I don't see how your conclusions follow your premises unless you're rejecting the doctrine of free will. I haven't any objection to predestination doctrine, but how does it follow from the Christian scripture that God chooses all those factors?
If we have free will, then it is the vast nexus of choices made by others throughout history that determines whether we are born, who our parents are, the society into which we are born, whether or not we'll be born healthy, and so on.
Your formulation is outright predestination. Again, I don't have a problem with that per se, but it seems your argument is: our lives are predestined, but we exercise free will.
That is quite a paradox..
A paradox, yes. But not a contradiction :)
Thank you, AntiGuv. You've at least given me a fresh perspective from which to look at the question.
Meaning no disrespect to you or anyone else, but I sometimes which people would read more carefully. I am merely stating the obvious, which is that to a considerable (do not insert exclusive) degree, who we are and what choices we have in life are determined before we're born.
I am also stating the equally obvious that, once we are on our life's path, we are responsible for many of the life choices we make. The two observations are not mutually exclusive.
To put it more plainly: God (or the vast nexus of choices made by others throughout history) gives us life. The parents, culture, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, health, etc., into which we're born gives us a template for our lives. To some degree, we cannot deviate from the template, and to some degree, we can. To the degree we can, we have free will to do so as we wish.