Puppets?

[fester30]

There is no easy, uncomplicated answer for this.  History is a witness that there have been many in the higher leadership that simply used the post to their own devices.  They used the fact that the little people believed they were God's messenger to get these people to do their will, and pass it off as God's will.  There have also been a countless many who have truly believed and tried to do what they feel is right according to the doctrines.  I studied at a Jesuit university.  Jesuits are, by Catholic standards, very progressive.  They have universities around the world and their mission is to educate.  I spoke with many very intelligent Catholic priests who had graduate degrees in subjects such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, and history.  From the perspective of someone who does not believe in god due to science, it would seem insane to believe in a god with all of that education.  However, these men believed in god even with all that education, enough so that they had given up sex for life!  (believe it or not, most of them actually never have sex).  As for the lack of actual communication with god, they feel that god's form of communication is by revealing himself through life or feeling.  A priest will pray and pray, and when choices come up he will choose based on how he feels his heart leads him, and trust that it's god working through his heart to make the right decisions, or say the right things, or take the right action.  They believe nothing is truly random, and when coincidences happen, that's also god working in the world.

I used to believe that god answered all prayers, that sometimes the answer was just no.  However, that's not what the bible actually says.  If faith of a mustard seed could move a mountain, I should have been able to move a few planets.  The guy next to me on the plane Saturday prayed that he could make it home that night so that he could be there for his nephew's birth.  We're still in an airport in another country two days later because the plane broke down, and there's no telling if we'll even make it out tonight.  By the time he gets home his nephew will be home from the hospital.  He will take it as god's will, of course, probably that god did this so when he saw his nephew for the first time he wouldn't have to share with a large group of other people already there to see him.  He will look at it as god revealing himself through the plane breaking down, instead of through audible words.