Do you believe in fate?

Nadai

Active Member
Do you believe in fate?
It seems to me that a man who received bad news from an oracle would always attempt to change their fate, but it always came to pass. They could decide to take different turns on the road, walk or drive, but they all pretty much went to the same destination. If a father was supposed to be overthrown by his son (Cronus) he'd be overthrown. If a son was destined to kill his father (Persues), he would kill his father whether he wanted to or not.
Once the Fates spoke a word it came to pass.
Today though it would seem that most people think that they write their own destinies, that they make their own decisions. They believe in coincidence.
Of course there are still oracles: horoscopes, palm readers, tarot card readers, psychics, but do people really believe in them?
 
I do not believe in fate. I don't think that there is a reason for everything or anything like that. I believe that we do create our own destinies by making choices; consequences are those of our own doing, as are rewards.
 

Isabelle

Member
I absolutely believe in fate and karma, but not in fortune tellers and all that. In my life everything has happened for a reason, and has made me a better person for the struggles I have faced. I know a lot of people don't believe in fate at all though. Nadai, what you are talking about almost sounds more like pre-determination, and I don't believe in that...you always have a choice.
 

Myrddin

Well-Known Member
I believe that some things may happen for a reason, but I do not believe in fate or destiny. I believe it is our choices, nothing more, that propels us in one direction or another, depending on what we choose to do. We control our own fate.
 

RLynn

Active Member
Quantum mechanics suggests that there may be a certain randomness in events. In this connection Schrödinger's Cat comes to mind. So strict causality seems improbable. Whether everything is predetermined (perhaps by some deity) is impossible to prove, so Occam's Razor would imply that events simply happen, sometimes randomly, sometimes due to cause and effect. Therefore it is impossible to predict the future with absolute certainty, although the laws of probability remain valid.
 

magickz

Active Member
I do and I also believe that certain people should end up together, like myself and my spouse. We started out as friends, it was broken off (my fault here for being young and dumb), we went our separate ways, randomly ran into one another for years and years while we each had tons of crazy things going on in life then ended up together years later. The entire ordeal of "us" went from the mid summer of 05 until today as I write this. :)
 

RLynn

Active Member
The soul mate idea goes back a long ways. According to Kaballah, the prototypical man, Adam Kaedmon, is androgynous. Somehow 'man' becomes bifurcated into male and female, neither of which is complete, so bashert (destiny) kicks in, and he may thereby be reunited with his other half.
You are a lucky guy, magickz.
 

greekgoddess31

Active Member
I believe that everything that happens, happens for a reason and leads your path in the direction it is supposed to go. I do believe that we are given choices in life but that ultimately the choices we make take us where we were meant to go.
 

WinterWitch

Member
I kind of look at fate like driving down a road. You come to a stop sign and you have to turn left or right. If you go to the left it moves your fate in that direction. If you go to the right, your fate goes in the other direction. So you have some free will, but if something is really suppose to happen, then at some point the same stop sign will pop up again. This time there will be a tree across the left road though and you will only be able to go to the right. THAT is fate.
 

Nadai

Active Member
I kind of look at fate like driving down a road. You come to a stop sign and you have to turn left or right. If you go to the left it moves your fate in that direction. If you go to the right, your fate goes in the other direction. So you have some free will, but if something is really suppose to happen, then at some point the same stop sign will pop up again. This time there will be a tree across the left road though and you will only be able to go to the right. THAT is fate.
That's a pretty great analogy. Thanks, WW.
 

RLynn

Active Member
I believe that everything that happens, happens for a reason and leads your path in the direction it is supposed to go. I do believe that we are given choices in life but that ultimately the choices we make take us where we were meant to go.
There's no proof of this, but I like to think it has validity. The ordinarily very skeptical phenominalist philosopher Schopenhouer seemed to think so. In old age, looking back over his life, he wrote that there was not a single thing that he would change, if he could. (That's good enough for me.)
 

LegendofJoe

Active Member
I think that if you have a positive attitude, then when one door closes, you will try and find another one that is opened.
But that does not mean i believe that everything that happens, happens for a reason; or happens for the better.
It may just seem that way because with the passage of time, combined with trying to control a bad situation with sound
decision making, many bad events can be made to work out well for us. Or at least somewhat well.
 

Isabelle

Member
Winterwitch that is an awesome analogy, and pretty accurate to my way of thinking. :) Magickz I also believe in soul mates. I have been with my husband since we were 14 years old, and I knew we were meant to be together the first time I laid eyes on him. :)
 

Myrddin

Well-Known Member
There a lot of things that happen which have no purpose. For instance, is the inability to get a job despite the number of interviews you get have any purpose? No. After a while, there is nothing left to learn, yet it continues the same way as always despite how hard you work, and try to show that. Apparently there is always someone better. And that is just one example.
 

Nadai

Active Member
There a lot of things that happen which have no purpose. For instance, is the inability to get a job despite the number of interviews you get have any purpose? No. After a while, there is nothing left to learn, yet it continues the same way as always despite how hard you work, and try to show that. Apparently there is always someone better. And that is just one example.
For a person who believes in fate maybe they would simply believe that they aren't meant to be in those positions at those jobs.
 
Top