God’s Plan and Purpose – Really?

Nan Christianity, Religion, ,

I just finished reading a blog post that made my toes curl. The writer is a Christian (or claims to be), yet this is what he posted:

Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, Before you were born I set you apart. Jeremiah 1:5

There are no accidents with God; He has a plan and purpose for every life.

At first blush, it appears the blog owner’s post is in response to the tragic shootings that recently took place in Dallas where five law enforcement officers were killed. However, in one of his responses to a comment, he writes that he had hoped the post would be “purposely vague, open-ended.” In other words, no matter what the circumstances, the invisible guy in the sky is directing everything that happens.

For me, there are so many things wrong with this statement and I said so in a comment … BUT … my comment never appeared. Apparently I’m banned, although I’m not sure why — perhaps because any past comments I’ve made are usually in disagreement with the blog owner?  😉

Anyway, this is what I wrote and since I think many of my readers feel the same, I decided to share it here.

[Blog Owner], to me this post is nothing but hurtful to those who have lost loved ones in not only the Dallas tragedy, but also in Minnesota and Louisiana, along with Florida and Connecticut and So. Carolina and California and Oregon and Virginia and … need I go on?

When you’re grieving and tears are racking your body as you realize the person you love will never again speak to you, hug you, look at you, walk with you, laugh with you … do you honestly, in your heart of hearts, believe that a person is “comforted” by the words: There are no accidents with God; He has a plan and purpose for every life?

Truly if you believe it is god’s plan and purpose to violently and unexpectedly take someone’s life, then something is seriously wrong with your god.

29 thoughts on “God’s Plan and Purpose – Really?”

  1. If his god has a plan for each and everyone of us, why are Christians constantly prayer for Him to change his plans? Effing amazing how callous these people are. And they are constantly touting what a source of solace their religion is.

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  3. God’s real plan is for everyone to hold friggin’ candlelight vigils after horrific tragedies happen. Why? Cause God likes candles. Isn’t that obvious? God’s plan is to watch us, his creation, burn candles after he allows, or even causes, horrid things to happen time and time again. He’s the god of candle-love. Ain’t that nice? Christians like the one you cite above are callous, cruel, and deeply insensitive to the pain of others. What a truly shameful person this is.

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  5. Nan, I agree with you that this is hurtful and unthinking. And truly I would have loved to chime in on that blog and make a few comments myself. We must be compassionate in all cases during times like these; find common ground; seek solutions instead of blame.

    Tossing out trite statements and abusing Scripture only serves to turn people away. So sorry.

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    • One could ask “Why must we be compassionate?”

      As for common ground—I see no common ground between this ol’ dog and people (?) savages who do things like that.

      Political Correctness has a lot to answer for …

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  6. On Colorstorm’s blog last week, there was a discussion about the little boy who fell into the gorilla’s cage, and the gorilla was shot to protect the boy (though there was no indication that – like this lady – the gorilla was violent)

    Why did they bother? Why didn’t they just stand back and wait to see what their god’s plan was?

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  8. When I called myself a Christian I tried to make sense of it all and the best I could come up with was:
    – God gave humanity freewill;
    – But God retained the power to act in a sovereign manner;
    – In the vast majority of cases God only acted in response to prayer;
    – Through the Holy Spirit God would prompt people to prayer, but many times, alas, his people did not heed the voice of the Spirit;
    – But even when people did not heed the SPirit and God’s perfect plan did not take place, God was sufficiently creative to make the best of a bad situation and still cause some good to come from it;
    – In limited occasions God intervened directly without prayer, but that was very much the exception.

    So my argument was that as a result of freewill not everything that happened on earth was God’s will. Now some Christians saw this as heresy, but I would quote to them the Lord’s Prayer:

    Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)

    To me this implied that “God’s ” will did not always happen on earth.

    Anyway whilst still a Christian this thought process explained to me better what actually happened on earth than the argument that everything was God’s will.

    Indeed theologians try to differentiate between what God allows and what God’s ideal is.

    Nowadays I realise that the world makes more sense if we just admit there is no God pulling the strings. Well what can I say:

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  10. Hello Nan. I think you said it best. I just can not figure how praying for a deity to change its mind on things after being told it knows everything and has a perfect plan makes any sense. If I only pray to praise the deity OK, but if I ask it to change its perfect plan I am placing my own ideas and wisdom above its, if I desire it to change its plan to my needs I am not only criticizing it, but asking it to place me above its divine plan of every human. So prayer only comes down to one of two things.. praising a god who has already made his plan for you and the not only allowing the suffering of yourself and family and rest of the world, but designing that suffering, or asking for your wants to supplement its grand design, which means you must wish for, despite the pain and suffering, the perfect plan your god has for you , the world, and everything!. So to me the idea of prayer is a forced type of your will be done sire activity. Nothing you say is important or means a snot to that type of god. I will skip over the whole idea that if he knows how it ends, why put us through it in the first place, unless he likes to watch suffeeing and pain. However I am lucky, I believe in life, not despot gods. Thanks and hugs

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    • …but if I ask it to change its perfect plan I am placing my own ideas and wisdom above its

      Wow! Never quite thought of it that way. IOW, if “god” does have a plan and purpose, then by praying, a person is essentially asking “god” to change things to suit her/his own personal needs/wants/desires. Brilliant!

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  11. Oh dear, not again:

    1. God is omniscient
    2. God is omnipresent.
    3. God is omnipotent.

    Ergo all other thoughts are as irrelevant as the prayers of the faithful—even if He wanted to, God the almighty could not change His mind, nor act any action that is not already part of the grand Master Plan.

    In brief, my cherubs: your omnipotent deity is as impotent as any other bugger.

    Like me, but at least I have the illusion of Free Will. Poor ol’ God doesn’t even have that …

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  13. I haven’t read the other comments yet, so I can say my bit without fear of plagiarism.

    I see the following as the crux of the whole matter, so I keep harping on it. Why?

    Please read on …

    1. God is omnipotent.

    2. God is omnipresent.

    3. God is omniscient.

    Ergo, God is absolutely everywhere at all times. Wow … but He also knows everything. Everything. No exceptions. Being omniscient (knowing everything) then any questions he may ask on occasion are entirely rhetorical.

    I shan’t go into detail here (unless requested) but it does somewhat blow any concepts of ‘Free Will’ right out of the water.

    But seeing that most people go into time-warps when confronted with this issue perhaps I shall explain just a tad for the benefit of any religiosi reading:
    If big G knows (He knew* even before The Creation, don’t forget) down to the most minutest of details what course (say) YOU are going to take on any issue — then obviously you are only going to freely choose for yourself using you very own Free Will the course He already knows.

    No?

    And this is where the whole Abrahamic issue of sins and repentance runs amuck and comes unstuck …

    * Knew? No — he knows. To God there is no past, present or future.

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