Many people question their religious identity today, not necessarily by thinking of converting to Judaism or to Islam: it's just that technologies seriously challenge the status of the human being. All technologies converge toward the same spot, they all lead to a Deus ex Machina, a machine-God.
Personally, I avoid deus ex machina like the plague - if you have to use one, it means you failed to set up the universe and the plot properly. It's like a whodunnit where there's no actual way for the reader to identify the perpetrator before the climactic reveal: there's no sense of closure for the reader.
I seek the spread of freedom and democracy in the way that satisfies God. Americans have planned and paved the ways for a long time, but it is God who is the real planner -- and the proof of this is the fall of the American twin towers ... a miracle from God.
He was one of the major faction leaders in the Iraq Civil War.
Nor let a god come in, unless the difficulty be worthy of such an intervention. [Lat., Nec deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus.]
I need some kind of... like... last minute, poorly-set-up deus ex machina!!
If 'Titanic' was one of our telenovelas, we would probably have added a pair of dolphins to save Jack at the end. We don't kill the good guy.
But then in novels the most indifferent hero comes out right at last. Some god comes out of a theatrical cloud and leaves the poor devil ten thousand-a-year and a title.
I hate it when characters know things but only reveal them when it's convenient to the story. I'd never do that. That's cheating.
Deus ex machina not only erases all meaning and emotion, it's an insult to the audience. Each of us knows we must choose and act, for better or worse, to determine the meaning of our lives...Deus ex machina is an insult because it is a lie.
A common complaint about stories that include excessive coincidence is that the story is 'unrealistic.'