₦airaland Forum

LordReed:
People do use destiny colloquially like in the 2nd definition triplechoice laid out. I dunno which definition Westerhoffe is using though. He should enlighten us.

Yes, Westerhoffe should take up the gauntlet.

DeepSight:
Its very problematic even colloquially because in that manner my destiny could be to be the Pope or even the next Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
In a discussion like this, they should just find another word.

"Hope" would be a great one.

I agree that the word has a certain expected usage in religious discuss but I don't want to preclude him using the more colloquial meaning.

Yeah, they should use a different word to help with understanding.

Westerhoffe:
LordReed
DeepSight

You both were just gisting and mentioning my moniker…



And what have you to say about the last point in the asterisk?

Why are simple questions so hard for you to answer?

Westerhoffe:
LordReed
DeepSight

You both were just gisting and mentioning my moniker…



And what have you to say about the last point in the asterisk?

Did you mean destiny colloquially or as the will of God in your life in a religious theological sense?

That's the remaining question for you by three people now.

[quote author=LordReed post=136865939][/quote]i don't wish dear, i simply cannot afford to invest much in you, sorry. Get closer to your compassionate pastor, i see you're taking the advice well. You got flagged BTW, get smart like me. Proverbs 26v4,5 and Matthew 7v6 readily come to bear on my postings here. Selah.

Image123:
i don't wish dear, i simply cannot afford to invest much in you, sorry. Get closer to your compassionate pastor, i see you're taking the advice well. You got flagged BTW, get smart like me. Proverbs 26v4,5 and Matthew 7v6 readily come to bear on my postings here. Selah.

LoLz. Who send you before? No be you carry your own hand dey follow me upandan dey comment on my post? Na me give you work? It's so bad that other people are noticing and you are over there forming what I don't know. Bwahahahahahaha!

So you are facepalming at me for what you are also doing? What is the word used for that type of behaviour again? Hypocrisy. LMAO!

LordReed:
LoLz. Who send you before? No be you carry your own hand dey follow me upandan dey comment on my post? Na me give you work? It's so bad that other people are noticing and you are over there forming what I don't know. Bwahahahahahaha!

So you are facepalming at me for what you are also doing? What is the word used for that type of behaviour again? Hypocrisy. LMAO!

Take am.

DeepSight:
My good heavens. How can a Christian know sooooooooooooooooooooooooo little about the bible?
Narcissism is not a sin in the bible?

What is the sin of pride?

Sad, but you will probably say narcissism is not pride! Good heavens. One has to wonder at times the background of strangers on an anonymous board.

Probably you dont know the story of Narcissus and how that word arose.

Anyway, go and learn -

https://www.crossway.org/articles/10-key-bible-verses-on-pride/?srsltid=AfmBOortksr6QYtPZ9S7iMw84Ioe5uEoiseTCZGZ6MWtNS6ZCXNIrJD3

You must have missed my emojis. Use quality internet so that emojis can load dear.

Image123:
You must have missed my emojis. Use quality internet so that emojis can load dear.

Nah. Your reasoning is such that one must suspect the smallest. Said so in first response.

DeepSight:
Nah. Your reasoning is such that one must suspect the smallest. Said so in first response.

Keep suspecting, it will look good on your resume.

Image123:
Take am.

More narcissism. LoLz.

OK you are also too emotional and the bot got you. Hypocrisy.

You really can't help yourself can you?

LordReed:
More narcissism. LoLz.

OK you are also too emotional and the bot got you. Hypocrisy.

You really can't help yourself can you?

More false accusations rather.

Image123:
More false accusations rather.

LoLz. Nope, factual.

LordReed:
LoLz. Nope, factual.

Because you say so as usual, and you accuse me of being narcissistic for being sure of what i am doing oh.

Westerhoffe:
I have nothing to answer to a simple sentence you couldn't comprehend.

LoLz. Your flunking a simple question has nothing to do with me. DeepSight asked you the same question and you flopped, hard.

LordReed:
LoLz. Your flunking a simple question has nothing to do with me. DeepSight asked you the same question and you flopped, hard.

If I told you I knew he would not answer the question you might have thought I was joking.
He views it as some sort of trap.

Westerhoffe:
That if that's how you're destined to die, you might never see it coming until it happens.

This is not the answer but never mind.

DeepSight:
If I told you I knew he would not answer the question you might have thought I was joking.
He views it as some sort of trap.

Of course he does, they always feel trapped once you question their own words.

[quote author=LordReed post=136879212][/quote]No, i don't. i hardly talk of myself. This is different from knowing who i am. Knowing who i am or my worth and priority, is different from making everything about me. i know what i know, that's confidence and experience.

DeepSight:
If I told you I knew he would not answer the question you might have thought I was joking.
He views it as some sort of trap.

Errr, perhaps because people see your motives. You're not usually asking genuinely to know, or from ignorance.

Image123:
No, i don't. i hardly talk of myself. This is different from knowing who i am. Knowing who i am or my worth and priority, is different from making everything about me. i know what i know, that's confidence and experience.

Inserting yourself into situations that have zero to do with what you know is narcissistic.

Hello, @ DeepSight. I'd like to address separately here all the points you've raised since my initial clarification which was meant to diffuse the tension between Westerhoffe and Lordreed.

I believe there's a significant misunderstanding at the heart of your argument that I wish to address. My intention isn't to argue for the effectiveness of prayer, that's a task for the Christians following the thread to tackle. I aim to offer a perspective based on things I've learned as someone who has participated fully in both Christianity and another religion.

First , on the nature of "Destiny" in Christianity, your argument rests on a generalisation that " religious people mean"destiny" was placed there by God. This is exactly where the major error lies. What you described is a belief much closer to fatalism or specifically Islamic theology, not mainstream Christianity .

Christianity doesn't teach that every event in life, especially negative ones such as accidents , sickness, or sudden death, is a specific,pre-set " destiny" ordained by God. Instead, at the heart of the Christian worldview is the concept of spiritual warfare. ( Ephesians:6:12). Christians are taught that evil forces are actively operating in the world.

Therefore, when a believer has a dream about death and prays against it,, he or she is almost certainly not understanding that dream as a revelation of God's immutable will. They're much more likely interpreting it as a warning of a potential attack from an enemy and a call to spiritual vigilance.

The prayer against death isn't an attempt to "defeat God's will" ,but a petition for protection and deliverance exactly as Jesus taught his disciples to pray, "deliver us from evil". In this instance, Westerhoffe is asking his God to enact his will over a potential evil outcome.

Furthermore, religion like Eckankar, which I am familiar with, and many traditional and Eastern belief systems teach that destiny is largely malleable "isn't cast in stone:" .It exist as a field of future possibilities , good or bad, based on the individual's karma, and can be altered if one wishes to avoid a particular outcome. Glimpse of these potential paths can be viewed in dreams or through soul travel. If a person sees a future they wish to avoid, they can change it through dedicated spiritual practice and by taking concrete actions to steer away from the path .The shared core principle is that one's present-moment intentions, choices, and actions exert powerful influence on one's future,making one and active participant in shaping one's own destiny.


Now, this leads me to your other point about the colloquial use of destiny. I believe you're creating a false equivalence, either deliberately or unintentionally. In it's true colloquial sense, the word, "destiny" is rarely,if ever,used for logical impossibilities like you becoming "the Pope"or "the"crown prince ". That would certainly be absurd.

" Destiny " is normally used in one of two ways:

1. As a likely outcome based on one's current actions. For instance, " If you never study, your destiny is to fail the exam".

2. As a sense of fitting purpose. For instance, "He is always kicking things as a child, now he has found his destiny as a professional footballer".

When a Christian talks about a dream of death and prays against that"destiny ", he's using it in the first sense. The dream suggests a feared potential outcome, a negative path his life could take. His prayer is an attempt to avert that potential outcome.

While " hope" is a beautiful word, it fails to capture the same meaning. You hope for good things. You pray against a negative destiny.

On the function of prayer, your use of the Gethsemane example is not complete . You isolated Jesus's prayer of submission and presented it as the only valid form of prayer. Yet, the same Jesus who submitted to the cross also taught his followers to pray to change circumstances, "Give us this day our daily bread" , deliver us from evil " . Performed miracles that actively altered the "destiny" of the sick, the hungry and the dead .

Gethsemane was about submitting to God's sovereign redemptive plan for humanity . Praying against a bad dream is about seeking deliverance from a potential evil threat. They are different categories of prayer, but both are validated within Christian practice.

Finally, you ask if God's will can be changed. I will leave you with one clear biblical example.

The prophet Isaiah told King Hezekiah ."This is what the Lord says: Put your house in order because you are going to die: You will not recover" . Hezekiah did not accept this as a "fixed fate" placed by God. Instead,he turned his face to the wall, prayed, and wept bitterly . In response, God sent Isaiah back with a new message."I have heard your prayer and seen your tears ; I will heal you..I will add fifteen years to your life" This is a clear biblical precedent where a proclaimed outcome was changed through prayer.

So, to conclude, the contradiction you see is based on a misapplication of a fatalistic concept of destiny to a Christian who doesn't operate within that paradigm. Within his framework , where God is a protector from evil, his actions are perfectly coherent. He's watching and praying, just as his scripture admonish him to do . However , the lingering issue is the reluctance of him to accept that the initial misunderstanding wasn't due to an inability to comprehend, but rather how both of them perceived the same word, "destiny" . Identifying that semantic gap was the primary goal of my intervention and clarification.

Thank you