Pre-determined destiny? [Archive]

Samhain

05-30-2006, 12:25 AM

I think that at times we do and at times we don't, and sometimes the gods stear our fate and sometimes they leave us to our own thing, just like parents.
for me a really depressing religious opinon is that god know exactly whats in store for us, witch means we have no choice at all.
so whats your take on it D?
S

Hacker

05-30-2006, 12:56 AM

Obviously no one knows the answer. I tend to believe that we are wide open. I believe we are more in control of our destinies than we realize. Some people get comfort in believing in a higher power. That is all good, but in the end I think we choose our fate. Every last detail in our lives can be affected by others. We are a constant evolution, and I feel there is not one destiny or plan for each of us, but instead an infinite number of possibilities. Some things are in our control while others are not.

And I must also admit that I do not stand firm on this belief because I know it can not be proven. I do not discredit the other possibilities. I do not like to state my opinions as fact. So, do not be offended if you are totally against this idea.

seamonster66

05-30-2006, 12:57 AM

Samhain

05-30-2006, 01:06 AM

I believe there are paths out there, several maybe more, and that we can follow them, or wallow in the wilderness. Predestination, no I don't believe in a concrete life map.

During certain phases of my life I've noticed a high amount of odd coincidences in a short amount of time. I always took that as signposts that I'm on a path, not necessarily the right one though
when I read tarot I say something similar to that, these things will only come to pass if you choose to stay on the path you are on at the moment.
key word here is choose, the cards only read from the direction you are travellling when you are being read for.

great thread BTW D!
S

nimh

05-30-2006, 10:36 AM

i wrote a little poem about this very theme a long time ago:

paths chosen grow
choose us
flow

so, in answer to the poll, i think there's a little bit of all of the above. we are all part of the divine, higher power, collective unconscious/whatever you want to call it. we choose what our corporeal existance is going to look like. so, we pick our paths before we get here, and once we're here, we follow our paths, learning whatever lessons we decided on before we got here. once a lesson is mastered, another path opens up and away we go. is that fate? i dont know. i dont like to believe in an external locus of control, i like to think that i'm the decision maker here. i also think that if we dont master the lessons we've set out for ourselves, that they'll repeat over and over again in our lives until we finally get it.

Kujo

05-31-2006, 12:30 AM

I thought this question might have stirred up more emotions, more responses. But it's only been a day, lol.

Since I was young, I have always wondered why the world would prefer their whole existence to be planned out for them. Is it easier? Easier to not take responsibility for your own life? I'm sure to many it is. Even though I am learning that the world changes, I still get scared of how many of us are stuck in the same mind frame. So many want to blame a god. So many want a paradise. No one knows what their life will be like on November 3rd, 2006. I don't anyway. I am highly bothered by those that rely soley on faith and destiny to make their life be all okay.

Love Fest1969

05-31-2006, 12:35 AM

I think somethings you can do on your own and somethings are planned out for you.

Samhain

05-31-2006, 01:48 AM

I think somethings you can do on your own and somethings are planned out for you.
but yet you've voted that everything is predestined?
S

Love Fest1969

05-31-2006, 01:51 AM

I had a change of heart.

Samhain

05-31-2006, 01:54 AM

I had a change of heart.
fair enough, which standpoint did you come too after your change of heart, the one in the thread?
S

Love Fest1969

05-31-2006, 02:27 AM

Yea

Lying in a field

05-31-2006, 05:23 AM

This is a hard one....

In order for humans to truly have choice there needs to be some sort of force in the universe with overrides to general flow of all things and creates randomness.

I don't know.

Samhain

05-31-2006, 05:58 AM

Lying in a field

05-31-2006, 06:01 AM

huh?
S
Think about it, if everything is just a chain of reactions that flow according to some sort of law, then everything is pre-determined, and we really have no choice in anything. But what if the universe allowed muliple laws to exist at once....like a molecule of air has any number of directions to go...

like the universe has inbuilt dice

are you following?

Samhain

05-31-2006, 06:04 AM

Think about it, if everything is just a chain of reactions that flow according to some sort of law, then everything is pre-determined, and we really have no choice in anything. But what if the universe allowed muliple laws to exist at once....like a molecule of air has any number of directions to go...

like the universe has inbuilt dice

are you following?
yeah but if the universe had an infinate number of options and directions they would still be layed out, so even though we thought we had free will, in the end we wouldn't have because the infinate number of options are still mapped out- my brain hurts
S

Hacker

05-31-2006, 06:31 AM

There is a mathematics to chaos isn't there?

Kujo

05-31-2006, 08:31 AM

I always used to think that things happen for a reason. But what if they don't? I mean, we either spend our whole lives trying to figure out what the reason is, and waste just living the moments (good or bad), or we totally accept that god has made this master plan for all, including himself, and he's the only one with the answers, the reasons, and that's good enough for most people. I can't accept that. But within the last year or better I've started to realize that I am wasting a lot of time thinking, contemplating, wondering, and missing out on a lot of things. I obviously can't think and act at the same time, lol. Seriously though, I don't want to guess. So like Samhain says, don't take my opinions for fact. I will tell you my experience because that's all I know. This is the problem I'm having when I try to write fiction - it hasn't happened to me, so it scares me when I try writing about something that I don't know anything about. (If you're a writer, give me some tips on this one, will you?)

Wond'ringAloud

05-31-2006, 02:05 PM

I've always thought that things were pre-determined, but having said that I think we are faced with choices and gut instincts. I do believe we can have a hand in our destiny especially if we listen to our gut instincts, I think they act as a safety net. If we ignore them, and go down the wrong path, if things are pre-determined wouldn't that be the right path anyway. Does that make sense?

Ugh!

AshtonsMom

06-01-2006, 05:25 AM

good thread!!! I Have sooooooooo many thoughts on this one; I believe in predestiny, but I believe that there are different "plots" that you can choose from. I believe that no matter what road you take, whatever is going to happen to you at a certain time will happen no matter what. Am I making any sense?

Raving Sultan

06-01-2006, 05:30 AM

I tend to believe we are an extension of our genetic lineage. So of course my life is greatly affected by my parents. I don't believe in predestiny much more beyond that. We have the power to affect ourselves and others too. Too much in life goes unfulfilled to have predestinies.

LuckyStripe

06-01-2006, 10:52 AM

I voted the middle one. Some things will just be. A child that is treated a certain way for example, well- they couldnt change that. Later in life I think there may be other things also predetermined. However, we all have the free will to change what we can and what we can't change to deal with in certain ways.

themnax

07-22-2006, 11:26 AM

there are always factors over which we do not individualy have personal direct control. these can concatinate to create the effect, appearance, of some sort of fate or predestination. nontangable forces and being MAY contribute to this effect, but i don't see it as having to depend on their doing so at all.

how free is free will? if skinner were to be believed we are all predestined by what we experience in our environment. but there is also our personal interpretations of what we experience as part of that loop, and finaly our environment is not passive but to verying, often, usualy, limited, degrees responds to our interaction with it, sometimes individualy and usualy if not always collectively.

although again, non tangable forces and beings MAY be part of that collectively.
at any rate the're good friends to have. just like everybody else is.

reguardless of how much or how little they may actualy influence what we experience.

=^^=
.../\...

fritz

07-24-2006, 04:39 PM

There is no plan. You pick the path.
Your perception can make things seem pre-determined. Then, if something suddenly changes that perception you can see how you were being self limiting.

Samhain

07-24-2006, 08:03 PM

There is no plan. You pick the path.
Your perception can make things seem pre-determined. Then, if something suddenly changes that perception you can see how you were being self limiting.
ok so how about situations where people have been getting on a bus for the last twenty years, they get a feeling one morning for no reason that they shouldn't be doing that, and get a taxi, and the bus crashes- is that not a glimpse of fate?
S

fritz

07-24-2006, 08:56 PM

Instinct, IMHO. How does a pig, or bunny know it's slaughterhouse day?

Samhain

07-24-2006, 08:57 PM

Instinct, IMHO. How does a pig, or bunny know it's slaughterhouse day?
maybe they sensed their fate? ;)
S

fritz

07-24-2006, 09:04 PM

Sam, I left a bar one night fifteen minutes before a friend of mine took a beating from six guys with a baseball bat, & almost got dead. The hair went up on the back of my neck. I was outta there!

themnax

07-25-2006, 12:25 PM

ok so how about situations where people have been getting on a bus for the last twenty years, they get a feeling one morning for no reason that they shouldn't be doing that, and get a taxi, and the bus crashes- is that not a glimpse of fate?
S

not exactly; as the bus wasn't "predestined" to crash, but, it may well have been good nontangable friends protecting you from a forseeable probability.

also someone looking backwards from after it happened, sending a protection back to you. still not predestined that it would, only that it happened on the timeline you were sent back the warning/avoidance impulse, from.

=^^=
.../\...

Samhain

07-25-2006, 01:04 PM

well thats one way of looking at it Themnax
Snot exactly; as the bus wasn't "predestined" to crash, but, it may well have been good nontangable friends protecting you from a forseeable probability.

also someone looking backwards from after it happened, sending a protection back to you. still not predestined that it would, only that it happened on the timeline you were sent back the warning/avoidance impulse, from.

=^^=
.../\...