First of all, that isn’t true. According to Biblical scripture in which, I’m assuming, all orthodox Jews and Christians believe, God’s “plan” was for human kind to reside in the Garden of Eden in a perfect state of happiness. That was thwarted when they violated the mandate not to eat the forbidden fruit. So much for “God’s plan for everyone”.
One of our minister’s favorite books:
Ah, I’ve got to read that! I’m not sure when, exactly, organized religions made the unfortunate mistake of thinking the explanation, “God’s will”, would actually comfort people as opposed to making them angry and bitter.
But isn’t God all-knowing? So didn’t He/She/It/They know Adam would eat the fruit?
Fool me once….
“Knowing” and “Willing” are two entirely different things.
All knowing would be to know all things knowable. All knowing does not mean magic. The future is not knowable. I think it is safe to say that magic does not exist in our universe.
Pretty sure it does.
What does this mean? If God created man as he did, and placed him somewhere man would be tempted, couldn’t he have removed the temptation? Or made man differently?
I don’t understand this either. God would certainly know the possibilities given the characteristics He created. And then you come up against omnipresence and omnipotence…
But how is God different from magic?
That’s the paradox that birthed atheism: God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving. But He can’t be all three, can He?
Christianity’s apologists answer this with “He loves us by granting us free will.” This comes back to the drown Girl Scouts, and their limited opportunity to exercise free will. Again the apologists have you covered: “This life is just a brief test for eternal paradise.”
Hopefully those girls’s prayers of gratitude to God wasn’t strangled in their throats by the floodwaters: utterances like that count in one’s favor.
And I am pretty sure that most Christian denominations/sects believe that the god they worship knows what will happen in the future.
It means that I know humanity is in the process of turning this world into a complete clusterfuck, but it’s not my will that it happen.
As for the other part, it all depends on your concept of “God”. In my view, there is a big difference between sentient creatures that make their own choices and the pre-programmed wind up toys you propose in their place. According to Quantum Theory, every possible choice that is possible actually exists until a choice is made, so the “all knowing” God in the way you picture him can’t exist.
They really can’t exist anyway, but once you introduce magic into the equation there really isn’t much that falls into that category of “impossible”.
Well, that’s because there’s no god and therefore no plan.
When I was in Catholic communicant’s class*, the priest asked why did got smite Uzzah when he touched the Ark of the Covenant to keep if from falling to the ground. I offered “it was God’s will” as an answer, and the priest liked that answer a lot and went on about it for several minutes. That was apparently the answer he was looking for.
That you don’t like this answer doesn’t make it an invalid one in the minds of at least some (very possibly most) believers.
*While at the same time becoming a confirmed Presbyterian. I went to Catholic Jr. High simultaneously and came out the other side of both classes an atheist.
But it was his will to create things such that that was - if not likely, at least a strong possibility.
I’m not picturing God in any particular way. I reject them all. I’m merely responding here to the God that is generally imagined by most if not all Christians. If someone wants to believe in a much limited “God of the gaps”, I’ve got much less difficulty than that. But that isn’t the sort of God folk seem to pray to and expect to intercede.
Well, this thread started with a specific question about a specific situation. As usual, and as other posters have pointed out, it has just become a forum for religion bashing.
My original post was a specific response to that question. All I’ve seen since then is “how come” and “what if” and “why”. Add to that a few “why I hate religion” anecdotes, and there you have it. It’s pretty fruitless, really.
Nevermind.
Apologies. I really have little interest in “bashing” religion. This thread WAS in the Pit, so I thought it an appropriate forum to express my firm understanding of the irrationality of belief in an intercessory God.
I’m not sure what your original post was. I only jumped (back?) in a little bit upthread. Thought the story about my little heathen grandkid cute. She’s a pistol.
Well, it is the Pit. So maybe ranting is part of the point.
Going back to the OP:
It almost feels like a rhetorical question.
Religion is nothing more than an operating system for our brains computer that needs occasional upgrades and debugging. Does this imply God does not really exist? No! It would have been pointless to try and describe a God that was incomprehensible.