Proof #6 - Ponder God's Plan "God's plan" is the way that Christians traditionally explain things like amputations, cancer, hurricanes and car accidents. For example, if a Christian dies painful and tragic death because of cancer, she dies as part of God's plan. Her death has a purpose. God called her home for a reason. Even if something bad happens to a Christian, it is actually good because it is part of God's plan. You can see how pervasive "God's plan" is by looking in Christian inspirational literature. For example, if we look in the book A Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, we find this remarkable paragraph in Chapter 2: Because God made you for a reason, he also decided when you would be born and how long you would live. He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death. The Bible says, "You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!" [Psalm 139:16] There is also this: Regardless of the circumstances of your birth or who your parents are, God had a plan in creating you. Under this view of the universe, God plans everything. Take a moment and think about what Rick Warren said. Rick said, "He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death." Let's examine one simple implication of this statement. What this means is that God has pre-planned every abortion that has taken place on our planet. If you think about this implication for a few moments, you will begin to realize how impossible "God's plan" is. If the concept of "God's plan" is true, you can first of all see that God wants us to be aborting children. Every single abortion is planned by God, so God must be doing it for a reason. Second, you can see that both the mother who requests the abortion and the doctor who performs it are blameless. Since it is God who planned the abortion of the child (God chose the "exact time" of the death, according to Rick Warren), the mother and doctor are simply puppets who are fulfilling God's plan. You can also see that all the Christians who are fighting against abortion are missing the point. They are actually fighting against God's plan, and their fight is completely futile. God is the all-powerful ruler of the universe, and his plan is for more than a million children a year to die in the United States through abortion. [ref] Each one of those abortions was meticulously planned by God, so fighting against abortion is a totally wasted effort. If you are a Christian, what you are thinking is, "God does not intend for us to perform abortions!" But if you believe what Rick is saying, then you are obviously incorrect. God is actually the direct cause of every abortion on earth. If you find that notion to be uncomfortable, I would agree with you. Unfortunately, that is the logical outcome of God's plan. Think about Adolph Hitler. He was evil incarnate, and Hitler is well known for the atrocious things he did. What I would like you to do right now is to consider this statement: "Hitler is part of God's Plan." Think about what Rick said: He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death. The Bible says, "You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!" [Psalm 139:16] Rick also says: God never does anything accidentally, and he never makes mistakes. He has a reason for everything he creates. Every plant and every animal was planned by God, and every person was designed with a purpose in mind. If God has a divine plan for each of us, then he had a divine plan for Hitler too. It is when you stop to think about it deeply that the contradictions hit you. Now let's imagine that you say a prayer in this sort of universe. What difference does it make? God has his plan, and that plan is running down its track like a freight train. If God has a plan, then everyone who died in the Holocaust died for a reason. They had to die, and each death had meaning. Therefore, Holocaust victims could pray all day, and they would still die. The idea of a "plan" makes the idea of a "prayer-answering relationship with God" ridiculous. Yet Christians attach themselves to both ideas, despite the irresolvable contradiction. Think about what God's plan means for you personally. If the plan happens to say that you will get hit by a bus tomorrow, or that terrorists will blow you up, or that you will be shot in the head four times, then that's what will happen. It would be the same with any disease. If you contract cancer this afternoon and die three months later, that is God's plan for you. Praying to cure the cancer is a waste. God plans for you to die, so you will die. He has pre-programmed the exact time of your death. There is nothing you can do to change the plan -- no amount of prayer will help -- because your death will have meaning and your death will cause side-effects that are also part of the plan. Who will you marry? You actually have no choice in the matter. God has pre-planned your wedding in minute detail. Rick Warren says, "God knew that those two individuals [your parents] possessed exactly the right genetic makeup to create the custom 'you' that he had in mind. They had the DNA God wanted to make you." Therefore, your spouse was pre-chosen by God for you so that you would create the children who are a part of his plan. You also have no choice in the number of children you will have -- God has pre-planned their births. In addition, this sort of universe means that Hitler is blameless. Hitler was not "evil," because Hitler had no free will at all. Hitler was simply an actor forced to play his role in God's plan. God planned for millions of people to die in the Holocaust -- he planned their deaths in exact detail according to Rick Warren. Hitler had to kill those people. Hitler was God's puppet in making that those millions of deaths happen right on schedule. In the same way then, every murderer is blameless. Since God has planned each of our deaths in exact detail, murderers are actually essential to God's plan. Why do we punish them? We should be rewarding them for doing their God-planned duty. What if you get raped tomorrow and get pregnant? God did that because he planned the exact time of that child's birth and death. God actually pre-planned your rape, and the rapist was God's puppet. Rather than hating the rapist, we should celebrate God's plan. Do you believe that murderers and rapists should be rewarded? Do you believe that Hitler was sent by God to kill millions of people in the Holocaust? Do you believe that God is the direct cause of every abortion on this planet? Do you believe that you have no choice in your spouse or the number of children you have? If you are a sane individual, then probably not. But that is what you are saying when you state that Hitler or cancer or anything else is part of "God's plan." The statement "It is part of God's plan" is one of those meaningless palliatives that, when you sit down and think it through using your common sense, makes no sense. That lack of sense shows us how imaginary God is.
No, actually, you neither won nor lost. Funny thing is, while I understand and agree with what you were trying to state, you still are making to egregious mistake of claiming that it's unbiblical. Unbiblical is the same as extrabiblical. In that, it's an idea, concept or saying that is NOT contained in the bible. I, like you, do not believe and am unable to support tithing under the new testament as a commandment or requirement. However, to say that tithing, which is contained and prescribed in the OT, is a critical mistake. Sometimes terminology matters. And this is one of those cases. So that there's no confusion, simply state that it is your opinion that tithing is not applicable to new testament christians or Messianic Jews. See how simple that is?
I apologize it that is how it appears. My "off topic" direction was meant as a retort to Vhehn's reponse to my post. I half-witted attempt at light sarcasm. Sort of a long way of saying "Right, I didn't expect you to get it seeing as... la-de-da."
I apologize if that is how it appears. My "off topic" direction was meant as a retort to Vhehn's reponse to my post. I half-witted attempt at light sarcasm. Sort of a long way of saying "Right, I didn't expect you to get it seeing as... la-de-da."
That is ok. I don't want this thread to become a battleground. I simply want people to read the subject matter and reflect on what they believe and why they believe what they believe. Thank you.
1. "God is --- " God is existing as greater than existence !?.. but still, again that would require existence as the primary condition. 2. "God can --- " defines God. But you can't define God into existence. I can define a leprechaun but I can't actually make it exist by defining it. For the infinite canvas to be there, it must exist. You must inevitably presuppose existence for everything that exists. God is not really in the driving seat is IT? .. when it is existence itself which is the primary antecedent condition for everything that exists.
1. "God is" does not presuppose existence in the context of the discussion because I can't say "God." and make any congent arguments. If you want to get down to it, then we'll define two existences. a. God Existence. b. Material existence. In that case Material existence is a subset of God Existence. So how to define God existence? An manner of being which comprises of existing infinitely and in all modes of existence. 2. "God can", doesn't define God but defines an ability of God. It's like saying Leprechauns dole out lucky charms which bring good luck to those who acquire them. I didn't define the Leprechaun but what a leprechaun is capable of. If I said that to someone, they would probably ask me to define what a leprechaun is. After all, everybody is after lucky charms. But if you don't know what a leprechaun is or where to find them, you are, out of luck. Yes, it would seem like you've got something there until God is defined as the first cause. In that vein, God is existence as existence is God. There's no presupposition. All things that exist, exist in God. However, Material existence as we've come to know it may indeed be finite. We have no evidence other than multiverse and string theory to suggest that existence was and is infinite. If it is finite, then existence presupposes a creator. And if a creator, then creator as first cause. And a first cause cannot pressuppose anything otherwise it wouldn't be a first cause.