Most behavior is learned. Imagine if you suddenly lost all you ever learned. What could you do? You would be unable to read, write, or speak. You could not feed yourself, find your way home, and drive a car, play Sony Play Station, or party. Needless to say, you would be totally incapacitated. You brood of vipers, how can you who are unlovely say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good man or woman brings out of them the virtuous stored up in hearts and minds, and the ungodly brings up the unscrupulous things out of the immoral thoughts stored up in them. However, we will have to give an account, on the Day of Judgment, for every careless word that they have spoken. For your words, you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.

Learning is obviously important. What is a formal definition of learning? Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience. Notice that definition does not mention temporary changes caused by motivation, fatigue, maturation, disease, injury, or drugs. Each of these factors can alter behavior, but none qualifies as learning. Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men and women, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in Heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with Twitter and Facebook, as the hypocrites do, to be honored by men. Do good deeds in secret and you will please God.

Is not learning the result of practice? It depends on what you mean by practice. Merely repeating a response will not necessarily produce learning. You could close your eyes and swing a tennis racket hundreds of times without learning anything about tennis. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good. You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine. Teach the older men and women to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.  Likewise, teach your friends and loved ones to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but teach what is good to them. Then teach the people to love their spouses and families, to be busy at home, to be kind, and encourage people to be self-controlled.

Reinforcement is the key to learning. Reinforcement refers to any event which increases the probability that a response will occur again. A response is any identifiable behavior. Responses may be observable actions, such as blinking, eating a piece of candy, or turning a doorknob. They will also be internal, such as having a faster heartbeat. To teach a child a new action, one could reinforce correct responses by giving the child a hug each time they do something good.

Similarly, you could teach children to be good by praising them for picking up their toys. Learning can also occur in other ways. For instance, if a boy or girl gets slandered by a reporter, he or she may learn to dislike reporters. In this case, the child’s apprehension is reinforced by the pain he or she feels immediately after seeing the reporters. Do you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? However, the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man or a woman unclean. For out of the heart come malicious thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. These are what make men and women unclean.

Antecedents and Consequences—unlocking the secrets of learning begins with noting what happens before and after a response. Events that that precede a response are called antecedent. Effects that follow a response are consequences. Paying careful attention to the before and after of learning is a key to understanding. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling the same prayers over and over. God knows what you need before you ask him. Spend more time thanking God for the good things you already have and you will see more blessings in your life.

Classic conditioning is based on what happens before a response. We begin with a stimulus that reliably triggers a response. Imagine, for example, that a puff of air (the stimulus) is aimed at your eye. The air puff will make you blink (a response) every time. Your eye-blink is a reflex (automatic, non-learned response). Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: the Lord knowns those who are his, and everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from immoral activity.

Now, assume that we sound a trumpet (another stimulus) just before each puff of air hits your eye. If the horn and the air puff occur together many times, what happens? Soon, the horn alone will make you blink. What happened? Clearly, you have learned something. Before, the horn did not make you blink. Now it does. Similarly, if you are happy every time you hear Aaliyah sing, you may learn to be happy every time you see Aaliyah—a picture of Aaliyah, an Aaliyah CD, or an Aaliyah movie.

These are your goals; Aaliyah brought you out of darkness and depression and into the light. You have a desire to find stimulus that make you feel good. Your heart and mind are in the right place. You are filled with the spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts—to make artistic designs in gold, silver, and bronze, to cut set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts. Basically, when you focus on what you love, you will see more blessings and miracles in your life.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

In classic conditioning, antecedent events become associated with one another: a stimulus that does not produce a response is linked with one that does. (A horn is associated with a puff of air to the eye, for example.) Learning is evident when the new stimulus will also elicit (bring forth) a response.  Some may ask, why do I help my enemies?

God commands: love your enemies, do go to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. However, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be the children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and unlovely. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

In operant conditioning, learning is based on the consequences of responding. A response may be followed by a reinforcer (such as food), or by punishment, or by nothing. These results determine whether a response is likely to be made again. For example, if you wear a particular hairstyle, and gets lots of compliments (reinforcement), you are likely to wear that hairstyle more often. If people snicker, insult you, call the police, or scream (punishment), you will probably wear that hairstyle less often. Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

For in the same way you hate on others, people will hate on you. Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your knowledge to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.  The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. However, if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.