Is atheism included in God's ultimate plan? Any Christians please riddle me this...

I was deep in thought today at work, and remembered how I was told that I 'was formed in my mother's womb by God himself.' Here is Psalm 139:13-16 from the New Living Translation:

¹³ You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
      and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
      Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
¹⁵ You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
      as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
¹⁶ You saw me before I was born.
      Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
   Every moment was laid out
      before a single day had passed.

If this is the case, let me throw a hypothetical (but not so hypothetical) at you. Let's say two gay atheist men get married. One worked on Wall St. and the other a very successful business man, therefore they are financially sound. They want children of their own and come up with a genius idea: to take one of their sperm samples, and an egg from the sister of the other, artificially inseminate, and the sister act as a surrogate mother. The money is there to cover all expenses, and the sister is more than supportive and decides to show her support by agreeing to carry the child to term.

1. Would this baby in the womb, being created by two people who 1) don't believe in God, and 2) are a practicing gay couple (the downfall of America according to Pat Robertson), still be totally built by God AND be included in God's ultimate plan?

2. Will the child still be a part of God's plan even though the child (male and female twins in this case) will most likely grow up to be atheist? According to the above excerpt from one great piece of fictional literature, yes.

3. So would it be fair to argue that atheism is a part of God's plan?

This 'hypothetical' is actually not hypothetical at all. A man I used to work for years ago was married to the man of his dreams and they went through with this. My boss's sister carried twins to term and bore them. What a fantastic story.

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Permalink Reply by Michael on July 3, 2011 at 9:05pm

Everything that unfolds has been foreseen and pre-ordained.

Then there is the question, "How can we be judged, since, who can resists his will?"

It is written, "he makes pots of clay, in order to glorify the pots of gold and silver"(sic).

Well from our perspective this does not seem fair. But "the universe is subjected to futility by the same who also subjects it to hope." "A great work he shall make of earth but he shall cut it short on account of righteousness."(sic)

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Permalink Reply by Merlin Mercer on July 3, 2011 at 9:32pm

Michael, you never cease to amaze me. How could God use atheism in his plan?

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Permalink Reply by Michael on July 3, 2011 at 9:58pm

Well you have seen the movie The Ten Commandments, and the gainsaying of Core, portrayed by Edward G. Robinson. Constantly a thorn in Mose's side until the earth opens up and swallowed him and his sympathizers, and the remnant were very afraid. If that does not put the fear of God in you, nothing will. Core was predestined for the Glory of God, despite his Atheism.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Buchanan on July 4, 2011 at 8:38am

Speaking of God's Plan (TM), don't Christians believe that their god is all-knowing/all-powerful and that he had everyone's life planned out before they were born? What does that say about their god that he would send people to hell at all? I mean, if he planned everything out before we were born, then we really have no free-will at all, so the whole, "God wants you to choose to believe in him because he wants you to have free-will" spiel is complete bullshit. Because if he planned it all out, we aren't making our own decisions. Just seems a bit evil for their god to send anyone to hell at all, because "sinners" are essentially puppets of god.

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Permalink Reply by Michael on July 4, 2011 at 9:34am

You are making your own decisions. When Pharaoh did not let Israel go, it was his own decision. We are all tempted to disobey God. Pharaoh gave in to temptation being harden by environmental factors and likely spiritual obsession.

Every day we are all confronted with temptation. Failing to resist temptation will result in adultery, larceny, corruption, genocide, lies, idolatry, fortunetelling and lasciviousness.

In general, things that incur the wrath of God

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Permalink Reply by Shamari on July 4, 2011 at 10:54am

So you're saying that god allows atheists so that religious people can be glorified? That even though he knows that they will ultimately go to hell, that's his purpose for them? No way to be saved?...how is that merciful in your mind? That's like god purposefully giving someone cancer to show how good and healthy everyone else without it is....???

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Permalink Reply by Michael on July 4, 2011 at 7:08pm

Everyone that comes to Christ is coming from a sinful life no matter who you are. And Christian is only a title. So called Christians fill the ranks of lost souls just as well as any one else. What matter's is the way of life. For sure many atheist will be saved by virtual of their humanity and were able to assist one of His little ones.

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Permalink Reply by Dustin on July 3, 2011 at 9:09pm

one sperm sample? It wouldn't be a child of both men , in a biological sense , so the child would be created in the womans womb , yes. Which is what the Psalm above is talking about. It doesn't mention the father. So I believe your entire addition of a gay couple has nothing to do with the Psalm at all.

But , if you are asking about Atheism being part of Gods plan ... of course it is! Or else Christians wouldn't be told to spread the Gospel and convert people! (Sarcasm .. if you couldn't tell lol)

Interesting read nonetheless.

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Permalink Reply by Merlin Mercer on July 3, 2011 at 9:43pm

Actually Dustin, you're right. The idea behind it was that the DNA of both families be used, so the children will still share the same DNA as both fathers. I'm no biologist, so please excuse me if this is beyond my understanding. What I'm getting at here is that these kids are the product of an atheist couple, and the kids will most likely end up being atheist. Being taught to be freethinkers their whole life will most likely lead them to atheism. So, does god create atheists? Why would he? This is probably my lame attempt at creating an argument that points to the fact that there is no god. Kind of like the 'would god condemn a child born into islam that knew nothing of christ and blew himself up in the name of allah?' argument. Or one of my faves: Why won't god heal amputees?

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Permalink Reply by Dustin on July 3, 2011 at 10:36pm

But you're implying God is sending us to Hell for pleasure or enjoyment or punishment ... from what I hear , it is because God loves us sooooooooooooooooooooooo much , he respects our choice of free will in denying his 'Love' ... sure it makes no sense , but in this view , God doesn't 'create' Atheists. He has a book , he has people to spread his word and we have the 'choice' to accept the Gospels and Pauls writings.

I just thought of something ... is there anyone that has ever fully believed God exists and the Christian Gospels BUT declared openly to the God he / she thought existed that they were denying God and wished to spend eternity in Hell?

So .... really .... Atheists wouldn't be the only ones burning : D , people who also believed in Yahweh could STILL go to Hell for refusing the offerings of Jesus' forgiveness of sins.

AHHHHHHHHHH , thinking of Christian doctrines always makes my head spin. It's a good exercise for the mind , that's for sure lol

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Permalink Reply by Dustin on July 3, 2011 at 10:49pm

LoL , I remember Dinesh D'souza going on a long ass rant about how amputees are no less happy than those with all limbs ... so there would be no reason to 'heal' them because they are already healthy and normal in a spiritual sense. "Why would they need to be healed for they have nothing wrong with them and nothing to be healed OF?" ...

I wanted to punch him through my computer screen when I heard this apologetic acrobatics ....

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Permalink Reply by Dustin on July 3, 2011 at 9:12pm

Oh and remember , God likes to punish children for their ancestors transgressions up to something like the 6th generation....... when I showed this passage to a Christian , she just agreed with it and said 'God must know best , so he can punish me if my ancestors did something I deserved punishment for' ... talk about a major backfire when trying to corner a Christian lol. So yes , I think God does have it in his plan ... He created Hell so he obviously needs to fill it up with yummy Atheist Flesh.