Everyone Has a Model

Everyone has a belief system whether they realize it or not.

When I explain the non-contradictory worldview, some people say, "Why do you make it so complicated? Just believe..."

Actually a model makes everything EASIER once it is understood. Everything that happens after you have a model INSTANTLY makes sense.

My first question is to ask people what their model is...usually they say they don't have one or they can't explain it.

Think about that!

They say they don't have one...yet they do.
These people are living in deception or they are knowingly lying.
They may think that living in denial relieves them from responsibility and accountability.

The ones who can't explain it ACTUALLY have a MORE complicated belief system...otherwise they would be able to explain it!

Jesus said it was given to his followers to hear and UNDERSTAND. It was not given to non-believers to understand.

So, when someone tells you they don't understand God or have to understand Him more, they may be telling you they are ACTUALLY an unbeliever.

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World Peace Solution

For the record, this is what I would say to the world if I had only 60 seconds:

“Thank you for allowing me to share with you the solution to the one problem that affects all of us: world peace.

First, let me start with a truth: All we know FOR SURE is what is NOT true. I will repeat it so it can sink in: All we know FOR SURE is what is NOT true. If I tried to convince you that I lived in Africa, when I really lived in Asia, I would tell you everything that is similar with Africa. The more I told you, the more it would appear that I live in Africa, but you wouldn’t know FOR SURE. However, when I mention something different from Africa, you will instantly know FOR SURE that I don’t live in Africa.

Every one of our brains, regardless of cultural experience, philosophical perspectives, and religious beliefs, works in a comparative fashion. That is, we hear information and try to make it agree with our beliefs. However, the ONLY way to prove truth is to be contrastive: try to prove your beliefs wrong.

Contrastive thinking is the solution to world peace. If everyone would actively try to prove their own beliefs wrong, we would never have a disagreement. The result would be world peace. If you really want world peace, stop marching and demonstrating, and start thinking contrastively. It all begins with you. Thank you.”

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Inventing vs. Discovering

There is a HUGE difference between “inventing” and “discovering”.

The problem is that people use these terms interchangeably and it can lead to damaging results…

Discovering is to bring to public attention something that already exists...for example: The Trinity or The Rapture.
Man may have named the concept, but man didn't create the concept.
Inventing is to create something that previously didn’t exist...for example: apologetics or "sovereignty".

I have seen this difference with my book “Modeling God”.

I have spent the last 12 years discovering:
-the four principles that determine truth
-God’s identity
-the non-contradictory worldview

If I had invented this, I would own it…I don’t own it.
In fact, I didn’t even like what I was writing while I was writing it!

All I own is my explanation of these concepts.

When I present these concepts to people, their response is VERY telling…

Most people, especially those in leadership, instantly project upon me that I have invented these concepts.

Their next step is to explain why they don’t have to accept these concepts…basically it is because I am unable to invent these concepts.

I AGREE!

The non-contradictory worldview is made up of non-contradictory definitions for the key words that make up our belief system. I can easily show people they don’t know what they mean when they talk about faith, grace, love, truth, life, God, salvation, etc. I can easily give them a non-contradictory explanation and definition for each of these words and concepts.

Why do they still reject this?

Their real goal seems to be they want to invent the right answer!

So, they actively go the opposite direction of the non-contradictory explanation that is given to them…even though it is superior to the explanation they have been teaching for years.

ANYONE can teach the things I discovered 12 years ago…because NO ONE owns these ideas.

Turning this down is proving to everyone, including God, that their goal is not to pursue truth and help others.
Their goal is to get credit…this is pride.

Furthermore, if people REALLY want to pursue truth and understand God more, then they would be open to other ideas…unless they think they already have the right answer…

…if they do have the right answer, why can’t they explain it?

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Table of Contents

This is the new and improved Table of Contents, however, some explanation is required to first time readers:

People who can't objectively and specifically state what they believe and why are limited and the same as all the other people who have abstract beliefs. The purpose of "Modeling God" is to help you become the person God created you to be. In order to begin this process, you need to know what YOU believe and WHY. Even if you don't agree with the non-contradictory worldview presented in "Modeling God", if the information is considered, the individual will know what they believe and why.

For two years, I had a pastor claiming that Modeling God was heretical, yet he wouldn't give his support for his claims. From time to time, this blog documents the struggles with this pastor. The conclusion occurred in late 2009. His lawyer gave the pastor's formal support. It turns out that not only did he have any support, his attempt to give his HOW/WHY led to HIM being heretical and disagreeing with the Bible! Here is a link to December 2009 proving that Tim Snell has NO SUPPORT for his claims about Modeling God: Tim Snell's Formal Support.

This blog has covered a lot of topics...some are covered in "Modeling God" and some aren't.

In fact, there are over 700 posts on this blog. To the new reader this looks overwhelming. If you are interested in going through the information on this blog, I would begin with the Brain Series and read straight through today. Everything on this blog before this Series is foundational and can be accessed WHEN NEEDED through links in the later posts. Now, to the list of topics...

This first section consists of foundational topics. Each link goes to the first post in that topical grouping.


FOUNDATIONAL TOPICS
Definitions
The Four God-Given Principles
Various Definitions and Applications
Prayer
Faith
Grace
Who God Made You To BE
The Role of Thinking
The Hard Question, Model For God, Model For Jesus
Atlas Shrugged Notes
Personal Background on Modeling God
Proving God Exists in 8 Seconds
Understanding vs. Agreement
Coming to Conclusions With Only Three Questions
Joyce Meyer's Changing of the Bible
God's "Sovereign" Will?
Life: The Ability to Repair
Truth
The Importance of Words
Love
God Wants You to Be a Modeler
The Acts Church
Fellowship
OUGHT vs. IS
Pornography, Masculinity, Sex, and Marriage
Thinking Background
Leadership
One Way Justice
Personal Stories About My Life: From Birth to College Graduation
The Meaning of Life
The Gospel


The rest of this blog has been presented in "Series Form". Each month we begin a new Series as I feel led of the Holy Spirit. Each link will take you to the beginning of each Series. Again, anyone wishing to begin reading this blog ought to begin here because throughout these Series there are links back to the Foundational posts when needed...so you would be learning about each of these topics at the most opportune time.

The Brain Series
God's Will Series
The Book of Job Series
The New Testament Job
2008: The Year in Review

The next set of Series were presented in 2009 and, when taken in order, form a book!
The Book of Romans
The Salvation Series
The Book of I Corinthians
The Most Underappreciated Event In The Bible: The Last Supper
The Book of Daniel
The Spiritual Warfare Series
Strongholds: Leadership and The Role of the Sexes
The Men and Women Series
The Books of I John, II John, and III John
The Abuse Series
The Unaware Brain
The Updated Unaware Brain
Conclusion: How To End Our Dispensation

2009: The Year in Review


In 2010, we are doing The Gospel According to Matthew with Background Series in between sections of Matthew:

Matthew chapters 1 through 7
Unaware Brain and Spiritual Warfare
Matthew chapters 8 through 12
The Brothers Karamazowsky (The Novella)
Matthew chapters 13 through 17
Sin and Confronting People
Matthew chapter 18
Matthew chapter 19
Matthew chapter 20
The Doctrine of Enemy
The Doctrine of Friend
Friendship, Fellowship, Love, and Grace
Three Way Fellowship Mini-series

The Man-Made Doctrine of:
The Laws of the Land
Facts
Honesty
Loyalty

Modeling in the Bible
Matthew chapter 21
Matthew chapter 22
Matthew chapter 23
Matthew chapter 24
The Day of The Lord
Matthew chapter 25
Rapture Perspectives
Matthew chapter 26
Matthew chapter 27
Matthew chapter 28
Happiness and Maturity (Summary of The Gospel According to Matthew)

In 2011, we had the following Series:
Spiritual Maturity
How To Have a Happy New Year
Biblical Examples of Spiritual Maturity
How To Be a Man
How To Be a Husband
How To Be a Father
Word Used in the Bible: Graphe, Logos, Rhema
Sixty Doctrines

Then we had two of the most important Series on this blog:
Motivational Spiritual Gifts: Who God Made You To Be
Personality Model: Thinking Models

In 2012, we will spend the entire year looking at a chronological presentation of the Gospels:

The Core Issues

Whenever I talk to people about "Modeling God", inevitably people say, "Well, as long as we agree on the core issues of Christianity, that is all that matters."

What are the CORE issues?

To me, the CORE issues are:
1. Who is God?
2. What is Salvation?

EVERY Christian should be able to answer and HELP others answer these two questions.

If we don’t know the first, then we may be worshipping the wrong God…regardless of our intentions AND what we say. If I don’t intend to sin and I call something God considers a sin “not sin”…THAT doesn’t make it okay in God’s eyes. If I say I believe in "God", but I don't make an intentional effort to understand Him more and think that I'm right "enough", there is the chance I'm not worshipping the ACTUAL God. If I think this will get me to heaven, then I am no different than the people who have a different belief in God, yet feel they are right too.

If we don’t know the second, then we may be telling people they are going to heaven when they really are not…and people will stop searching for what they need to do to make sure they go to heaven. Again, my feeling like I’m “saved” and saying that I’m “saved” doesn’t make me saved if I truly haven’t done what God MEANT when He explained the way of salvation.

We all agree on what the Bible says, yet we disagree. This is because we don't agree on what the Bible MEANS.

I’m sure there are other core beliefs, but to me these two are the most important and make the most difference in peoples’ lives when they are understood.

I find it hard to believe these issues are still in doubt AND that people think it is GREAT that they are in doubt. These are foundational...they are knowable. My experience is once these are understood, the REAL rich and deep discussions occur.

These discussions over God's identity and slavation are like deciding if 2+2=4 or 5? We can't go on to the rich discussions if we are holding people back. Discussion is AWESOME...but let's not make it about foundational things, otherwise we are saying God didn't intend for people to know who He is and how to go to heaven. How can you have ANY discussion BEYOND "Who is God?" and "What is Salvation?" EVERYTHING is BASED on this!

Besides, is this REALLY discussion when someone says, "I don't believe we can know God's identity." THAT sounds like the END of discussion.

People also like to immediately jump to God's NAME. His name and identity are two separate things...otherwise you believe who you are will change if I call you a different name.

My other conclusions from discussing models for God:

Being upset at people for having a model for God is hypocritical
-Everyone has a model for God whether they know it or not

Not being able to express your model for God is not something you should be proud of.
-I was shocked to see how people considered themselves more righteous because they couldn’t express their model for God.

Not being able to express your model for God and being a teacher is hypocritical
-Teacher’s help others intentionally understand

Tearing down someone else’s model for God while being unable or unwilling to share your model for God is EVIL
-This is purely destructive.

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Understanding vs. Experience

There are two ways of going about creating a new formula…

If we represented the formula with a graph, then every ingredient would add a dimension. A formula that had eight ingredients would have to be represented with an eight-dimensional graph. If each ingredient was varied at six levels of concentration (for example: 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5%) then the number of possible formulas is: 1,679,616. Since there are a lot more than six levels of concentration for each formula, the possibility of finding the perfect formula easily surpasses the chances of winning the lottery!

One way of creating the formula is by making as many versions as possible in the allotted time. If one was given three months to make and test formulas, they may be able to create close to 200 formulas for testing during this time period…and they would have the same chance of getting a successful formula as one would have of winning the lottery if one bought 200 tickets.

The other way of creating the formula is to focus on the interactions between the two main ingredients. Once this is understood, the interactions between these two ingredients and the third ingredient could be understood. This process could be continued until all eight ingredients and their interactions are understood.

The first strategy is based on experience.

The second strategy is based on understanding.

Whenever I was given a product to formulate, I would ask how much time I had because I was going the understanding route.

I needed to know how much time I had for each stage. If I was given several months, I was pretty confident I would not only come up with a successful formula, but I’d be pretty close to the ideal formula. If I was given less time, I could find a way to achieve the objective; however, the formula would still have room for improvement.

Using this technique allowed me to make better performing formulas at less cost…because I understood what was going on and could intentionally achieve the desired result.

This may seem obvious to you, but realize I never met another person who formulated in this fashion. Why?

Think about what it looked like to management when another person and I were given the same three month project.

At the end of two weeks, the manager would talk to the person pursuing the experience strategy. They would show the manager the 25 formulas they had made and how each one was close to achieving the goal…but had just missed. The manager feels like progress is being made.

When the manager talks to me, I would tell them how I had begun to understand how two of the ingredients interacted. When they asked to see the samples I had created, I had to say there were no finished product samples. This looked like I wasn’t doing anything. At this point, the manager is getting worried because the other person has made 25 finished product formulas and I haven’t done anything…or so it appears.

After a month, I have figured out how 3 of the ingredients interact, while the other person has 75 formulas made…and none work. All this did was make the manager even more nervous and mad. They would lash out at me despite my explanation and assurances. They were focused on appearance.

By the last two weeks of the project, the manager wouldn’t be speaking to me. I still hadn’t made a finished product while the other person had 200 formulas made. Even though none of them worked, the manager figured at least that person was trying.

When the final week of the project arrived, the person pursuing the experiential strategy would have a list of excuses why none of their formulas worked even though they were REALLY CLOSE.

Meanwhile, I would be able to offer the manager three options that worked and let them choose whether they wanted the best performer at equal cost, the slightly better performer at huge cost savings, or a formula in between.

Even though I was successful, the other person would get the higher rating because the process wore the manager out AND the manager was all about appearance.

Likewise, we should be looking at the current authors of Christian books and the current leaders of Christian organizations.

Do they understand what they are talking about or are they focused on how they appear?

Do we care what they are saying or are we focused on how they are saying it?

Do we want results or marketing?

What does Jesus say about valuing appearance?

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