My favorite quote from the Bible, aside from most of the book of Acts:
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
That's a very good one, G-C! It's entirely true, yet many people (some of which have even read the entire Bible) seem to think it God makes everything happen on purpose and nothing is left to chance, then hate "religion" when something happens that hurts them. They use the passages about a "Divine Plan" as an excuse to blame a higher power for all of their problems by choosing to interpret it as every single little thing being God's action. The distinction between God existing outside of time and therefore knowing what will happen and actually
making your life go the way it does is lost to them.
Anyway, enough of my ranting. Back to the subject at hand.
Let's face it: you can't have free-will AND fate.
It does not compute. There would be no point in a code of ethics or anything in the Bible whatsoever existing if you did not have the choice to do as you pleased, and that means choices other people make or random factors can affect you. Period. Bad things can and will happen to a good person, but that does not mean God is punishing that good person or "allowing it to happen and therefore consenting, meaning He did do it after all" or any of that rubbish. In my opinion, unpopular as it may be in certain circles, God is letting the world get on with it's business and simply "hopes" (though that's a terrible word for it) that we choose to be kind, loving people.
I completely lied after my first paragraph. That was another rant, after all.
