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| Makes you wonder, who are they playing against? |
I remember often times being told, "God has a plan for us/you," "It's not what God wanted," and my personal favorite, "Don't worry, it's all part of God's plan."
Based on my own personal beliefs (which are, to say, the ones that feel the most 'right' to me, but may not necessarily be what someone else believes), the idea of God and Goddess having a plan for me kind of makes me giggle. To me, God and Goddess are always there, whether we choose to interact with them or not. It is I who choose what I do, and to think any different would send me into a spiraling depression (is that just me, or would others do the same?).
That all being said, I took the liberty of re-versing myself on what the Bible says God's plan is for us. In the process, I discovered this website, which outlines the general idea fairly clearly. Some lines may be an actual quote from the page, so be sure to drop by and make sure I didn't miss anything important.
Lengthy, read on if you wish.
As we all may have read at some moment in life, or heard from someone else, in the beginning God created man. Man was represented by Adam, and from Adam's rib Eve was created, representing women. We are told that God created man in his likeness, which is probably why people ended up living so darned long in the beginning of the Bible (several hundred years... I think it's a metaphor for 'if you live in God's path, you'll have eternal life in Him,' which is actually a really nice message).
Man is given the ability to create, to have a sense of justice, to intercede, to rescue, to show mercy, to forgive, to have a relationship with god, to receive the Holy Spirit (God), and to be destined for immortality, which, as the webpage says, is quite Godly.
I can see what they're saying. We as a people have been blessed with such awesome capabilities, from constructive to destructive. We are god-like in a way.
The page goes on to say that the very first commandment in the Bible is "be fertile and multiply." Of course, live and flourish is the message here. The trees do it, the grass does it, animals do it, of course we should follow suit and do the same.
The first commandment is soon followed by, "Fill the earth and subdue it". Now... I understand being fertile and multiplying. To the point where we have filled the Earth, I think that is pushing it a bit, but people will be people, and we are getting larger as a population every day - it's just in our nature.
"Subdue it," however... I'm not sure what they meant by that, so I googled the word "subdue" and got the following results:
repress: put down by force or intimidation;
suppress: to put down by force or authority;
mortify: hold within limits and control;
overcome: get on top of, deal with successfully;
subordinate: make subordinate, dependent, or subservient;
tame: correct by punishment or discipline;
These definitions are from here.
I understand using the land to be able to successfully grow food, and to build homes upon. Those are a given. But I was still a tad confused about what they meant, so I clicked on their own definition:
"Even in the most industrialized nations, vast territories of land exist which are either, barren, rugged, mountainous, swampy or forested. In essence, they are un-subdued, waiting for a sufficient population to bring forth human forces to subdue them. For example, there are un-subdued deserts and mountains in California, enormous forests and plains in Canada, mountains and dry-lands in Mexico, jungles throughout the tropics around the globe and vast territories in Siberia, all waiting to be subdued. These are just a few of the many examples. Every country in the world has un-subdued land, even Bangladesh with its 120 million people. "
Something about this just doesn't sit right with me. The Earth is our home, where we have built generations upon generations. We ask so much of it every day, and similarly to in the Children's book The Giving Tree, Earth gives and gives and gives.
So, according to this person's interpretation, we should have our population reach such epic numbers that we need to destroy and completely use up every resource in our world, and populate every inch of the planet while destroying the forests in Canada, the jungles throughout the tropics around the globe and vast territories in Siberia... Because, you know... they're all just waiting to be subdued. And the commandments that go with God's plan are still valid, because there are lots of resources and much unused land still.
Chastity is important to God's plan. "You shall not commit adultery." This can be covered under the Wiccan Rede's last bit - "And harm it none, do what you will." If cheating on your lover is going to hurt them, you shouldn't do it. If sleeping with an animal will hurt something, you shouldn't do it. (Why it would even cross someone's mind in the first place, I have no idea.)
The only real problem I have with the plan's importance of Chastity is that people are encouraged to be chaste, even after marriage. Sex is an act of love, and a means for humans to expand our population (which is a good idea, right?). Apparently, Chastity promotes fertility and life, and according to the Catholic Church, the following are mortal sins:
Masturbation
Oral Sex
Fornication (Un-married sex)
Adultery
Male/Female Homosexual Genital Acts
Sodomy
Contraception (Why use a connie when you never have sex)
Re-marriage after Divorce
All of these "sins" are the foundation of the "culture of death," as opposed to the fertility and life that Chastity promotes.
I get the idea of being married before dedicating yourself to the one you will live with for as long as your love shall live between you. It's a very sweet sentiment, which says to me "Make sure you love this person before you give it away," which is something that people could learn from these days, no doubt.
But I also believe that before marriage was even thought up, people were sexing. Before we could even speak, we were doing the horizontal monster mash, with our hairy apelike selves. I know that this is not an argument that anyone can win, but I hold the belief that if there is love in it (and if it does not harm someone else), sex is fine.
Masturbation? Fine. Oral sex? Fine. Fornication? Yup. Sodomy? If you go for that sort of thing. Contraception? Mandatory, not only between straight couples, but between gay couples as well. Male/Female Homosexual Genital Acts? Go for it. It's not my business, and if you love your partner, I'm all for you guys going all the way. Re-marriage after Divorce? How lonely would you be if you didn't?
The only ones I see a problem with are cheating on your lover, inappropriate relations with children, inappropriate relations with animals, and inappropriate relationships with family members. Those are all morally wrong, harmful to others, and disgusting in my opinion. So I agree with you there, Bible.
There are a few more paragraphs here, outlining the idea that marriage is between two people only, which is understandable, though I believe that it should not be limited to only a man and a woman. "Be fertile and multiply," as it appears to me, is linked to "Fill the earth and subdue it" which I'm pretty certain gay and lesbian couples can do, too. If straight couples are so willing to give up their children to Adoption, why shouldn't other couples, be they straight or gay, be able to take over and show parental love to those children?
The Christian God's plan continues on to say that humans (through Jesus) become children of God, enabling them to fulfill the demands of chastity and generous procreativity, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, to subdue the earth through working, engineering, farming, ripping down the homes of the animals we share the planet with, etc. Sodomy is totally not allowed, and a few cities were destroyed because of it. Apparently this guy named Onan was killed by God as well - he married his dead brother's wife which was totally o.k. by God, but was killed after he pulled out while having sex with her, because he did not want to have children in his brother's name.
After that, Tamar (the widow... twice...) went on to have (illicit) sex with Judah, her father-in-law, and bore twins. Even though they had sex with each other, without being married, they had twins, and apparently that made everything ok, as neither were killed by God. Only Onan was killed, because he defrauded the marriage of its procreative purpose.
I agree that children are a blessing. They really are innocent and joyful, and they do enrich people's/their parents' lives by even simply existing. We can all learn a lot from children, things we haven't remembered since we were children ourselves. The reason given here as to why children are a blessing, however, is because not only do they do the above, but they also become adult inventors that solve the world's problems and adult apostles to proclaim the 'Word'. They also claim that large populations raise the standard of living by providing a wide variety of goods and services, which are provided at a lower cost per person - the more people the better. The claim is that the US is the third most populous nation on earth after China and India. Population and a free market made it prosperous, and children grow up and create prosperity.
(Sips coffee).
More people can be good or bad, and can improve or decrease the standard of living just as easily as the wind can change.
I was watching a documentary the other day - Slumming It, with Kevin McCloud. It was just part one, of a two parter (or so I hear), and I only caught the second half of it, but it was absolutely amazing.
He went to Dharavi in India, which is apparently the world's biggest slum. He spent time with people there, got to know how they live on a day to day basis, explored their lives. The home he stayed in had upwards of 20 people living in it at any one time. The space they have is very limited, and the living conditions (in his opinion at least) were not the best. He saw rats, bugs, people vomiting out their windows, washing being done right outside the front door, washing being done in sewer water. He was woken up by a rat crawling around his trousers. Children in crisp looking prep school uniforms ran through sewage.
The weird thing was, even through all of this gross stuff that he saw, through all the possibilities of illness, the residents of Dharavi are doing better than a lot of other places out there (well, numbers wise that is).
McCloud noted the sense of community in the area he stayed at, something which we do not often see in Western society anymore (even though the Bible asks to love thy neighbor). Eighty-five per cent of the residents there have jobs, and crime is low. He interviewed one of the school girls who lived in the house he was staying at, and she confirmed that she could walk home late at night and have no problem with crime. 15,000 illegal factories exist there, including 300 bakeries which do not advertise their origins. Society without regulations and taxes has accomplished much, despite the fact that, erm, bout 4,000 cases of deadly infectious diseases are treated a day there.
More people doesn't necessarily mean better standards of living, but I do agree that it can mean an increase in productivity, even if you're only earning a few cents an hour making random parts to ship off somewhere else. The people in the documentary seemed so happy to just be working, even if they were working in less than decent environments. Anywhere else, people seem to dislike working, though they probably earn many times more than the people of Dharavi.
I kind of started rambling there, but I hope my thoughts kind of make sense. What I'm trying to say is that while a lot of the basic ideas of Christianity make sense to me, and while I can relate to some of them, I definitely do not agree with the idea of a plan being predetermined, the idea that we need to basically destroy the earth, or a lot of of the views on sex. I believe that we all were given the ability to choose for a reason, and just as Christians can choose to commit any one of those sins mentioned above or not, we choose the paths our life takes us.
If I have any readers out there, what are your ideas on a "plan"? Do you believe there is one? If so, why? If not, what makes you think that?
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