Is your marriage Fireproof?

I would recommend this movie to EVERYONE. Jessica Nye told Monica about it and we rented it at Redbox. It has horrible acting and cliche lines, but the message and goodness of the movie overrides all of that and then some. Great movie! Here is a music video from a song that was in the movie (great song by the way), and yes the movie is as cheesy as this video is.

Conservatism in England?

This guy sounds more conservative than any elected politician we have here in the United States...very impressed.

The Vision

"It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can."

--John Adams, letter to Count Sarsfield, 3 February 1786

The founding fathers truly had the vision necessary to make this country what it is today. They were God inspired men.

President Obama

For the first time since the debates I watched President Obama speak on television a couple nights ago. It was 60 minutes and he spoke mostly about the economy. I won't speak about how he is leading our country into socialism, or how he is undoing everything the makes our economy resilient, or how he is socializing the auto industry...The only thing that I will say about those things is that I believe that the government should have MINIMAL involvement in 'fixing' the economy. If the economy is left alone, companies that have made mistakes will be replaced by better more efficient companies. If we save every failing company, we take away the incentive for future companies to avoid risk because they know the government has their back. This 'free market' approach is more painful in the short term, but far better for our country in the long run.

Now, back to Obamamama. The only thing that I wanted to say in regards to his interview is the contrast of pre-election Obama to post-election Obama. Two completely different people!!! Because I have the perspective of someone who hasn't seen him speak since the debates I was able to contrast these two Obama's very easily. The pre-election Obama was very critical of the Bush administration down to very small details. He criticized his staff and administration RELENTLESSLY. He appeared messianic because he gave us the 'hope' that everything would be perfect under his rule. Reality has arrived and he now finds himself defending things and people that he would have been critical of if it wasn't his administration. He is now singing a tune of 'let's look at the big picture and stop being critical of every detail'-far different message than we were getting from him last October.

Last October he REAMED McCain for saying that the fundamentals of the economy are strong preceding our economic recession. But now he finds himself trying restore faith and convince Americans that the fundamentals of the economy are strong (the fundamentals of the economy haven't changed since October). It is just interesting to me to see the contrast, it is easy to look messianic when you are being critical from the outside looking in. Good luck on the inside President Obamamama.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

I thought this was very helpful in understanding what the heck happened to our economy. (thanks Mom!) Although it didn't mention that President Bill Clinton was the one who loosened regulations and encouraged banks to lend to lower income people in an effort to allow more minorities to own homes. Normally the market forces would encourage banks not to do this because of the risk, but the video explains why it was not as big of a risk as it should have been for the banks.

Wisdom vs. Intellectualism

Monica and I had a conversation today where she brought up the difference between wisdom and intellectualism. She seemed to have the difference clear in her mind and explained it to me very insightfully. Then she asked me what I thought the difference was and I didn’t have a convincing answer, so I decided to do some research.

Intellectualism= “involving intelligence rather than emotions or instinct” (online Princeton dictionary)
Wisdom= “accumulated knowledge or erudition or enlightenment” or “having gained understanding, experience, discretion, and intuitive understanding, along with the capacity to apply these”

It is interesting to see the definitions of these terms. The world’s dictionaries tell us that the difference between intellectualism and wisdom is feeling. The definitions for intellectualism include words like ‘intellect’, ‘analytical’, and ‘cerebral’. While the definitions for wisdom include ‘enlightenment’, ‘experience’, ‘intuition’, and ‘sensible’. Wisdom seems to encompass intellectualism, but not the other way around. Wisdom seems to go a step beyond intellectualism by allowing feeling and emotion to help us in our quest for truth. One who is strictly intellectual goes by reason alone, only what the brain can comprehend is accepted. Whereas one who is wise uses reason, but balances it with truths he has come to accept by feeling, or enlightenment. These truths he may not be able to prove, but he knows they are true just as certainly (if not more) as the intellectual.

2 Nephi 2:28-29 says:

“O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.

“But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.”

I would say that ‘learned’ in this scripture is equivalent to our word ‘intellectual’. Let us start with verse 29. It clearly states here that it is not in itself a bad thing to be intellectual, as long as you hearken unto the counsels of God. Or in other words, if you are wise first and intellectual second. Intellectualism without wisdom is dangerous. In verse 28 it says that those who are intellectual often think they are wise and those people hearken not unto the counsel of God. Why? Why is it natural for an intellectual to hearken not unto the counsel of God? I think this is so because an intellectual is so masterful at reasoning and logic, that he can rationalize any behavior away if he thinks about it long enough. His reasoning and logic, without the balance of feeling and emotion leads him astray.

I found an interesting talk by Bishop Glenn L. Pace from the May Conference in 1989. He said (italics added) :

“One activity which often leads a member to be critical is engaging in inappropriate intellectualism. While it would seem the search for and discovery of truth should be the goal of all Latter-day Saints, it appears some get more satisfaction from trying to discover new uncertainties. I have friends who have literally spent their lives, thus far, trying to nail down every single intellectual loose end rather than accepting the witness of the Spirit and getting on with it. In so doing, they are depriving themselves of a gold mine of beautiful truths which cannot be tapped by the mind alone.

"Elder Faust describes this type of intellectual as “a person who continues to chase after a bus even after he has caught it.” We invite everyone to get on the bus before it’s out of sight and you are left forever trying to figure out the infinite with a finite mind. In the words of Elijah, “How long halt ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, follow him.” (1 Kgs. 18:21.)”

I love that quote. He said we should accept the witness of the Spirit and get on with it! That is awesome. And I love the scripture from 1 Kings: “How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him.” I think Bishop Pace summed it up nicely with this quote: “In so doing, they are depriving themselves of a gold mine of beautiful truths which cannot be tapped by the mind alone.” In our search for knowledge, let us not rely on our reason alone, but let us feel and experience truth through our emotions being led by the Spirit of God. Only then will the truth set us free.

Welcome

This blog is meant to be more of a journal for me than anything else. I don't expect a lot of viewers, but if you are reading this welcome welcome. I need an outlet for thoughts and emotions that I have and this seems like a good place to do it. You will get a bit of everything on this blog....welcome to Kyle's Korner!