I don't know why it has to be exclusively one or the other. I can't say that God WANTED me to lose those jobs, or FORCED those jobs to end. After all, I wasn't the only person affected by that. The other people who worked on these jobs also lost them. But, in my case, some unexpected things happened just when I needed them to. But it's not such a straight line, "God wanted this to happen, so it happened, and then God wanted that to happen, so that happened" It's all kinds of lives and situations playing out in different ways. Sure, we have free will, but in some way the big plan gets done.

Kind of like me producing these records. I have people in mind I want to hire, but they have free will whether to take the job or not. If they don't, I can find someone else, because the big picture will be accomplished.
Then, once I've hired them, I'm not going to dictate every single note they play. They are going to use their judgement and play what seems right, and I'll either like it or suggest they try something else. I'll direct and influence the general direction, but I won't plan out every note played by every person. But still the big picture will be accomplished.

Does the big plan get done the way the big guy wants? Let's say the project is successful and it sells 800 thousand CD's. Did God control that? I've heard Christian artists on TV commenting about their new hit album that, "...God has really helped it be successful, he gets all the credit."

Do the Christian artists that churn out a poor selling CD say the same thing?

It seems almost an ala carte way to consider responsibility for some things. I'm over simplifying, of course, but how do we know?

For me, and boy I don't know if this is right or not, I feel like there's a gentle guidance, that might be spiritual in nature. many times I've had to choose between A or B and often made the right choice. Is it just because I'm a thoughtful, smart guy to begin with so I'm inclined to avoid major errors OR is it his guiding hand? Or, a blend of both. Some souls can consider a presence, even without knowing its identity and accept the implied wisdom within. Other, seem deaf to all obvious around them.

I feel like President Bartlett from the West Wing sometimes...(Watch the clip below)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX6wOOJy0hk

The background is that the president is struggling on whether to commute a death sentence to someone who was to be executed that night, unless the President stepped in. Pr. Bartlett asked his priest to come see him as he made his mind up.

Like I said, Faith is a helluva thing and I envy those for whom this is easy to accept.

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Bill in Dayton

[This message has been edited by Bill in Dayton (edited 05-22-2010).]

Wow, I'm glad you guys know all of this stuff. With an entire Universe to run, God must have one heck of a capacity for micro-managing if he can intercede in your getting a gig or not; or whether you caught that touchdown pass or hit that three pointer with 1 second on the clock. Stranger still when it seems he has paid scant notice to the recent and past genocides going on around the world, not to mention the wars raging in Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh well, I guess he has his priorities.

Maybe we spend too much time on religion and not enough on morality. A lot of bad things can happen while we sit around waiting for God to fix it. If we all just treated each other with the same dignity and respect that we would like for ourselves, the world would immediately be 10 times better than it is right now.

chas

So we're back to genocides again eh? Didn't take long to revive that.
Personally, I'm not living in that situation, so I really don't have much knowledge about what God is doing in those situations. How about asking the missionaries that visit some of those places? I'm not qualified to say what God's up to in far reaches of the globe. It's still free will, ruled largely by natural events. Wolves still kill deer, some people still kill other people. God really doesn't go around zapping all the bad people. There are evil spiritual influences in the world too, not just God. As I said earlier, there's a difference between God's perfect will and what God allows to happen that really doesn't make his day. How could there be free will if there wasn't evil?

No, not every gig I get is divinely appointed. Far from it, and I thought I'd made that clear. The point was the big picture. I'm doing what I can to take care of myself, and treat people well. I'm not sitting around waiting for god to "Fix" things. But when stuff shows up that I had nothing to do with, and it blesses my life, just maybe there was influences beyond my own doing that helped.

[This message has been edited by FAEbGBD (edited 05-22-2010).]

Darn, the Republicans lucked out again .

chas

So why the need to believe in something if neither we nor "God" have any control? It seems to me that "God" only has control when we're dead? Yet, according to the bible God had control and did enjoy zapping or drowning people. I doubt that there weren't any children in Sodom and Gomorrah. What about the Great Flood? How many children and innocent people drowned then? Wouldn't that make him a mass murderer?

Finally, if God created everything, didn't he create "evil" as well? Lucifer's jealousy had to be created by God. Sin had to be God's creation. I mean, how can something evolve when it's not created?

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Bo pen nyang.

[This message has been edited by Taike (edited 05-26-2010).]

There is some debate whether those Bible stories are litteral events or not. Many believe they were. Let's just go on that assumption.

How did the Sodom and Gomorrah story go? I mean, prior to the zapping part. Was there not someone pleading the case for the people? If you find 1000 righteous people will you spare the city? 100? 10? 1? And did not God agree to spare the city if there were indeed righteous people living there?

How about the flood? Did Noah preach for a hundred years or however long it took him to build the boat? Did he not take all kinds of criticism for doing what he did, but he tried anyway to reach the people?
As far as the children, if there were no righteous adults, then the children had no hope of learning. So there was no chance that they would mend their ways because there was noone to teach them. So in consequence, the children weren't exactly innocent. However, they were definitely more innocent than the adults, so my guess is that their spirits or souls were protected. They enjoyed a much happier afterlife than the adults did, and a much happier afterlife than they would have enjoyed if they had gone on to become just like the generation before them, so you could say they actually were spared.

Furthermore, those were old testament stories, and according to Christianity, a lot of things changed after Christ. No more need for sacrifices and wild exhibitions of God's wrath, that's the whole point of what Christ came for.

So any kid that gets murdered should be grateful for having a better afterlife instead of growing up and becoming a "bad" person? What constitutes "bad"? That pretty much abolishes free agency.

Old Testament, New Testament...it's still part of the Bible and isn't the Bible called the Holy Writ, The Word Of God, The Good Book?

Genesis is the first chapter of the Old Testament, right? Are you saying that Creation is just a story? As for me, the Big Bang theory makes a lot more sense.

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Bo pen nyang.

[This message has been edited by Taike (edited 05-27-2010).]

Uh, like the tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed nearly 230,000 people in fourteen countries, or the earthquake that killed 500,000 in Haiti, or Hurricane Katrina, or....oh never mind, I guess those were just a few bumps in the road.

What, you're not buying this, Taike? Golly gee, I wonder why. It all seems so clear now. Probably just the Devil up to his old tricks.



Ummmm, I guess Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, and a few others didn't get the memo. Oh well, mistakes happen.

Guns and Bibles, nah, I think I'll just continue to 'cling' to my pen and my copy of ANTI-INTELLETUALISM IN AMERICA.

chas

Sometimes I get the feeling that people aren't even trying to understand. More interested in making some perceived pithy point. Last I checked, Hitler's story hasn't made it into any version of the Bible as an example of how Christianity should be lived out. So yeah, I'd say Hitler definitely didn't get the message. I have no idea where this concept grew from that if God exists, only sunshine and flowers will exist on the earth. And because there is more than sunshine and flowers then God doesn't exist. I absolutely cannot follow the arguements in the previous post.
As to creation, I very much doubt it all happened in 6 litteral days. To me, it's more of a story that lets us know that this entire universe does have an element of control, and isn't just one huge random experience. But then, I've never had the opportunity to be God for a day so I don't really know how much I could get done in 1 day if I really set my mind to it. The Bible was written by men after all. And that is one of the areas where I part from hardline Christianity. Because many religions claim that their understanding is correct and the only true understanding; but for me it really isn't an all or nothing. Either every religion is totally wrong or totally right doesn't add up.

[This message has been edited by FAEbGBD (edited 05-27-2010).]