“God’s plan!” I am not a “believer” but I have a particularly hard time with “believers” who believe everything that happens is part of some plan!
[Detroit Lions’ safety Tracy Walker says his cousin Ahmaud Arbery ‘did not deserve that’](http://Detroit Lions’ safety Tracy Walker says his cousin Ahmaud Arbery ‘did not deserve that’)
“He did not deserve that. And, you know God has a plan for everybody, man, but you know, it’s tough,” Walker said to ESPN.
I am also not a “believer”, but if someone who is encountering a universe that they don’t understand, and retreating into the notion that “God has a plan but I don’t understand it”, I find it silly to begrudge them that. And certainly I wouldn’t let it upset me to the level of arguing about it.
I’m guessing this isn’t so much a pitch for an argument as a post in the wrong forum.
Seems to me to interfere with free will.
You have free will…
…to do exactly what God has planned for you.
Seconded!
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Indeed, God wants people of their own free will to act like God’s robot and follow The Plan.
You’ve never had someone tell you that a child that learned how to unbuckle their car seat but the parents hadn’t gotten around to addressing it died in a car wreck because God had a reason.
The two elements of my statement are how that person deals with their grief, and my level of upset about it. Based on what you have posted, I stand by my statements.
No, because such a retreat implies passive acceptance that we cannot understand the universe, and undermines our motivation to effect change. Sure, there are some things we cannot change. But a superstitious fatalistic worldview permeates everything. A choice to feel better in the short term through superstitious rationalization is little different from trying to feel better by getting drunk. It might grant superficial comfort, but it’s ultimately harmful.
Was half a million deaths a year from polio “God’s plan”, something that we should just have passively accepted as beyond our understanding?
Was Arbery’s death part of “God’s plan”? No, it was an evil act committed by evil men, and we should be angry and stay angry until we extirpate such evil from our society.
So, you are saying you do begrudge Tracy Walker that retreat. In that, you would be compounding his pain, something I will not do.
If someone wants to deal with their own suffering by calling it God’s plan, I’m fine with that. But anyone trying to tell another person who is suffering that the tragedy is for the best because it is God’s plan deserves to be punched in the face.
Which would be God’s plan also, wouldn’t it?
Based on my level of experience with what I posted, I stand by my statement that you have not experienced it.
I think stopping the next black jogger being lynched is a higher priority than concern about whether Tracy Walker feels sad. And I think the correct understanding that his murder was an avoidable consequence of the actions of evil men, rather than a fatalistic acceptance that it was part of God’s ineffable plan, is more conducive to achieving that aim.
That’s right, I have not experienced what you describe. What does that have to do with my support of Tracy Walker’s statements, and my reaction to the resulting level of opprobrium of the OP?
You said it would not upset you, I say you are mistaken.
He’s trying to cope with a murder. Whatever gets him through the night. I wouldn’t choose now as a good time to debate him on his beliefs.
Hear, hear.
The two aren’t mutually exclusive. If you believe that God allows tragic things to happen to innocent people because of some plan that humans can’t understand, but also believe that God wants humans to work for a better and more just world in ways they can understand, then your theology isn’t an obstacle to your “achieving that aim”.
Tracy Walker used his celebrity to be interviewed by a major news outlet about this tragedy, during which he made it very clear that he is angry about it, and that his family and community “want justice” for what happened to his cousin. I don’t think he needs anybody patronizing him with lectures about what “correct” understanding would be most “conducive” to that fight for justice.
(Especially given America’s persistent cultural requirement that black men, especially physically powerful young black men, need to project extra-high levels of serenity and acceptance in the face of aggression in order not to be interpreted/portrayed as “dangerous” “savage” “animals”, it’s kind of galling to see a black sports celebrity getting finger-wagged for allegedly being too serene and accepting about his cousin’s slaying. Tracy Walker probably understands a hell of a lot better than you do what sort of remarks from a black football player about the lynching of a black jogger will actually be most “conducive” to inspiring America to push back a little harder against our cultural legacy of racism.)
Um… guys?
You are aware that this subject has been debated at great length and in any amount of detail by theologians and philosophers for many, many centuries? Anything you can say off the top of your head about this subject has already long since been said and argued about, even in pre-Christian times by ancient philosophers (ancient Greeks also believed in Fate decreed by the Gods).
Christians have been debating predestination as long as Christianity has existed. Many, many sharp minds have considered this question over many, many centuries. (The evangelical dumbed-down version of Christianity excepted.)
So, to use an analogy, you’re dropping into this thread a little late, and not reading a few thousand years of previous posts… 
Here are some summaries to start with:
Fatalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Foreknowledge and Free Will (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Predestination in Christian theology (Wikipedia)