Despite our attempts to forget and ignore most of what Joseph Smith taught, most people remember having heard this one: "Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you would by reading all that ever was written on the subject." Hearing differs from understanding, however, and most of the time we fail to realize the full import of that statement. One of its ramifications is that we really don't know much. Moses tells us that man is nothing, and this is yet another example of precisely how ignorant we all are.
We (sometimes) read and study and occasionally pray for knowledge, we gather little snippets about this and that, and we try to fit these scattered morsels of doctrine into a coherent picture. The picture we come up with tends to work well enough for our purposes, because most of the time we don't pick up new knowledge very quickly, and when we do, we're good enough at accepting cognitive dissonance that we have no trouble smoothing over the rough edges that don't fit our pre-existing mold.
But what if we really don't know anything at all? What if there are oceans of detail in between the snippets of doctrine we've learned, about which we have no concept, and if we've surrounded our nuggets of pure doctrine in layers of misconception? Really, the best way to learn is not by "the best books," but by that faith that we don't all have, according to the scriptures.
We home-school our children, and in that effort, we first make sure they can read well. Once they can do that, they're well-suited to learn on their own. When we as a people study the gospel, perhaps our first goal ought to be to gain faith, so we can use it to gaze into heaven, and fill in the enormous gaps that exist between the bits of doctrine we've learned.
We (sometimes) read and study and occasionally pray for knowledge, we gather little snippets about this and that, and we try to fit these scattered morsels of doctrine into a coherent picture. The picture we come up with tends to work well enough for our purposes, because most of the time we don't pick up new knowledge very quickly, and when we do, we're good enough at accepting cognitive dissonance that we have no trouble smoothing over the rough edges that don't fit our pre-existing mold.
But what if we really don't know anything at all? What if there are oceans of detail in between the snippets of doctrine we've learned, about which we have no concept, and if we've surrounded our nuggets of pure doctrine in layers of misconception? Really, the best way to learn is not by "the best books," but by that faith that we don't all have, according to the scriptures.
We home-school our children, and in that effort, we first make sure they can read well. Once they can do that, they're well-suited to learn on their own. When we as a people study the gospel, perhaps our first goal ought to be to gain faith, so we can use it to gaze into heaven, and fill in the enormous gaps that exist between the bits of doctrine we've learned.