It's a fascinating question...assuming that you believe in the God outlined in the Holy Bible, then we must wonder certain things about the world we live in.

There are two schools of thought on this matter...one is that God, the all-knowing, all-powerful entity that created and controls the universe can intervene at will if He wishes. When you pray to Him, if your prayer is answered and matches his will, He will alter mindsets or events so that your prayer can be answered.

Others believe that God is there watching, but he does not interfere with what is going on. Perhaps He is waiting for a certain number of prophecies to be fulfilled before He sets forth to bring about the new kingdom. Or maybe He set the laws of physics that govern our world and He will not go against them.

Where it gets really sticky is with the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The Bible says that no one knows the hour that it will occur. Does this in fact include God and Jesus also? Do they not know when it will come to pass but only that it will when a certain list of requirements have been fulfilled? Or is the date set from the beginning and all the choices that we make have no bearing on it?

Do you believe you control your own destiny? The idea of sinning against God seems to indicate that we do have free will to choose as we will. We can choose to follow our Father or choose to follow ourselves or the devil or whatever you wish to call it. But does God already know which way you will choose? Or does He hope that you will choose the right path?

It stretches the mind to think about things like this. Are some sins predestined to set forth a particular series of events (i.e. 9/11), or do we always have the real choice to go one way or another? Does God know what you will choose, or does He, as your Creator, hope that you will choose correctly. And when you do choose wrongly, how does this upset the plan that is already in effect?

Feel free to sound off with comments about your feelings on this subject and if everyone is interested I will put forth my own personal experiences and how I feel about predestination versus free will for the public to help me decide if I am right.

One thing I am sure of... whatever faith you choose, or whichever deity you call your god, I believe there is something out there. All science can come up with is the Big Bang for the creation of the universe... Sounds an awful lot like "Let there be light" doesn't it...

And I would love to hear the atheist point of view as well...it's an open discussion to try to let everyone voice their opinions on the truth.

Thanks for reading...

For more by this author...http://www.xomba.com/user/branpierce