Episodes

  • 43: Why Do You Care?

    43: Why Do You Care?
    Aug 11 2023
    It is apparent that one property of self-deception is a need to have others validate your wrong-ness (as right-ness). You can't be settled or peaceful about your untruthfulness, to use a term I like to use. You must constantly seek justification from others, or attempted justification, we might say, since it is not real and is never satisfied. The scriptures are filled with examples of people who weren't satisfied to ignore the testimony of the prophets or the righteous and go about their lives. They needed to cancel them - kick them out of their cities, or kill them. The Zoramites couldn't even handle that the righteous whom they had kicked out were accepted by another people, and so they began a great war. Obviously the crucifixion of the Savior is another example of this need to cancel the person who is challenging your erroneous beliefs and works. There's no, oh well I don't feel the way he does but he's free to express and live his beliefs as long as my rights are main
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    32 mins
  • 42: Temptation, Willpower, and Legs

    42: Temptation, Willpower, and Legs
    Jun 26 2023
    I discuss the mechanics of willpower and choice in the face of temptation. Basically, #1, in the face of temptation, should you have gotten yourself out of the situation or otherwise avoided it in the first place, or can you now? When Joseph in Egypt found himself in a bad situation with Potiphar's wife, he "got him out". He has been described (by Niel A. Maxwell) as having had good legs. So first avoid the situation or get out of it in the first place. Does a certain situation present temptations for you and you know it? Then avoid that situation, if you can. You don't have to ever go to the bar. You don't have to go to that party in the first place. You don't have to even touch alcohol, or drugs. You might not need to hang around that person. You might not need to use that app, or that website. You don't have to stay up way late at night with that person or those people. Be smart. Don't be dumb. Keep yourself out of those situations in the first place. #2, if y
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    25 mins
  • 41: Dogs and Stress

    41: Dogs and Stress
    Mar 31 2023
    Abstract: Dogs, who are not accountable before God and do not have the capability to make choices regarding good and evil, nevertheless get angry/aggressive, can have anxiety, low self-esteem, fear, etc., like a human can. This to me tells us that emotional stuff we deal with such as depression and anxiety are not necessarily (if ever?) a result of our own moral choices. If a dog, or a young child, can be self-deceived (be going against one's own knowledge of good and evil, on some level), knowing that they themselves are not accountable before God for their actions...well wait a minute, I thought only humans had the light of Christ and that having that means you have a knowledge of good and evil. So does this mean even dogs have the light of Christ? Even though they're not capable of differentiating between good and evil and will never be morally accountable before God? We know little children are not morally accountable until they get older and are able to know good from
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    Less than 1 minute
  • 40: Anger, Depression, and Choice

    40: Anger, Depression, and Choice
    Mar 1 2023
    Well the text below isn't super close to the words I actually uttered forth in my podcast, but here they are anyway. Enjoy and thanks for listening/reading! Monday, May 20, 2022 Offense a Conscious Choice? More on the idea that it’s not totally accurate to say that getting offended or getting angry is a conscious choice. (Or getting anxious or …) Friday, June 2, 2022 Insight vs. New Information and Logic So I’m thinking about insight versus kind of actual new information, or might we say, conclusions or whatever. So what is insight? To me you get an insight just purely from thinking about something. It’s an observation. Maybe that’s a better concept, an insight is an observation. Then in the theoretical world, and really the world in general, you make an insight into an assumption or something, you use that insight to explain the world. And so all these theories develop that are based on one idea and one idea only. Evolution, for example. Or behavioral theory. Or br
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    38 mins
  • 39: Self-Deception is Not Necessarily Sin

    39: Self-Deception is Not Necessarily Sin
    Aug 2 2022
    SBK039 Self-Deception is Not Necessarily Sin Transcript by Microsoft Office 365 dictate/transcribe – not super great, had to do tons of editing just to turn many many separated fragments on separate lines into sentences and paragraphs, not to mention the wrong words and everything, but here you go! *music* All right, good enough. Welcome to the Should Be Known Podcast, I am Clayton Pixton. If you're new and episode 39 is your very first episode, we talk about principles of psychology on this podcast, but not the ones that I guess you may be used to if you were used to talking about psychological principles from a psychology book or any of the kind of established sources of psychological knowledge or whatever, not to diss them, necessarily, at this moment, but we are taking it kind of afresh from the perspective of, what, just common sense and deriving principles from what I see and from, I guess revealed truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We draw upon the scrip
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    30 mins
  • 38: Filling In the Gaps and Faith

    38: Filling In the Gaps and Faith
    Mar 2 2022
    Monday, February 21, 2022 There’s still a huge gap. I understand depression involves a lie, and anxiety. I understand a little about self-deception. But as it turns out all ways we err involve self-deception, not just depression and anxiety. I don’t understand how people get depressed and anxious. I don’t feel like I can explain the whole thing. Gotta keep trying.  Maybe read some about it. I think Wendy Treynor had a good explanation for depression, in part at least. It is a rejection of the self. Or it involves or results from a rejection of the self. And she talks about self love a lot on her website, which has to be a thing. Amy weeks talked about that in church Sunday, and Elder ___ in conference. It has to be a thing. We are self-reflective beings. We can love ourselves, like we love other people? If that’s all it is, in essence, failing to love ourselves, which is the lie I’ve been talking about (I’ve termed it as thinking we’re worthless or whatever), then we jus
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    28 mins
  • 37: The Source of Principles of Psychology

    37: The Source of Principles of Psychology
    Feb 1 2022
    Where do we look for the true principles of psychology?  Why not the scriptures?  The concepts there are actually true, while those from the philosophies of men may or may not be.  I use the term "philosophies of men" to mean the ideas of the great thinkers of our time and times past.  They may be great thinkers.  But many of their ideas may be wrong.  On the other hand, the ideas put forth in the scriptures ("ideas") are actually true and accurate.  While I enjoy reading and listening to the thoughts of thoughtful men and women over the ages as well as from our time, they are actually full of errors.  They may not have intentionally erred or misled, they just didn't know, and unfortunately many of them kind of acted like they knew, and act like they know.  And many take their word for truth, because they don't know, either.  Some is true and some is false, and you need to reference a higher knowledge to tell the difference. It's be
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    32 mins
  • 36: What Do We Do?

    36: What Do We Do?
    Feb 15 2021
    Sunday, January 17, 2021 So if the instant you cross the line you have to justify yourself, or in the instant you cross the line you are justifying yourself, then it's just like a property of being on the wrong side of the line.  And it's a trap, because you are deceived as to the fact that you are in the wrong and you are deceived as to the way to get out, and it sucks you in.  Maybe good has its own rewards.  Namely peace and happiness, and all the fruits of the Spirit.  But evil has its draw, and it's definitely more appealing to the carnal mind.  It has great allure and once you're on its side it's a blinding trap.  Then it takes away peace and happiness and you want that, I guess.  So it's up to us what we want to choose.  Good or evil.  Evil has all the carnal appeal, and good just has peace and happiness, but it's not immediately apparent that it's necessary.  Something like that? Saturday, January 23, 2021 Finding f
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    37 mins