Timothy R. Jennings > Quotes

“Just as the Bible teaches, to give is to live. This is how God designed life to function.”
― Timothy R. Jennings, The God-Shaped Brain: How Changing Your View of God Transforms Your Life

“Dementia is not normal. Normal aging does not result in dementia. Dementia … is a disease state that may, with healthy choices, be avoided.”
― Timothy R. Jennings, The Aging Brain: Proven Steps to Prevent Dementia and Sharpen Your Mind

“A twin study revealed that when physical activity was conducted outdoors it resulted in significantly lower rates of depression than when exercise occurred indoors.”
― Timothy R. Jennings, The Aging Brain: Proven Steps to Prevent Dementia and Sharpen Your Mind

“Law and order: At level four, right and wrong are determined by a codified system of rules, impartial judges, and prescribed punishments. At this level, individuals defer judgment to properly elected or otherwise constituted authority. Right is getting a proper pay or reward for good work and a prescribed infliction of punishment for breaking the rules. Authority figures are rarely questioned; “He must be right—he is the president, the judge, the pastor, the pope.” Elementary school children operate at this level and find security, predictability, and peace in the rules. At this level, tattletales abound as children are intolerant of rule breakers and demand fairness, which is typically some imposed punishment. The black-and-white thinking of this level of operation leads to fragmenting into divergent groups or cliques who share a core set of group rules and who demean and criticize those who don’t share their rules. This was ancient Israel at the time of Christ—“We have a law!” the Pharisees proclaimed, as they sought to stone Jesus for healing on the Sabbath. The Jews in Christ’s day were separatists who were intolerant of those who didn’t keep their rules and obey their rituals. This is much of our modern world too, with its codified laws, courts, prosecutors, judges, juries, and imposed punishments. Authority at this level rests in the coercive pressure of the state to bring punishment upon those who deviate from the established laws. At this level, police agencies and law enforcers are required to monitor the populace, search for breaches in the law, and inflict codified penalties. This is the first level that requires the emergence of thinking but only minimal thinking—basic indoctrination and memorization of rules. One doesn’t have to understand reasons for things. One only has to know the rules and obey them.”
― , Timothy R. MD Jennings, The God-Shaped Heart: How Correctly Understanding God's Love Transforms Us

“Religious Children Are Less Altruistic A recent study of 1,170 children from six countries—United States, Canada, China, Jordan, South Africa, and Turkey—found that children raised in religious homes were not as good at sharing and more likely to be punitive when compared to children raised in more secular homes. The author of the study said in an interview, “In our study, kids from atheist and nonreligious families were, in fact, more generous. . . . Together, these results reveal the similarity across countries in how religion negatively influences children’s altruism. They challenge the view that religiosity facilitates pro-social behavior, and call into question whether religion is vital for moral development—suggesting the secularization of moral discourse does not reduce human kindness. In fact, it does just the opposite.”5 When one understands the law of worship, such a finding is no surprise; it is the predictable and unavoidable outcome when the predominant worldview of God is that of an authoritarian dictator who operates on imposed law. This is a function of design law—the law of worship—by beholding we become changed. We really are transformed into the image of the god we worship. It is just as the prophet Jeremiah said, “They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves” (Jer. 2:5). Or as Paul said, “Because those people refuse to keep in mind the true knowledge about God, he has given them over to corrupted minds” (Rom. 1:28 GNT). Believing the wrong view of God can result in much more tragic outcomes than mere failure to share. In fact, there isn’t anything much more dangerous than someone on a mission for God who doesn’t actually know him!”
― , Timothy R. MD Jennings, The God-Shaped Heart: How Correctly Understanding God's Love Transforms Us

“A meta-analysis of over six hundred thousand adults found that overwork is associated with increased risk for heart attacks and strokes.”
― Timothy R. Jennings, The Aging Brain: Proven Steps to Prevent Dementia and Sharpen Your Mind

“However, when we worship a god other than one of love—a being who is punitive, authoritarian, critical or distant—fear circuits are activated and, if not calmed, will result in chronic inflammation and damage to both brain and body. As we bow before authoritarian gods, our characters are slowly changed to be less like Jesus. Truly, by beholding we are changed, not only in character, but our neural circuitry as well3 (2 Cor 3:18 KJV).”
― Timothy R. Jennings, The God-Shaped Brain: How Changing Your View of God Transforms Your Life

“In April 2004 the professional journal Pediatricspublished astounding research that revealed television watching by children increases their risk of developing attention deficit disorder. The amount of time a child watches television changes the brain!”
― Timothy R. Jennings, Could It Be This Simple?: A Biblical Model for Healing the Mind

“After introduction of TV, homicide rates in U.S. increased by 93 percent from 1945 to 1974. During the same period, homicide rates in Canada increased 92 percent. But in South Africa, in which TV did not appear until the 1970s, the homicide rates decreased by 7 percent from 1945 to 1974. Astoundingly, after the introduction of television in 1975, the homicide rate increased 130 percent.”
― Timothy R. Jennings, Could It Be This Simple?: A Biblical Model for Healing the Mind

“Again and again I am brought up against it, and again and again I resist it: I don’t want to believe it, even though it is almost palpable: the vast majority lack an intellectual conscience; indeed, it often seems to me that to demand such a thing is to be in the most populous cities as solitary as in the desert”.7”
― Timothy Jennings, Could It Be This Simple?: A Biblical Model for Healing the Mind

“Although the medical community does not consider such methods as actually providing any physiological benefits, Drs. Benson and McCallie identified some extremely interesting results: such methods were effective for 70-90 percent of those patients who believed the intervention would work. When science eventually proved such treatments as bogus, the rate dropped to 30-40 percent.1”
― Timothy Jennings, Could It Be This Simple?: A Biblical Model for Healing the Mind