"Characters tend to either be for or against the quest. If they assist it, they are idolized as simply gallant or pure; if they obstruct it, they are characterized as simply villainous or cowardly."
"What is the future? What is the past? What are we? What is the magic fluid that surrounds us and conceals the things we most need to know? We live and die in the midst of marvels."
Recently I had occasion to be trapped in a small enclosed space with a man who felt compelled to use the time to talk loudly and incessantly on a cell phone to several individuals about a multi-million dollar deal that was, at that very moment, falling apart. Normally I would have ignored this individual and continued to read my book (from which I filched the above quotes). However...
This man, after several phone calls and some time pondering the situation, proceeded to call several more people and tell them that this must be God's will that the deal was falling apart and if God wanted it this way, he wasn't going to fight it. At this point I got a little scared.
You see, the image that sprung to mind at that moment was a picture of the Dark Ages; a time when illness was attributed to evil spirits instead of bacteria or viruses. A time when anything that science hadn't yet shed light on was attributed to gods or spirits or demons. And people do strange (read: irrational) things when they begin to attempt to placate 'beings' whose 'will' can, ultimately, only be guessed at.
For my 5-dimensional viewpoint, this man's arrival at his current situation was entirely explainable without invoking God or a Higher Power. Any 'chance events' that may have played a role in his situation were never really beyond his control. And he could have willfully navigated a course through the multiverse that avoided this outcome.
Similarly, the fact that I was trapped with him long enough to overhear this conversation was never really beyond my control. (I analyzed the navigational antecedents that led to my landing in that universe, made the necessary course adjustments, and landed in an even better outcome than the one I was expecting.)
Hey, if you wish to believe that God occupies himself with the minutia of your life, I won't attempt to stop you. I, however, would give a Creator credit for a much better (built-in) system for determining what your daily experiences are. The ultimate purpose of such a mechanism? Who knows. But certainly the limits of such a mechanism are worth investigating.
