Most Christians will talk about “Gods Plan”. Which makes sense to me, the Christian God is omniscient and omnipresent so he could have a super well laid out plan for every micro second of human history.
But like, doesn’t this kind of defeat the purpose of prayer? Like if a family member gets sick, what’s the point to praying to God about it. Whatever happens is part of his “plan”, so there really isn’t any chance you’re going to change his mind on whether Grannie is going to pass.
Same with things “going against Gods Plan”. Gods plan should have every contingency accounted for, so it really shouldn’t matter what anyone does. Is there a chance that if too many people are gay that will derail Gods plan and everything will be fucked? Or did Gods Plan account for me being a big gay commie? Is the idea that you can’t fuck up Gods master plan, but if you do a bunch of weird crap God doesn’t like it will throw things off slightly and God will have to compensate which he finds really annoying?
Also raised a Catholic in religious group homes (essentially orphanages, group foster homes for kids who are never getting fostered) in Australia, and I agree with your entire wall of text and thank you for posting it so I didn’t have to post something similar.
I also used to piss off several of the “staff” whose official position to “the children” was babies didn’t go to hell until insert catholic goalpost but that whole concept of purgatory as a placeholder until we accept god or whatever, which always led to me arguing that I should remain unbaptized and as ignorant of the churches teachings as possible then until I go to purgatory and don’t have to make the decision based on faith. (Not how it “works” but is an incredibly frustrating topic for any Catholics trying to keep things “kid friendly”.)
Edit: They really REALLY didn’t like you saying that spreading the churches teachings to, for instance, pacific islands people’s etc, was (knowing they’re imperfect humans) condemning souls to hell when ignorance covered them 100%.