Keeping Knowledge Over Emotion, or How We Can Save Our Country In One Easy Step

What is intelligence? In Standard English usage ’intelligence’ is understood as "the ability to learn or understand from experience or to respond successfully to new experiences"

 What is emotion or feeling? In standard usage, the term ’emotion’ is used to designate "a state of consciousness having to do with the arousal of feelings (Webster’s New World Dictionary)." It is "distinguished from other mental states, from cognition, volition, and awareness of physical sensation." Feeling refers to "any of the subjective reactions, pleasant or unpleasant" that one may experience in a situation.

In my 57 years of life on planet Earth, the distinction between the two has become very important in understanding how to deal with life's curve balls it may throw you. In understanding how our Creator interacts with us, and how His laws of nature, and human nature follow very traceable patterns. Our emotions and knowledge play a direct role as to how we cope, and the success we have at dealing with life's problems.

In religious belief, as it is in political belief, the same dynamic applies. If we are led by our emotions, we are only as strong as our emotional state is, but if we remain steadfast in what we know to be true from God's Word, and history, we can be successful in overcoming adversity.

Understanding and acknowledging simple truths are the first step to success. As civilizations go, disunity has always led to a weakened cultural state. Strife has always led to conflict, and conflict to war. The same goes for leadership, corrupt leaders lead to the fall of civilizations, unless they are quickly replaced by honest leaders. To those that believe, and understand God's Word, also note historically that when a nation deliberately departs from the worship and acknowledgement of it's Creator, the result is lost favor, and punishment. The Jewish people are a prime example, although they are God's chosen people, they did not escape His Wrath when they deserted Him.

It is my prayer for this country that we retreat from the emotional pleas of liberalism, and of doing things on the basis of how something feels, and only exhibiting acts of symbolism, that appease our emotion on a short term basis, but never solve problems and instead return to behavior that we know to be true and effective historically.

And if we understand as believer's that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places, we know that those same evil powers love to see us at each other's throats.
Discipline is never fun, but it is necessary. Heeding known causes and effects is the beginning of knowledge, that's why older people can be good counsel for us young people, as they have experienced more life than we have.