jerryb Posted January 29, 2006 Share Posted January 29, 2006 "We live in a world of chance and randomness" Bishop Spong Does God really have a plan for your life....and does He ever let you in on it? " The flapping of a single butterfly's wing today,produces a tiny change in the state of the atmosphere. Over a period of time,what the atmosphere actually does, diverges from what it would have done. So in a month's time,a tornado that would have devastated the Indonesian coast doesn't happen. Or...maybe one that wasn't going to happen does." Ian Stewart ,The mathematics of Chaos. pg. 141 Were you brought up in a world where God kept everything in order? I was. I was always taught that God was in control of our lives, and the circumstances that took place in our life. Is that really true? What do you think? Looking forward to your thoughts, Jerry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
October's Autumn Posted January 29, 2006 Share Posted January 29, 2006 It has not been my experience. If it is true, God really screwed up at some major points and I refuse to believe in him/her! IOW it is easier for me to accept that God is not in control then it is that God would let certain things happen to me, other people, and even in the world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jerryb Posted January 29, 2006 Author Share Posted January 29, 2006 It has not been my experience. If it is true, God really screwed up at some major points and I refuse to believe in him/her! IOW it is easier for me to accept that God is not in control then it is that God would let certain things happen to me, other people, and even in the world. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Hi October....It has not been my experience either. I've come to believe that we live in a 'messy' universe,and that if we are to discover our deep spiritual roots,we have to become what Jack good calls, "chaos tolerant". He also says,"A progressive faith is one that begins in grief." grief over the loss of the 'certitude' of our conservative upbringing. I totally agree with him. Blessings, Jerry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flowperson Posted January 30, 2006 Share Posted January 30, 2006 (edited) I look at it all this way. The universe is what it is and isn't going to change anytime soon since it's been around for 14 billion years or so according to some cosmologists. But that doesn't mean that it is understandable. Science is still working mightily on that. Until some ultimate understanding shows up we are all faced with a universe that is chaotic at its most basic levels, and at its ultimate levels, as far as we can tell. By example, if we pile sand up one grain at a time, the pile will self-organize itself and adjust itself as we keep adding sand to it one grain at a time. But as we go along there comes a point in time when its self-organizing nature to accomodate the re-ordering of the grains in the pile may well bury us if we are in the wrong place in relation to it when we add just one more grain to the top. In a like analogy, snow on a mountain may be built up to a point where some minute disturbance may start a small part of it moving and suddenly gazillions of ice crystals are rumbling down a mountainside in an avalanche crushing everything in its path. Human lives are no different and are subject to these same ordering routines that may be observed in nature. We make choices in our day to day lives, often choosing not to confront painful choices which we bury and carry around with us for a long time. We often choose to ease the pain we feel in this process by self-medicating ourselves with various activities and substances which often are inherently addictive because they give us the short term pleasures our increasingly evasive behavior patterns inhibit in normal and regular activities. Some triggering event takes place and we are forced to not only deal with the situation at hand, but also the consequences of much of what we have buried and carry around in secrecy. All at once everything comes out simply because it has to in order to perserve the self that we all carry around inside of our hearts. We can no longer sustain the secrecy and probable lies and evasions we have concocted to support our artificial lives, and we are forced to make painful choices that usually result in some sort of "starting-over" strategy. My favorite analogy for this is the one that has us standing in a pool with our hands under the surface holding a large number of ping pong balls under the surface. We sneeze, we cough, we get a cramp in our leg, or maybe we must simply scratch ourselves somewhere. Whatever it is we usually are forced to let all of the balls pop to the surface, and we have to start our activity of holding them under the surface of the pool again from scratch. This is how things in nature work at all levels. There is always some point where things are "tipped" and we have to start all over again (or nature does) to rebuild or replace some semblance of what ordered structure was lost in that brief moment of failure. Everything on G-d's greeen earth works this way. It cannot be avoided. Chaos tolerance is a requisite for life. Most of the evidence these days points to the fact that G-d is not a micro-manager of all things in the world. Sh/he sets all things in motion and has endowed us to act on His/her behalf to manage things from time to time. But even that has its limits from time to time and we must be prepared cope with chaotic episodes, individually and collectively. flow.... Edited January 30, 2006 by flowperson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
October's Autumn Posted January 30, 2006 Share Posted January 30, 2006 Hi October....It has not been my experience either. I've come to believe that we live in a 'messy' universe,and that if we are to discover our deep spiritual roots,we have to become what Jack good calls, "chaos tolerant". He also says,"A progressive faith is one that begins in grief." grief over the loss of the 'certitude' of our conservative upbringing. I totally agree with him. I like that: Chaos tolerant. I definately found progressive faith through grief! Thanks, Jerry! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMeekShall Posted January 30, 2006 Share Posted January 30, 2006 (edited) Chaos and randomness are very different. If atoms were random, then there'd be no order. In '89 it was odd that large earthquakes happened in the most conspicious possible situations, uniting the world in sympathy: First Gorbechev had to cancel his appointments in the UN because of one, then one happened on internataional TV - During a World Series. For about a year, I'd hear stories about how bad weather followed Bush around, snow in the Holy Land and Hawaii, 26 tropical storms in 2005. The weather is chaotic, not random, something very strange is going on. As a chaotic system gets larger, more and more order appears. We not only have more people than ever before, by defination, more human history has transpired than in the past, therefore we may find more and more patterns emerging over time. Edited January 30, 2006 by TheMeekShall Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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