beastmaster

The Pre-Fall Adam and Eve were *mortal*, or else god would not have worried that they might eat of the Tree of Life.

Before the Fall, the myth says, death existed, but murder and predation did not.

beastmaster

The "prevailing thought" in religion is not to think.

In any event, the statement "God decides when we die" is not so much a metaphysical statement as it is a moral question -- i.e., humans should not intervene to "artificially" shorten or lengthen human life.

-RRH-

But then they imply that God forgot to take human intervention into account when he did his original calculations.

Daggah

Hah, I'd like to see Biblical justification for THAT one.

southernhybrid

I'm not sure about younger theists but most of the older theists that I have ever spoken to have this firm belief that their time of death is already established by their god.

Just recently the caretaker of one of my patients got a little upset with me because I called his wife's physician to get her BP med changed as she had quite a significant elevation in her BP on the day of my visit. He said to me that it didn't really matter since it was already determined when she will die. He asked me if I beleived that and when I said, "No, I don't believe that", he got upset with me. However, we did get the med changed and her BP has returned to normal and he's had no further comments on the subject.

It's so strange because this elderly gentleman is a very intelligent, dear man who is one of the best care takers I've seen in a long time. Of course I would never say it, but I wanted to say, "Why do you take such good care of your wife if you think her time of death has been predetermined?"

JerryM

For southernhybrid:

I work in health care also. On a somewhat similar note, I still see occaisional patients maintained on ventilators and intensive life support because their families are hoping for miraculous recoveries through divine intervention. I've always wanted to ask them why God would require a ventilator or dialysis machine. If He wished to cure someone, He surely could do it whether or not that person was on life support.

Tercel

No: standard teaching is that God is the creator and sustainer.

Technically if you think about it there is no difference between the two terms. God is alledged to be above time. He cannot, therefore, just "create" the universe and then go away and leave it to tick away like somebody who winds up a clock: Rather the entire space-time universe must get created and "sustained" at once.

I'd be very suprised if there wasn't a significant amount of Biblical justification for that somewhere.

Ensign Steve

I was thinking more along the lines of "The Family Guy" when Peter broke Death's foot, and Death (Norm MacDonald) was laid up at Peter's house, only Peter couldn't tell anyone, so only he knew that everybody was safe from Death. He did all kinds of that crazy stuff like the OP mentioned, and I think he even shot himself a few times. Ahhhhh, quality television!

Zadok001

I like my simile better, but I suppose your's holds in a pinch.

spurly

Being a theist, I'm not sure that the difference is so much between older theists and younger theists as much as the difference of opinion is between Calvinist Christians and non-Calvinist Christians.

Those who tend toward Calvinism (I am not one of them) have a tendency to believe that God has established dates for births, deaths, etc. Non-Calvinists usually do not hold those views.

Just my observations.

Kevin