God's Plan

I write this for my Christian friends with the following caveat:   I do not believe there is a god and if there is a god his/her plans are terrible.  Christians for some reason are loath to discuss their god’s plans as though it is beyond them to fathom and that is how it should be.  I disagree.  I think we can look at results and see what kind of plans, if any, their god makes, and in doing so confirm atheism.

I see five possibilities here.  One, god makes a plan and is carrying it out and we do not, cannot understand it and cannot influence that plan.  Two, god makes a plan that is rolling along and is only altered when pleas from his/her followers reach his/her ears to alter the plan to fulfill the wants, wishes, and needs of the follower.  Three, god has no plans, he/she simply watches the universe unfold and intervenes only sometimes when his followers request a change to fulfill their own wants, wishes and needs.  Four, god has no plans, he/she sits back and watches the universe unfold and does not intervene.  Five, there is no god, there is no plan.

If option one is in play then two things become obvious.  There is no point in praying because god’s plan is going to happen anyway.  And there is no point in giving him/her praise for the plan or anger for the plan depending on the outcome.  If god’s plan is that you die in an airplane crash there is nothing you can do about it.  When it happens fellow believers will say no one knows god’s plan and the lord works in mysterious ways.  It also means that we do not have free will.  We are simply marching along according to plan, so there is no point in seeking insight or route change on our march because it is pre-determined.  And finally it demonstrates how mean and heartless this god is.  He/she plans for some children to get cancer and die, some people to die in car wrecks at an early age, some people to become murderers and others to become billionaires and there is nothing we can do about it.  I would argue if option one is in play there is no reason to even recognize such a god.  From a human point of view since we cannot know the plan everything will look random.  Stuff is going to happen anyway.  Stop praying and take another day off each weekend and save your money for golf.

If option two is in play then god is wimp and plays favorites.  If he/she has a plan that is rolling along and a believer’s loved one gets ill, the believer prays for a cure and the loved one is cured by god, then that person is one of god’s chosen and obviously that person had a better plan than god, or at least from god’s point of view.  It’s a miracle!  It also becomes very clear that god intentionally does not intervene for people he/she does not like.  Those folks do not get answered prayer.  Things do not go their way.  They die in the car wreck or the airplane crash or of cancer.  It is crystal clear that god does not intervene every time there is a prayer request.  I know hundreds of Christians who will gather and pray and pray for a sick person and that person still dies.  So what is the message?  God plays favorites?  Or option one is in play and you might as well give up.  If you act in the hope that you are one of god’s favorites then I would ask how in the world can you love and worship a supernatural being who helps some humans and hurts other humans?  Is that your kind of god?  If so, you are a lousy human.

If option 3 is in play then god set the whole thing up and just sits back and watches his universe unfold in ways that obey the operating laws.  He/she rarely intervenes because he/she sees the operating laws as perfect.  But, sometimes god will intervene, altar the laws of operation and save a sick person, part a sea, burn a bush, make wine.  Believers call these events miracles because we cannot explain them and they occur in opposition to the natural laws of the universe.  Believers see miracles every day.  Non-believers see the same random outcomes that everyone else sees.  We still have the same problem we had with option 2 and that is that god is playing favorites and only intervenes when he/she chooses to do so.  That keeps everyone on their knees praying to a mean, bigoted, judgmental deity.  Not for me, thank you very much.

If option 4 is in play and god has set up the universe and is simply watching it unfold and does not intervene then we are in the opposite state of option 1.  We have free will and everything that happens is either random or happens according the laws of nature.  But if god will not intervene, why would you pray to him or her?  What will be will be.  No point in praise for this deity because he or she did not intervene.  So there is no point in this deity.  Funny that some will argue bad things happen to good people because they believe option 4 is in play:  god has set up a perfect universe governed by his perfect law and that results in bad news for some good people sometimes because god is loath to alter his/her perfect plan.  And that is the most confounding cyclical argument I have ever heard.  If god has a plan and is simply watching it unfold there is absolutely no point in recognizing, much less praising such a god.

So, given that there are no really good options if you believe in god then I invite you to consider option 5.  There is no god.  There are no plans.  There are discoverable laws of nature and as a species we have been about that business for thousands of years now.  More and more knowledge has allowed humans to be the ones to alter the plans and perform miracles in medicine.  We even fly.  We even can go underwater for days.  We can go into space.  Wow.  Now there are some miracles I can get excited about.  I will warn you, however, that if you realize that there cannot be a god as I have done you will be punished by believers.  But believers have always punished those who did not believe as they did.

A concrete example.  On March 25, 2015 German Wings Flight 9525 took off from Spain and headed for Germany.  There were 150 people aboard, men, women, and children.  The disturbed co-pilot locked the pilot out of the cockpit and aimed the plane straight down at maximum speed from 38,000 feet.  The plane crashed in the French Alps killing all 150 people.  It took 10 minutes for the plane to descend from that height.  One can only assume that all aboard realized a crash was imminent as the pilot was yelling and screaming to get back in the cockpit.  So, for 10 minutes what do you think happened?  I think many if not all on board were frantically praying for intervention by god to save them.  It did not happen.  So, was this option 1, god was simply allowing his/her plan to happen?  If so, what kind of god would allow a random 150 to die?  So, was this option 2, god could have intervened but chose not to.  If so, what kind of god would allow a random 150 to die?  Was there no one worth saving?  Is that the kind of god you wish to worship?  Was this option 3, god had no plan, simply watched the event evolve and there was no one worth saving?  Was this option 4, god set up the universe and just sits back and watches it unfold.  If so, and he/she had the power to save those people, is this not an example of negligent homicide?  Is that your kind of god?  Or is it, as I believe, clarity that there is no god, there is no plan, random events occur and to expect intervention from either a non-caring, impotent and/or mean god is not going to happen.

So relax.  There is no god.  There is free will.  You do not have to march in some pre-ordained path.  You do not have to plead to a supernatural deity for exceptions to the law of nature because there are no real exceptions except statistical and random exceptions that have nothing to do with a god.  But most importantly of all, I think, is that you will not be worshipping a mean spirited, bigoted, supernatural, imaginary being.