I went on a very satisfying bike ride here in Salt Lake with my Uncle's old beat-up bike. I took a right out of the neighborhood and didn't stop until the road ended miles down, near a Catholic school/church with an austere yet inviting field.

I had parked the bike on a tree and took a seat beneath a bare, peeling tree, encompassed by a multitude of kneecap-high bushes, allowing me to elude everyone around and forget about the world for just a few minutes.

I laid down almost directly under the tree, had some ganja and just stood both passive and pacified as the lonesome sky, burdened with a few maladious dark clouds, seemed to fall from its place in the heavens and envelop me in a tranquil sea of cotton.
A few Magpies had found their place atop some feeble limbs directly above me; my presence unbeknown to them. I had no choice but to watch as their white-plumed bodies danced and swayed from limb to limb, allowing me just a glimpse into their innocent and unabashed splendor.
It was an almost-spiritual experience.

What a beautiful song nature does sing.

Ya know, I've always been conflicted by a "Divine Plan" and "Free will." They seem so contradictorily and illogically juxtaposed that it completely boggles my mind as to how these two ideas can simultaneously exist.

What I cannot grasp is how a simple human mind (and I mean simple in relation to an omniscient mind of a god) can override omnipotence. How can our archaic minds cancel out the will of a creator who made all the stars and knows them by name? If there is a god, maybe he is not as powerful as I had imagined. If he can't even keep us in line, maybe he's like that mother at the grocery store who can't stop her child from screaming and who receives a multitude of dirty looks and whispers of, "Control your damn child."

If his almighty power, the same power that created and can understand the intricacy of our bodies, the complexities of nature, the mysteries of the Earth and the boundless reaches of space, is as mighty is so mighty, how can we ultimately defeat his divine plans for us? How can we so easily deny our potential? How can we ever come to realize our potential?

I always hear Christians saying, "Ya know, God does, in fact, have a plan for you, but you have the power to deviate from his will." I am just so confounded as to how this is possible. It all just seems like a great cop-out to me. That's just an age-old excuse, it seems, for God and his holy followers to dodge all responsibility when shit really goes wrong.

God wouldn't really create a delicate human life just for it to end up a slimy mass in a dumpster, would he?
Also, what is the point of being birthed if God has a plan for us? Why can't we all just begin our eternal lives in his utopic kingdom in the clouds?

Let's say, just for shits and giggles, that there is really a "Hell" and that all of us Atheists and blasphemers are destined to burn there. Let's also go along with the notion that God has an ultimate plan for us. Why would God simply create a human life that is destined for the lake of fire? Why would he so willingly offer up a lamb to the slaughter for no other reason than to live in sin and die?

Is a god the one creating all of the sin that festers in our modern lives? By having us following his plan, we are creating sin but, since it is simply our fate to be doing what we are doing, isn't this god solely responsible for creating so much pain and sin?

If one more Christian says that sin, cancer and any other nefarious tragedy was created by the evils of man, I am going to throw up. You know what, maybe your god isn't so pure as you had imagined.

Many people assert that life is a test and that we are just placed on this earth to test our wills. What is the need for a test if we all follow a linear path mapped out by an omniscient cartographer? Why do we even need to strive for anything when it's all being given or taken away from us by some outside power? How do we even begin to strive?

Why can't this god just bring us into this life with a intrinsic and unwavering belief in it? Why does he have to create such a plague-ridden environment for us to trudge through? I would imagine it would be enough to create a peaceable world where everyone has such an undying devotion for their god and live in solidarity and peace and free from evil and the sinister human nature, but I guess that's not so interesting, is it? You've gotta lay waste to some motherfuckers to keep from going nuts, I suppose. You've gotta fuck shit up to keep from blowing your brains out and perhaps this ruling god(s) are just as anxious as us for some action.

Are we simply playthings to a god? Do they/it throw around plagues, diseases, cancer, famine, poverty, war, suffering, anguish, defeat for amusement? Were the atrocities committed at Auschwitz simply par for the course? Are we only little sacrificial nothings in the eyes of a Lord?

"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport."

If there is a god out there who created all of this, this climate of fear, this climate of suffering, this climate of ultimate anguish and defeat, then they are no father of mine.

If your god is how I have described, would you be willing to compromise and accept the good he has done while ignoring the bad or would you go so far as to question or even abandon your religious convictions?
If you are an Agnostic and still on the fence, would this settle it for you if this is how you have come to characterize a god, even though the very same god could also have committed very benevolent deeds as well?
If you are a Pastafarian, get out. Now.

I have recently been perplexed over a certain facet of war. To put it plainly, I am against the thought, the philosophy of war. What also sickens me are these red-blooded, Big-Mac downing, "Never read a book in my life," card-carrying consumer whores who feel that it is their civic duty to populate the homeland with at least 7 1/2 kids that will never contribute anything substantial and continue to champion and perpetuate ignorance. So, needless to say, I am against people dropping babies like someone with ADHD drops a thought. What I am against is overpopulation.
What I am struggling with is accepting one virtue of war: leveling the population. Now, and this should go without saying, just because something has a considerable merit does not mean that it is acceptable and should be promoted but leveling the population is one virtue that I wholeheartedly accept. Had not those millions of people been killed, there would be millions more than there are now consuming, birthing and plaguing.
Now, this is just the Nihilist in me speaking, but it cannot be denied that, considering war was as foreign as a Protestant-Catholic marriage, the suffering, anguish and cruelty in the world presently would only be fortified.
I'm not exactly saying that harrowing catastrophes like the Holocaust and genocide are necessary, I'm merely asking whether harbingers of death are necessary.
What I ask the noble surveyors of this humble blog to consider is this existential quandary: is war necessary? Consider the lion and the deer; the hunter and the prey. Were it not for the lion and their hunting instincts, the deer population would be to immense. They would consume in great quantities resulting in great quantities of feces which would pollute and, eventually, come to harm all species. The same goes for the Ladybugs and the Aphids. If the Ladybugs were not around to quell the Aphids, vegetation would be devastated.
On that same note, you could inquire whether plagues, disease, sickness, epidemics, et. al. are necessary.
What are your views concerning what has been stated? Any viewpoint is viable and welcome. This is an open discussion.