The Divine Plan

[Haruko]

I was thinking again upon this subject as I was reading a text about religion, and wrote down some of those thoughts. But first, a relevant quotation by George Carlin from his stand-up, You Are All Diseased:

Pray for anything. But! What about the Divine Plan? Remember that? The Divine Plan. Long time ago, God created a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now you come along and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan. What do you want Him to do, change His plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant? It's a Divine Plan! What's the use of being God if every run-down shmuck with a two-dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan? And here's something else, another problem you might have: suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? 'Well it's God's will. Thy will be done.' Fine. But if it's God's will and He's going to do what he wants to anyway, why the fuck bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me. Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to His will?

I think it was from a work by C.S. Lewis that I remember an attempt was made against this problem. If memory serves, it's argued that prayer isn't futile, because even though God has already accounted for what will happen, you choose whether or not — you know what, never mind. It's harder to put up with formulating a response when you're not someone who already buys the theological framework it's supposed to defend, and therefore that such a person would more than willingly accept despite how bad it is, as long as "it at least resembles a band-aid to an injury, the injury being to the theological framework that's been built up", to quote from an IM conversation I had with a friend.

Anyways, here are the thoughts I typed earlier tonight:

It was 19 May 2008. I was reading James' The Varieties of Religious Experience, when, on page 160, I saw quoted from Professor Starbuck's manuscript collection the following from a case of a woman who had undergone a "counter-conversion", or change from religious orthodoxy to infidel: "... I heard the story of a brute who had kicked his wife downstairs, and then continued the operation until she became insensible." Then it hit me: I'm expected to believe not only that God allowed cases like that because of "respect" of "free will", but that God must not be held answerable because those incidents are part of His perfect plan, as perfect a plan as can possibly be formulated by an omnipotent, omniscient deity who is not only loving, but is "love". When he created Man, he foresaw all things, including these cases that repulse us all, and the sole force of which has and continues to even turn some of us away from Christianity and religion in general. It has already come to pass in His mind before it has come to pass. Whatever this plan is, it must be one hell of a plan. Too bad none of its advocates will have to answer for it, much like President Bush will get to step to the side before we see if a perfect illustration of a lost cause will turn into a victory.

Where am I wrong here? What did I miss? What are your guys' thoughts on this Divine Plan subject? I've searched relevant subjects, but seeking better results, I was motivated to submit this thread.

It strikes me as a weak theistic concept, a dodge to the undodgeable. What is the plan? Do we even want it? Why is suffering necessary for it? Are there really no superior means to realizing it? Oh, no, there's no other way to work in the awesome food dishes God has in mind, right? And why should we automatically be subject to his plans, or subject to his authority at all? God shouldn't even need us to be of service to Him. We're just supposed to have faith, that God knows the answers. No, thank you.

A fundamentalist Christian troll at my forum thinks of me and fellow heretic members as people who think they're the center of the universe and have excessive pride, like Christian apologists of popular Christian apologist books. I don't know about that. I'm not the one who has all the complex but terribly broken set of constructs set up that I more than willingly adhere to anyway to explain away the intellectual and emotional troubles some people have with some of the assertions of my beliefs just so I can feel relieved about my own. You think I like being in the religious minority? That I think it's cool? I'd like nothing more than to accept what the majority do so I can fit in, but I can't because I'd be lying to myself about what I think about the actual arguments.

[Omeganian]

You know, there is this old story I recall all the time on this forum;



A man comes to a famous tailor, and orders a suit. A few days later, the tailor calls him, and tells him to come for additional measurements. then more, and more... Finally, a month later, the suit is ready.

The man is somewhat angry, so he says:

- What's that supposed to mean? God created the world in six days, and you needed a month to make a suit.

The tailor smiled and said:

- Mister. Just look at this world, and look at the suit.



That's divine plan for you

[Junghalli]

The usual response is something along the lines of "God's plan is good but some bad stuff has to happen first for it to work, don't bother trying to work out how because God's omniscient and therefore has a way, way, way longer and subtler planning horizon than you can comprehend".

Like most of these rebuttals it works if you assume God must be A) good in the way that we define it and B) a lot smarter than you. And that He exists of course. To attack the argument attack one of these points, I can think of plenty of ways to do so.

[Aquatain]

It's still kind of ironic that by praying Christians shows lack of "faith" in their Omnipotent Deity's plan.

[PainRack]

Who were the jokers who argued that suffering is neccessary, because it allows us to
1. Grow.
2. Display compassion and other virtues
3. Be good

[Singular Intellect]

One of the worst arguements I hear is that people suffer to 'bring out the compassion, mercy and charity of others'.

The idea sickens me to no end; that those in such unfortunate situations are there for the point of giving others 'choices'. What a load of bullshit!

[Alerik the Fortunate]

This wouldn't be quite as absurd if Christians didn't claim that God "gives them a new spiritual nature" when they accept Christ. So either that statement is inherently meaningless, or God is capable of giving people character that is in line with his own but refrains from doing so unless they accept certain religious dogmas. Of course the fact that Christians aren't objectively better than other people favors the idea that their new nature is meaningless.

[ANGELUS]

It was 19 May 2008. I was reading James' The Varieties of Religious Experience, when, on page 160, I saw quoted from Professor Starbuck's manuscript collection the following from a case of a woman who had undergone a "counter-conversion", or change from religious orthodoxy to infidel: "... I heard the story of a brute who had kicked his wife downstairs, and then continued the operation until she became insensible." Then it hit me: I'm expected to believe not only that God allowed cases like that because of "respect" of "free will", but that God must not be held answerable because those incidents are part of His perfect plan, as perfect a plan as can possibly be formulated by an omnipotent, omniscient deity who is not only loving, but is "love". When he created Man, he foresaw all things, including these cases that repulse us all, and the sole force of which has and continues to even turn some of us away from Christianity and religion in general. It has already come to pass in His mind before it has come to pass. Whatever this plan is, it must be one hell of a plan. Too bad none of its advocates will have to answer for it, much like President Bush will get to step to the side before we see if a perfect illustration of a lost cause will turn into a victory.

Right there you can note a contradiction that you can use: If he knows everything before it happens then he can't be omnipotent.

Knoweledge of the future vs. free will:

- First paradox. Does God have knowledge of the future? does he know everything that is going to happen before it happens? most believers would immediately answer "yes". But, if he knows what is going to happen, then he can't alter it or change it in any way, meaning that he has no free will and therefore is not omnipotent.

- Second paradox: Does God have free will? can he take any action he wants? can he do as he pleases? most believers would immediately answer "yes". But if he can change things and he can do as he pleases and modify everything according to his will then he can't know what is going to happen because it can be changed at any time (even if he is the one changing it) and therefore nothing is written not even by him, meaning that he has no knowledge of the future and therefore is not omnipotent (this second paradox also has the token that since there's nothing written and it's all just a series of situations that he is adjusting as they come then there can't be a divine plan).


So you come to this: if he has free will then he can't know the future (thus there's no big plan) because anything can be changed at any time; If he knows the future (IE his big plan), then he doesn't have free will because he can't change anything. Both of this paradoxes rule him out as omnipotent.


Of course, they will likely simply answer that it is beyond our understanding or some crap like that.

[Junghalli]

Applying the concept of free will to an omniscient omnipotent being is problematic because the basic concept of time as we understand it wouldn't apply to one. To an OOB all causes and effects would be simultaneous, as it would simultaneously occupy every point of space and time in the universe.

Trying to actually imagine how an OOB would think is a real mindfuck. Which would incline me towards deism if I were to believe in a God; the idea that something that big and weird would care deeply about shit like whether you committed adultery seems pretty implausible.

[ANGELUS]

Applying the concept of free will to an omniscient omnipotent being is problematic because the basic concept of time as we understand it wouldn't apply to one. To an OOB all causes and effects would be simultaneous, as it would simultaneously occupy every point of space and time in the universe.

Yeah... I know, I was looking at it considering "God" as is pictured by judeo-christianism, where they claim him to be omnipotent yet he shows all the time how he's not. But you are right about a trully omnipotent creature.

Trying to actually imagine how an OOB would think is a real mindfuck. Which would incline me towards deism if I were to believe in a God; the idea that something that big and weird would care deeply about shit like whether you committed adultery seems pretty implausible.

Yes, I've always wondered that myself... if such a creature were to exist... why the fuck would he even care about us?

If this was trully an omnipotent beign and it had a "plan" why would we be even remotely relevant to it?

[Darth Wong]

Who were the jokers who argued that suffering is neccessary, because it allows us to
1. Grow.
2. Display compassion and other virtues
3. Be good

They're just following the lead of the Bible, in which Jesus at one point explains that a leper has suffered his entire life just to give him a personal opportunity to show off his powers.