 Hey guys you just recorded a brand new message called correlation versus causation. I think you're going to really love it so my podcast channel and it will become in other platforms and I'm speaking about how much in the world at the moment we are really making things fit together correlation that don't fit together and we're creating outcomes causation that are not accurate at all so I'm spending some time unpacking that with us all and you're going to love this message. Before you get started on today's podcast with Paul Scanlon we just wanted to let you know that he now has a free course available to you. If you head over to paulscanlon.com forward slash free course you'll be able to sign up to his video series called The Five Behaviors of Successful People. We hope that this course adds value to your life. Now enjoy the podcast. We're going to get into the word of God together and I'm going to read to you guys from Acts 28 the first six verses. Once safely on shore we found that the island was called Malta. The islanders showed us unusual kindness. They built a fire and welcomed us all because it was raining and cold. Paul gathered a pile of brushwood and as he put it on the fire a viper driven out by the heat fastened itself onto his hand. When the islanders saw the snake hanging from his hand they said to each other this man must be a murderer for though he escaped from the sea justice had not allowed him to live but Paul shook the snake off into the fire and suffered no ill effects. The people expected him to swell up or suddenly fall dead but after waiting a long time and seeing nothing unusual happened to him they changed their minds and said he was a god. What a range of opinion about Paul in such a short time. You all know the story I think don't you that Paul survived the shipwreck. Everyone survived the shipwreck because of an angel appearing to Paul on the ship and assuring him that none of the lives will be lost on the ship if they stayed with the ship and though the ship broke up which little thought there for us that even even though an angel appeared and said to him no lives will be lost there was still going to go through a shipwreck during the process of no lives been lost. Sometimes a great outcome doesn't mean there's going to be no drama in between now and the great outcome and then we get on the island and Paul is gathering firewood obviously they're freezing and cold on the island of Malta in the Mediterranean and the locals on the island the Maltese people obviously were helping them recover and get warm and Paul's gathering wood and a snake bites him and when the local people saw that they said amongst themselves or perhaps out loud wow the gods must really have it in for this guy I suppose is what they're saying because though he though he survived the shipwreck he must be such a bad person that the universe the gods the powers that be I've decided he's going to get it anyway so you think you've beaten fate by escaping the shipwreck but a snake is going to take you out that was what they decided and said then a few minutes later when the venom should have killed him by then and it hadn't they changed their minds and decided wow instead of him being a criminal and his time has come because he's an evil person he's clearly a god how fickle people are what they're doing I want to use a word with you guys it is a beautiful word but it is not an often used word in English language and perhaps the language perhaps you're listening in from anywhere in the world but the word is correlation correlation what they are doing is creating a correlation connection between two things that they think mutually belong together the correlation in their case was the snake bite and his evil nature those two correlating things made them decide what was going on and I want to speak to you for a few minutes about the relationship between correlation and another beautiful word that we rarely use causation correlation and causation and what the Maltese people were doing and what I'm going to show you we're doing all the time and it's becoming a massive problem especially now with what's happening in the world with the pandemic and with the whole racial awareness in the world and that's going on is that they're not just correlating two things together they're deciding the cause of this must be because he is a bad person and the gods the powers that be whatever they worshiped and whatever their language was for this divine power that make sure we all get what we deserve this and a lot of Christians believe the same thing by the way about God that God is this sort of divine vindictive being with a killer surveillance system and he get away with nothing is what they thought about Paul so they put the correlation together of the snake bite and his evilness and came out with a conclusion that he was a bad person when he didn't die they had to reconfigure their correlation and causation so they refigured it as oh well maybe the snake bite wasn't to prove he was a bad person it was to prove he's a god and he's immune and the swiftness with which they switched correlation and causation is scary but we all do it all the time and I think we're in a time in the world now guys and this is why I wanted to speak to you about it at this time I don't normally like to speak a message or to a camera like this and date a thing because by the time people see the video it is not relevant anymore but I think because at this time I'm doing this recording I'm talking about two things that are not just going to date this they are shaping our world it's kind of like ignoring 9-11 when that happened and even still years later it is relevant to talk about in the effect it had on our world so the pandemic that we're in the midst of we're in June 2020 now and the race riots and the uprising around the world the revolution that's taking place following the death of a guy called George Floyd I'm going to mention him too because he should be immoral memorialised like others before him is why I think I should just speak about the context in which I'm speaking to you guys in at this time so around the idea of the pandemic and racism and so on and other big issues in the world that have come and gone and will do the same thing I think we humans have this capacity and almost an addiction to make certain things fit together and then that allows us to decide why things are happening in the world so we have multiple conspiracy theories as you know about COVID and China and how it all happened and multiple conspiracy theories that are still occurring on the internet and what's happening is what we are doing is we are creating correlations between things that we think mutually belong together and explain a cause that tide is up for us what we think that's about like the islanders did on Malta about Paul I think we are seeing it constantly now on social media in the news and journalism that we are saying those things belong together and because those things we decide belong together that we're deciding that the cause of this is certain such it could be supposedly Trump's collusion with Russia with regard to the elections it could be how we think about the relationship the correlation between drugs and crime or suffering and sin think about where you make these connections on a large or a small scale that is called correlation and I think it's a very dangerous thing to be casual about I wanted to draw your attention to it and use these words and get you to think about where you and I may be doing this on a daily basis on massive and small things where we go to a default autopilot mode of either buying into someone else's idea of that correlation and therefore the cause must be this or our own ideas about correlation and causation I think it's very dangerous and I'm appealing to you today to be careful about where you are doing that about where we are doing that because what no one tells us about correlation is that everybody creates a correlation and the causation based on the way in which they frame life the way in which you frame life and see life determines what you think are in a correlation relationship or not so to go back to the islanders on Malta they had clearly a way that they framed the world and framed God and divinity because they believe that bad things happen to bad people was their frame which by the way is still a widespread frame particularly amongst evangelical Christians that bad things don't happen to good people bad things happen to bad people you kind of get what you deserve you you report you so so their framing of life was that Paul must have deserved this even though they didn't know him didn't know his life his character just judged him on a snake bite what is the equivalent of that in us where are we seeing somebody experience a snake bite an event in their lives something that happens to them and we decide that means this when we do that guys it's because we have a preconceived way of looking at life it's called a frame I'm looking at you now through these glasses maybe you're looking at me through glasses and you're looking at me on a device my glasses your glasses the device I'm speaking to you through and the one you're watching me through have a frame I can't see my frame I can only see you if you're wearing glasses you can't see your frame you can only see me so you don't think you have a frame but I can see your frame when we both can't glasses on I can see your frame you can see mine so when we speak to each other we are aware and I want you to be aware of the frame from which people are making correlations and deciding cause and effect because we are defaulting to a way that we frame life as the Maltese people did as white people do as black people do as different nationalities and races do because these are all the things that shape our frame much of our frame that we don't know we have we don't know we have it because it was chosen for us by nature and nurture by the time we were aged 10 our frame was pretty much set for life guys and all this is a scary thing to say but there are enough tests historically to establish that by the age of 10 our deep set biases in life or our framing of life is pretty much established that's why when it comes to the issue of racism I think unless we speak to the emerging generation about this in a way that is that is very careful it's not enough for me as a white guy to raise my white kids to say you know we're Christians we love everyone I was not enough because that's not doing enough to to deconstruct and dismantle and carefully protect them from inheriting a default framing with regard to white privilege and racism that I didn't know they got so I think when it comes to framing and remember that term right that term down framing everybody is doing life with a certain frame we are all framing guys this pandemic in a certain way some are framing it as an opportunity some are framing it as the worst thing has ever happened to them and are not handling it well may not recover from it and I'm not judging anybody in that because it's been terrible for people around the world in multiple ways but I think and I've done a lot of you know stuff online and interviews and so on about how I'm viewing the pandemic and I've talked a lot about people move either to stability or to resilience and when you move when you're framing in life is to move to stability it's because you think I'm going to weather this storm I'm going to button down the hatches weather the storm and get through it that's that's a stability a stabilizing behavior but resilience doesn't weather the storm it uses the storm to get better and stronger and smarter and creative and inventive and like the economic crisis of 2008 many people made their fortunes in that downtime in that crisis in that global financial pandemic if you like it's because of the way they've framed what was going on and I want you to understand as you're listening to me that even now as you're listening to me your internal psychological framing and conceptual framing is governing how you even hear what I'm saying to you now if you've taken offense to anything I've said any random word I used any way that I put a thought together a trigger word even that I don't know is a trigger word for you or you don't know it's one for me whether it was white privilege or whether it was racism or nationality whatever it was if it's a trigger word it's triggering because you have a frame that makes that word a little minefield for you and I want to ask you is that okay where did that triggering come from in you Andy me and is that okay because if we just live with it we forever concluding that the snake bite is an act of God and they're bad people we forever concluding and this this is what's happening again to go back to the whole racism thing in the world guys we forever going back to the the casual but tragic default mindsets that a black guy jogging in a white neighborhood I'm out Aubrey must be a criminal he must be a danger and the next thing you know he's dead that is a correlation an instant an instantaneous correlation the snake bit him is an evil person it's that instantly he's a black guy jogging in a white neighborhood equals he's a danger he's a criminal we've got multiple examples of that in the media besides his example and it's because we're making this correlation based on our default autopilot framings that have very tragic outcomes potentially as in that case a less dramatic outcome may be but still tragic is that we shut down voices in our lives that we need we remove ourselves from opportunities that we would have been better pursuing that we become narrow and judgmental and unkind when we could have been open-minded and learned and grown and become better people by the thing that our frame made us be resistant to so I want you to think about where are you where am I framing a thing that suits the way that we see life it suits our philosophy ideology but it's creating a correlation and the causation that may just not be true and based on that based on that lie that wrong perception that false conclusion we are making decisions in life some of them are huge and I think it's that level of conversation we have to have with ourselves and our own internal ecosystems and with those that we have influence over either as parents or as leaders that we have to question the frame what is the frame I would encourage you and I've done this a lot recently to to ask people um hang on a minute why did you say that I think you have a whatever the frame is you think you're dealing with I think you have a youth frame and your youth frame is causing you not to be able to see other perspectives or your married status frame or your social economic class frame or your religious frame or your stage and age of life frame whatever a frame is that you and I think may prevent us from seeing something hugely important to us is what is happening all the time around the world millions and millions of times a day and it's deepening the division between us as humans because we're creating correlations that are not genuine don't exist and are erroneous and we are concluding things that that means that are not true um this is what happened with Job remember Job was suffering and his friends his friends gave to see him to explain to him what they think was happening and there's chapter after chapter in the book of Job where his friends are trying to create artificial correlations to explain what caused it in his life were you in kind to someone years ago did you neglect to help the poor and the weak and the sick were you not generous when you should have been to a homeless person to use a modern-day equivalent um did you steal from someone um did you do a dodgy business deal didn't you speak up for injustice when you could and so on and so on and for days his friends tried to help him find out what was he in his life that was wrong to create a correlation that proved why God was punishing him and of course we know don't we as we read on at the end of Job's suffering that God steps in with his own questioning of the questioners saying to them really if you guys are the brain you'd be dangerous is what God kind of said because God's first opening response wasn't an explanation of this is what's really happening with Job he's a great guy and he's part of this kind of um cosmic experiment which you know um was no fun for Job I'm not saying that but I think when God stepped in he asks them uh do you know where where the snows kept or where lightning is stored or do you know when um the wild goats give birth and God goes on with his own list of questions to let them know that they're pitiful attempts to connect things together in a need to explain and tidy up Job's life which is often why we reach for correlation correlation let's explain what happened to Paul and the snakebite correlation let's us keep our frame intact it tidies everything up it's what I call the sin of certainty that we are obsessed with our need to be certain that we are right and you are wrong so we create a correlation that keeps our frame in place that makes us feel right and keeps you've been the wrong person and we're afraid to have the debate I'm finding this with racism around the world a lot of white people are afraid to have the debate I get people in my comments when I post something jumping on with hatred um and with just these statements and these conclusions and I know it's from their framing and when I go back to them challenging them they don't respond back they don't want a discussion they just want to spew hatred and want to spew narrow mindedness because they think this equals that and what this does is it keeps us continually divided because it's our desire to be certain that what we believe and how we think is right and how other people think that's different to us is wrong it's destroying our humanity it's killing us in the church guys it is fostering separateness and tribalism and war amongst us this is why I've taught for years now about the need for nuance nuance is a french word that means shade and for years I've taught our need to have an open mindedness to multiple shades on the same thing but it isn't all either or left or right republican or democrat male or female gay or straight black or white rich or poor that there's nuance and and I believe that tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance when I don't allow you to have a shade different to me then I am dictating to you the only shade it can be and if I can't discuss with you what you want to talk about because I don't appreciate the shade you've chosen then again we're separate we're divided because we are stuck inside our framing that we don't know that we have I want to say in the church world guys for us that um one of the reasons I stopped saying as much as I used to say as a pastor God told me I felt God speak to me um I felt God um put on my heart I felt God put this thought in my mind I felt the Holy Spirit um speak to me about this I think in the church in Pentecostal charismatic churches we use that language all the time and I think it's unhelpful because the moment I say to you I feel God told me then I'm telling you my frame my frame is I have a direct line with God um that you maybe don't and now anything you say that challenges me you've got to deal with that I think you are challenging God add to that that I may be the pastor the man of God the great preacher and I keep saying God told me God told me I've got a word from God for you um again what it does is it creates a correlation that I want you to have about me we want people to have about us as believers we want the correlation to be uh about us that God speaks to us and so when we post and when we speak and when we go on camera and when we say something and when we preach it's not like when other people speak because we are we are divinely inspired God spoke to us and so if I go around using my position and my status um such as that might be in people's minds you know as a preacher a pastor or whatever a man of God or wherever and this isn't just a church thing but I'm speaking especially to us in the church where we use this God told me stuff again I think what it does is and I don't mean God doesn't speak to us humans I don't mean that I just don't think we need to be saying it all the time because I think we use it as a way to get leverage people's minds we leverage we leverage our authority we leverage our relevance and our importance by using God told me so I want you again to think how often in a day do you either say that or hear that or think that which means you stack in your favor the correlation between how you speak and where you think it comes from and therefore the cause of our not agreeing with you is because we're against God and so it builds up other layers of resistance between you and I because you've allowed that very powerful religious framing theological framing biblical framing to be one that you saying to me is a non-negotiable this is the only way to see other people posting on my social media want to spoke about racism if people had correct theology this wouldn't be a problem and I've gone back and said to them please tell me what correct theology is guys nobody nobody just reads the bible nobody we all read the bible with a frame and we see what we want to see and we read the bible according to our race and our gender and our circumstances and our life experiences and our socio-economic background and so on so on we read the bible like that and and even if even if what someone says to us is true we still have to decide what that means to us it's can't be well because you said it that must be true yeah it may be true to you this may be your truth I don't think at all when I speak to camera or post things on social media or preach in a church I don't think at all that because something's good for me it may be good for you I try to speak in a way that I'm saying you know I think this is what I think I've got an idea about this I've got some wisdom on this I think um but it may land different in your life I think we live in a world of echo chambers guys don't we we live in a world where where the whole internet and social media is tracking us there's a killer surveillance system that has every search you put in even if you're in a conversation around Alexa or your phone you're getting stuff in your feed that you didn't type anything about you just spoke about it and the devices are listening next thing you know they're sending you stuff about the thing you spoke about a couple hours ago what it's doing is is that is the social media and the internet is surrounding us with the things that we speak about and it becomes it becomes a digital virtual echo chamber and we can have the same thing in life relationally and in the church where we only hear the voices that echo back to us about the things we're speaking about the things we're interested in and you finish up believing that that is the only thing to think and say about that and I think the church world we have our own we have our own echo chamber bubble we have that about it we have the in our race and our nationalities and our genders there's all kinds of echo chambers and I'm trying to commit to this age and stage of life with all this happening in the world appealing to you guys to do the same that we don't get stuck in an echo chamber of our own making and we make a god in our own image and we commit the sin of certainty which is what the the golden calf was about let's make an image that gives us a god we can touch and see and worship and be centred on because we want to be certain of the god we worship because Moses has gone and we don't see any more supernatural interventions from god so we need to create a god we can relate to and what they did was they created a relationship with how they thought about god rather than a relationship with god that's what we do when we frame have an echo chamber create artificial correlations that mean this is the causation and I want us to work at doing that less and seeing in each other's and helping each other to stop that and to break free from that behaviour that I think we humans do hugely at the moment in the world all right thank you for taking the time to listen to Paul Scanlon's podcast channel we just wanted to remind you about the free course that's available to you on the five behaviours of successful people so go and head over to paulscanlon.com forward slash free course to sign up for that today and please do subscribe share and review this podcast channel