From: John Beckett 

"Robert Comer"  wrote in message
news::
> > What I don't like about the "God's plan" reasoning is
that it prevents
> > anything from ever being wrong. Did anyone here say that 9/11 was bad? How
> > could you, knowing that it's part of God's plan?
>
> I can understand that but don't agree, on an individual level as long as we
> still have free will (maybe we don't, but that's another argument) we can be
> wrong, and in that wrong we can impede God's plan for us -- in fact, we can
> turn away from it altogether.

I'm not quite sure what "don't agree" with. Is there any event
that you did not cause (e.g. 9/11) which you would describe as bad?

Sure, if you wrote down 10 bad things, it might later turn out that one or
two of them later had some positive outcomes. However, if our language has
any function, you must be able to think of some bad things!

The alternate POV is to proclaim that everything is Deity's Will, and so
must be great in some way, even if that way is presently hard to discern.
If I were the Deity, I would want my followers to have a little less
sycophancy, and a little more common sense.

> > If it ever makes sense to thank God when the crops have rain, then it also
> > makes sense to curse God when there is a drought.
>
> That's a personal decision we all have to make, but cursing (or just
> blaming) God isn't for me.

Sure, a reasonable person is not going to curse a rock, let alone God
(however, I personally feel that it is OK to occasionally curse your
computer). However, you are not addressing the logical point that
it is a little meaningless to be grateful for rain, if in fact you are
grateful for everything, even a drought.

John

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5