...and a plastic rocket...

And a grenade launcher for my friend Abdul in Iran.

Modern Christians have "created" numerous things that actually are not supported by the Bible (even though they claim the word of God should be taken literally).

This "Gods Plan" is not found in the Bible. At least, not in the context for which it is taken. No where does it say that God has an overarching plan for the universe. In fact, if there were such a plan, it would totally contridict the purpose of giving people free will. There is assumed to be a "plan" for the simple fact that Revelations depicts the "end of time." However, it should be noted, that depictions of Revelations does, in no way, indicate there is actually any type of plan leading up to that point.

Modern Christians have been told for the last 800yrs or so that 'Revelations is too difficult to fully comprehend because of it's imagery.' As such, many Christians have taken the liberty of extrapulating ideas that simply do not even exist in the book of Revelations. Of them, "God's Plan" and the "Rapture" are two of the big ones that have come about. Another Christian notion that is easily dismissed by even a literal interpretation of Revelations (as well as in other books), is that of 'when you die you go to Heaven, you are judged, and if are able to enter the gates of Heaven, then you can watch over your loved ones.' While a comforting thought to the surviving relatives, it is easily debunked in not only one book (Revelations) but several others as well (In fact, almost every book that references to coming of Christs return depicts how it is then that the dead shall rise and ascend to Heaven to be judged).

On the point of prayer, it is written that Jesus said, 'ask in my name and you shall receive.' Jesus also gives an outline of what a prayer should consist of by giving us an example. This example that he gave us is known as the 'Lord's Prayer.'

I hope that answered your question.

I refuse to believe that God has our life planned out for us. I do not believe in destiny. I believe that God is allowing things to go on, yet does not cause them... I am refering to the problems of our time. But his patience grows ever so thin by the moment, soon... it will be be gone.

...and then only the street gangs can gain control

[QUOTE=Mr. Stafford]...and then only the street gangs can gain control :P[/QUOTE]

BURN!

moi?

never!

Well... No matter what way you look at, it the future is unchangeable. What's going to happen will happen. No way to change that. The difference between the future and the past, besides our position in time, is that we don't know what will happen. We can make predictions of what will happen given our limited and easily foulable knowledge of current circumstances, but we don't change the future by changing the circumstances. If the future is different that we predicted it's just a matter of us not knowing all the circumstances. It was going to happen either way. So you question can be expanded to any area of life. Why do we hope for things, and exert effort tword a goal when what what will happen will happen no matter what? Danged if I know. I usually play Counter Strike at that point.

Sure about that? Because it isn't neccesarily true. We don't know the nature of time or the future.

That's what I said...

Only one way to find out. Anyone got a Delorean?

Better question: Anyone have any uranium and a flux capacitor?

Joke aside, you would still be in YOUR present (well, maybe, again, it depends on the nature of time) so you woulnd't be learning much.

I'd like to get rich off of bets though.

Just wait until someone uses that as an excuse for hitting you in the face

That makes absolutely no sense. God is supposed to have infinite patience. FFS we're his creations.

I've never ever ever understood this whole business about god getting angry and smiting entire peoples and stuff... god is supposed to be good. We are his creations... I think I would have a helluva lot of patience for my creations... or at least I would design them better so they didn't **** up all the time..

Maaaaaaaaybe.

Interesting side note: The Doc thought of the flux capacitor after falling and hitting his head on the toilet, right? Well, lots of toilets would have stuff like "flush capacity 1.21 G" or something.

Makes you think...

Er, I believe it's plutonium.

The funny thing is that the Old Testament, which came first, tells of a very vengeful God who messed with everyone. It wasn't until the New Testament came around that the loving God came about.

I hate people who use that literary gimmick to defend god. The fact that the OT is themed in such a way and the NT is themed in such a way in no way is a valid defense for the evils god commits in the Old Testament.

I never said it was. All I was getting at is that the vengeful God came first. Anyone with any common sense will tell you that the whole vengeful thing was just a means to scare people into believing. It was common practice in many religions all over the world.

Actually, God did show tremendous restraint in the Old Testament, because God's divine and perfect nature is his foremost attribute and in regards to sin, justice must be served. By allowing sin to exist unpunished, God was contradicting His own nature, so rather than destroying everyone all at once (as perfect justice would require) God instead chose to delay the punishment of death that every single member of humanity should have received and took the punishment upon himself so that humanity would have a chance to be reunited with God.

God's nature never changes. God had to execute justice before he could show love to a sinful humanity.

This probably sounds strange coming from me of all people, but recent events in my life have made me a different person than I used to be.

What happened to make god change? I thought god is supposed to be the same yesterday, today, and forever. It doesn't make sense that god would undergo some kind of dramatic transformation in his demeanor. I love how he breaks his own commandments.

Jesus happened.

Who knows, really. It probably wasn't much more than someone a long time ago say screw this, I want a nice God, and a lot of people thinking it was a good idea over the years.

Page: I can't really agree with that because God enacted a lot of punishment when he wanted to, and if that's not enough, what he did to Job as just ****ed up.

I can't imagine God would use a man as a guinea pig like that. But it makes for some really fascinating literature. That's why I don't trust the bible to portray god's true nature. In other words, the bible contains a lot of literature which was just written by men and is fiction.

Of course, but I think it does represent the sentiment of the people at the time.

I think what happened was some guy wrote the story of Job as an explanation of his extraordinary string of bad luck. Oh no, it COULDN'T have been coincidence, no, god was using him as a GUINEA PIG!

God didn't break his own commandment. The penalty for sin is death. When adam and eve (at that time, the entire human race) sinned, their actions tainted the rest of humanity that would come from them. Because of that, everyone in this world was born separated from God was was destined to go to hell as a result.

God's nature required justice to be dealt, but instead of dispensing death out to us, he took it upon himself. You must understand that if you or I were to pay for our own sins, we would have to go to hell as part of the punishment. God took the sins of everyone onto himself when He was crucified as Jesus so humanity could then come back to Him. Prior to that, humanity and God were always separated.

In this way, God i nthe old testament showed love by not destroying us immediately, but instead postponing the judgement so his plan to bring us back to Him could be fulfilled.

I hope this clears it up.

Thou shalt not kill.

No ifs ands or buts.

I think for the question to have any real relevance, the Christians are going to first have to define "God" so that there can be some semblance of a reasonable debate regarding how prayer affects "the Plan" and how he went from being Jesus H. Asskicker in the OT to Jesus H. Lovecraft in the NT.

That is one of the most common, over simplifications and misconceptions that people have when it comes to the Bible. It says to not committ murder. There's a difference.

Actually, it's "Thou shalt not kill."

No, it's not.

Um, yes it is.

http://images.google.com/images?q=10%20commandments&sourceid=mozilla-search&oe=UTF-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Look up the passage in a Bible then come back to play.

Um.....

Exodus 20:13 - Thou shalt not kill.

http://bibleresources.bible.com/passagesearchresults.php?passage1=Exodus+20%3A3-17&passage2=&passage3=&passage4=&passage5=&version1=9&version2=0&version3=0&version4=0&version5=0&Submit.x=47&Submit.y=8

http://www.bible.org/netbible/exo20.htm
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20;&version=31;
http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Exodus+20

I guess it really depends on the translation.

lol - now we can't even agree on what the ten commandments are.

This is hopeless.

That's part of the problem. There is no real accurate translation. It went from Hewbrew to Greek to Latin and so on, so it's safe to say that there are some oddities.

However, kill vs. murder does make an intersting difference.

So I guess vengeful God is like an angsty rebellious teenager, who later on settles down and has a kid, and then becomes the loving parent type.

To think that God is some humanlike being that wants to talk to us is confusing to me. Humans are so self-centered. IF there's some kind of God, I doubt it's a male or female, I doubt it had a kid, and I doubt it's got a plan. It's more than likely some kind of being that's far more complex than anything we can comprehend.

I mean, consider a creature that exsisted in all forms of time, and thus, was truly omnipotent. He wouldn't have a "plan" for us, it's simply that "he" would see us as we are in all times, and thus, know our 'fate.'

The whole seeing God in human's likeness is WHY prayer is so prominent. People think God wants coffee, sammiches, and small talk on sunday.