Prayer & a Divine plan

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by martinhd28v01, Jul 22, 2003.

  1. martinhd28v01 Registered Member

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    Raised in a Baptist family I have come about my following comments, if your religion is different and does not apply, then please disregard my following remarks. Supposing you are familiar with christianity, then you must also be familiar with the divine plan. Years ago God made a plan and he knows even what you will eat for dinner 10 years from tomorrow, because it is in his plan. Now lets suppose you pray for something and you don't get it, what would you say? Oh it must be Gods will, it must not have been a part of God's plan. I think that is a fine explanation, but if it comes down to God's plan and he's going to do what he wants to, why do you bother even praying in the first place, it seems like a big waste of time to me. How can you believe in a divine plan and pray, isn't this a contradiction?
     
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  3. Mystech Adult Supervision Required Registered Senior Member

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    Shush now, child. Your helpless frightened prayers are all part of his plan. He likes to watch you squirm, it's the same reason he makes epileptics.
     
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  5. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    If there is a perfect plan with every detail exactly mapped out from the beginning of time to the end of time then there is no action you can do to change it, if you could then there wouldn't be a plan.

    This of course means that your life is meaningless since you are merely following a predefined set of programmed actions and you will go to heaven or hell depending on how you had been selected at the beginning of time.

    Prayer can only be meaningless if there is a divine plan.
     
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    Face it like the mature, rational being I hope you are.


    Besides, if there were truly a divine plan, which is usually referred to as providence, then it would have absolutely no effect on your existence. God, being omniscient and eternal, would perceive all of the temporal universe in an instant, and be aware of all events. Therefore, all prayers were answered before time ever was. There was never a time when those prayers were not already answered.

    Envision a rope of undetermined length.
    To God, the rope would represent the length of the existence of the physical universe, our time.
    Let's say that each little protruding fiber on that rope is a prayer that was made at some point in the history of the universe.
    God, in order to answer them all, simply answers each one by plucking out the fiber.
    This might alter the texture of the rope, our history of the universe, but, as seen by the rope itself (as seen by us) there never were any unanswerred prayers.
    It simply always was that way.
    Only God could recall it any differently, since his consciousness existed outside of time.

    I'm not sure if that's intelligible, but it does answer your question. I promise.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 23, 2003
  8. martinhd28v01 Registered Member

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    I could not agree more with all of you:m:
     
  9. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

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    On the other hand, perhaps God works on a bigger scale than any puny little human beings can. Maybe he gives subtle nudges here and there, so that his overall plan is put into action. Maybe it doesn't actually matter what one human being does, so long as the large majority act more or less according to the plan (with the occasional push in the right direction). Perhaps the system is planned to be self-organising.
     

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