# "it was God's plan." Oh, give me a break! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 17, 2020, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984 "2020-05-17T16:28:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/41 "2020-05-19T14:08:40Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > First, you must assume a god exists. Once we’ve passed that hurdle, we can discuss what his/her/its/their plan(s) might be, and how you know that. Well, the OP specifically referred to people who identify as “Believers”. In a case like that, I think the discussion should center around the logic/validity of THEIR beliefs, and they should be held to the standards of what THEY believe in. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/42 "2020-05-19T14:33:47Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > I also find that the angry arrogance of people on this board who seem never to have had anything of spiritual significance ever happen to them, never felt comforted by communal ritual, never found richness and meaning in a religious tradition, and assume that the yes billions of humans who have, are grotesquely deluded and incredibly stupid compared to themselves, to be a bit laughable. Undeniably, many people find comfort in many types of rituals and traditions. Not coincidentally, they are the rituals and traditions they grew up with or adopted. I think that it’s important to be able to distinguish between a practice that gives you comfort and the belief that what you are practicing is ordained by a higher authority. Historically, and currently, the manner in which people observe these rituals and to whom they are attributed continues to be a point of friction among populations. So that’s kind of a problem. Another problem is the dismissal, as you’ve just done, of those “_So made that cannot believe_”. What you see as “angry arrogance” is an expression of frustration by some of us who have not had a transcendent religious experience, nor do we find ourselves missing out on the kind of spiritual meaning it carries to those who have. But we are constantly being reminded that we are somehow not right unless/until we do. And let’s not forget that being a-religious was quite frowned upon until fairly recently. So we have no right to forget that now that many religions have taken on a friendlier face and benighted victim attitude, it was far more punitive when it thought it could get away with it. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/43 "2020-05-19T14:55:01Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > …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.) > [@Kimstu](#): > > I suggest we refrain from applying such challenges to the publicly expressed personal beliefs of a black family member of a black lynching victim…getting on your high horse about the need to publicly “challenge” the black family member’s expressed belief as “nonsense” because you’re concerned about its hypothetical negative impact on “the debate on public policy”? That strikes me as getting a little too close to arrogant-asshole-behavior territory. And given that the family member is black and you’re not, you could be veering towards the particularly smelly area of white-condescension-arrogant-asshole-behavior too. So your strategy for defending the indefensible notion that religious belief (and I’m not talking about some vague sense of “spirituality”, but specific superstitious truth claims) should inform public policy is to: (1) Create a straw man that I’m advocating making an insensitive and inapproriate _personal_ attack on a man while he’s dealing with bereavement; (2) Summon the woke identity-politics idiocy that ideas should not stand and fall on their own merits, but hold merit only according to the color of the skin of the person who advocates them. As for the latter, _that’s_ what’s condescension-laden racist bullshit. It’s one thing to advocate _listening_ carefully to black people on their social experience with these issues, sure. But what you’re implying is that if a black person advocates an idea, that idea should not be subject to intellectual scrutiny and debate like the ideas of white people, but must be treated with kid gloves. That’s an incredibly patronizing and racist notion. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/44 "2020-05-19T17:55:38Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > So your strategy for defending the indefensible notion that religious belief (and I’m not talking about some vague sense of “spirituality”, but specific superstitious truth claims) should inform public policy […] 😕 :dubious: Now **this** is what a strawman looks like, as opposed to your exaggerated claims about my own post. Opining that singling out the publicly expressed personal beliefs of a lynching victim’s relative for scoldy anti-superstition critiques is “getting a little too close to arrogant-asshole-behavior territory” is not in any way “defending the indefensible notion that religious belief […] should inform public policy”. You keep resolutely ignoring the fact that **Tracy Walker explicitly made a statement to “inform public policy” that’s the exact opposite of what you claim to be worrying about.** Namely, Walker said that he and his family want justice for this killing of an innocent victim. Your persistent disregard of this very clear call to action, in favor of continuing to wring your hands about the damage you supposedly fear that Walker’s passing allusion to his own personal religious beliefs might inflict on “public policy”, is, to say the very least, not rational. > [@Riemann](#): > > But what you’re implying is that if a black person advocates an idea, that idea should not be subject to intellectual scrutiny and debate like the ideas of white people, but must be treated with kid gloves. More flailing strawmannery. Of course I’m not saying that no black person’s idea should ever be “subject to intellectual scrutiny and debate”. What I’m saying is that under the circumstances, singling out the personal beliefs of a black relative of a black lynching victim as the subject of your pious “anti-superstition” puritanism comes across as kind of jerkish behavior. If you can respond to any of my points without having to construct an obvious strawman argument to take the place of what I’m actually saying, I’ll gladly continue the discussion of them. At present, I don’t think your artificially applied anti-religious pecksniffery is really contributing much to the debate in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/45 "2020-05-19T19:50:49Z")
> [@solost](#): > > Do people who trust in “God’s plan” believe in the literal Old Testament? Where God decided to do a hard reboot and wiped out 99.9% of humanity, not to mention most land-based life, in a flood? Not to mention a thousand other dickish plans the Old Testament God came up with. That’s not a God I’d want to trust in. “It’s all part of God’s plan!” was probably very little comfort to the Canaanites. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/46 "2020-05-19T19:50:50Z")
It might be difficult to non-religious people to reconcile, but believing “it was God’s plan” does not prevent individuals from taking action. It’s not a call to sit a do nothing it’s an attempt to cope with the fact that bad shit happens to good people. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/47 "2020-05-19T21:51:05Z")
I find it interesting how God manages to act in a manner that is indistinguishable from randomness. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/48 "2020-05-19T21:53:46Z")
> [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > I find it interesting how God manages to act in a manner that is indistinguishable from randomness. Mysterious ways and all that, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/49 "2020-05-19T22:15:10Z")
> [@TreacherousCretin](#): > > I find it interesting how God manages to act in a manner that is indistinguishable from randomness. What if, shall we call him a Creator, designed a universe that was self-operating. It expanded and contracted. It created life and destroyed it. Where decisions by lifeforms could alter the future but had consequences. Where randomness ruled. It would be a God version of Sim Universe. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/50 "2020-05-19T23:24:50Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > What if, shall we call him a Creator, designed a universe that was self-operating. It expanded and contracted. It created life and destroyed it. Where decisions by lifeforms could alter the future but had consequences. Where randomness ruled. It would be a God version of Sim Universe. In what way would it be distinguishable from a universe without a creator? ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2020, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/51 "2020-05-19T23:30:35Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > In what way would it be distinguishable from a universe without a creator? Only that the universe with a creator would have the ability to reset. But no one can nor ever will know the answer to if there is a creator., Maybe, for us sentient forms of life, the idea of their being a creator gives a bit more meaning to life and a greater respect for the planet. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/52 "2020-05-20T00:03:17Z")
In what way does a universe recycled at the whim of a creator add meaning to life? It may all be going according to plan, but it doesn’t seem like a plan that includes our best interests. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/53 "2020-05-20T00:13:21Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > In what way does a universe recycled at the whim of a creator add meaning to life? It may all be going according to plan, but it doesn’t seem like a plan that includes our best interests. Why is ‘our best interests’ even a thing? We are a part of a massive universe. We have been blessed (or, perhaps, cursed) with the unique gift of life. The idea of a Creator gives the joy and especially suffering of life context. It means our pain isnt necessarily pointless. Even if it doesnt care, the idea of it is an opiate that makes life more tolerable. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2020, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984/54 "2020-05-20T00:33:45Z")
Well, according to most faiths, the creator appears to take great deal of interest in our lives and how we spend eternity thereafter. And if it doesn’t care about us one way or the other and doesn’t get involved, I’m back to questioning what the difference is from a universe without a prime mover. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/it-was-gods-plan-oh-give-me-a-break/853984.md?page=2)