips," says Rayn Khan of the University of Minnesota (marketing department) in today's Wall Street Journal.
"Living in the Information Age, we must conform to the reality that enterprising minds prioritize access to high-quality information and, with lower attention spans, can digest this information at increasingly rapid rates.
"Being able to understand complex ideas in spite of reduced attention spans is producing people with efficient models of comprehension and a skill set built for impromptu problem solving.
"Ultimately, it is up to individuals whether they want to strengthen this instant information-processing muscle or whether they want to devalue this intellectual advantage for the sake of short-term gratification via the consumption of trendy but pointless content."
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In the same Wall Street Journal article, a woman from Macalester College, Maddie Heinz, reasoned, "Why are we always on our phones? Because tech moguls and social-media developers designed a piece of technology so addicting and damaging that we can’t handle concentrating on real life.
"We shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves for being easily distracted; developers created this technology to be addictive. But we can resist by making real efforts to slow down our consumption. Reading a book is an easy and simple solution because it forces us to concentrate on the words on the page. There’s nowhere to scroll."
Patrick Barry, Georgia Institute of Technology, aerospace engineering, concluded in the WSJ piece, "Long attention spans brought humanity the work of Einstein and Newton; let’s stop allowing technology to change us and embrace deep thinking."
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Here is a study I posted at the bottom of this blog entry from Nov. 1, 2022:
"If your mind is programmed by error, it's going to produce some real predictable emotions and desires that come out of error," says Richard Jordan. "Dumb, bad, erroneous thinking authored by your old sin nature comes from the 'sin that dwelleth in me.' Jesus said, 'It's by the heart the things that come out of a man defile a man.'
"The things that defile you are not the places you go and the things you see. What defiles you is the response you have to those things in your heart.
"Instead of programming the mind with error, program it with truth, because programming with error causes you to produce some actions that are counter-productive.
"If I program my mind with truth and facts then I can take actions based upon faith that will produce some fruit and the feelings show up later.
"Have you ever noticed that your feelings . . . I have never walked up to an elliptical machine and said, 'Man, I'm just so happy I'm here.' But there's a strange thing. If you get on it, in about 10 minutes, you think, 'This wasn't near so bad.' About 20 minutes later, you say, 'Well, you know, I think I can do another 10 minutes.'
"You get the body and the endorphins going and you feel differently about it. Emotions do that. They'll follow, but you had to make that choice over there. They're not to be the ones that inform you truth; your mind is to be programmed by God's Word.
"Volition is a function of our will where we make choices. We make choices based upon what's in our mind; this memory center we have. Those thoughts become reality to our emotions because emotions don't think; they're dumb. They have no intellect; they are only designed to be responders to what you're thinking.
"This is critical. You think about something, you have the information, you make a choice what to do based upon the truth in your heart and your emotions see that choice that you've made and say, "There's reality," and they respond appropriately.
"When they respond, that's what they are for--the word emotion is for motion. They are to produce activity but they're not to be the source of the action. When they become the source, where the action comes from, all of a sudden, rather than the truth residing in your mind being what your will makes its choices based upon, your emotions become the ones running the show.
"The 'tyranny of emotional revolt' is when the emotions say, 'I'm going to be the one to sit on the throne and I'm going to be the one who decides how we respond and what we do!'
"You face a difficult situation and your emotions say, 'I know what we better do!' and your mind says, 'Okay, okay, okay, okay.' Your mind begins to think your emotions know what they're talking about so your mind begins to think what your emotions are feeling is true.
"What's your will going to do? He's got to make choices based upon what your mind is programming, so now your will winds up making good choices or bad choices?
"Well, it might be as good of a choice as you can make under bad information, but the problem is the whole source is backwards. So now what's running you? Error. If you can get that concept in your thinking it will change everything."
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