What impresses God most, man’s ability to destroy His world, or his ability to escape it?
In the novel STRANDED, as the bombs that will destroy Earth rain down, a lone starship blasts off from NASA. The six astronauts on board, carrying a database of 5,000 human DNA ‘strands’, have an important mission: to find a habitable planet, bring the strands back to human form, and thus save the human race. And as the ship thunders skyward, a NASA technician, who is about to be vaporized by a nuclear blast, ponders what will impress God most, man’s ability to destroy His world, or man’s ability to escape it?
Now, this is not a discussion about the existence of God; some believe in Him and some don’t. And even those that do believe in his existence have various religious affiliations, and thus don’t believe in the same thing. For example, there are those that believe that everything that happens on Earth, is planned by God; that ‘the Lord works in mysterious ways’. For example, if a little girl is raped, or a person loses a limb in a terrorist attack, they believe ‘it’s God’s will’.
There are others that don’t believe in a God that would allow such things to happen. They believe that God gave humans ‘free will’, and it is that free will that allows an evil person to rape the girl, plant the bomb, etc. And that God looks down and watches what we do and judges us and, of course, feels great empathy for those that are injured or wronged. What’s interesting is that people that believe this will sometimes have something good happen to them, or avoid an injury, or get a promotion, and in those circumstances they will say ‘Thank God!’, even though they believe He is ‘hands off’ in other situations.
In the novel, STRANDED, differences between countries on Earth escalate into an all-out nuclear war. Apparently, world leaders did not, or would not, take their actions into account and predict, or understand, what the outcome would be. Why is it that some normal, everyday people are more capable of looking at a state of affairs, and predict the outcome, better than some highly trained strategists that have more info at their fingertips?