Mike Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 Believing in fate is like believing in religion. Its all a load of bull$#@!. Well said I think a belief in fate could be associated with a feeling that you're not in control of your life, or you're a bit scared of this big old world. It can be like reading a horoscope and having a random selection of vaguely descriptive events apparently about to happen to you. It's easy to give these random events some meaning and context and validate the claim. Human beings like predictability. They don't like to think the universe is made of of random events and encounters that may or may not have happened. Like religion, it gives some people comfort to think that events happen for a reason - even if they make up the reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ewen Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 Mind you... Uri gellar... Please don't tell me you believe in this guy ? He's an accomplished showman, nothing more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlotte Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 Well said I think a belief in fate could be associated with a feeling that you're not in control of your life, or you're a bit scared of this big old world. It can be like reading a horoscope and having a random selection of vaguely descriptive events apparently about to happen to you. It's easy to give these random events some meaning and context and validate the claim. Human beings like predictability. They don't like to think the universe is made of of random events and encounters that may or may not have happened. Like religion, it gives some people comfort to think that events happen for a reason - even if they make up the reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ewen Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 Which brings us rather neatly to Midsummer Murders...where fates and fetes are destined to become one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerry Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 I went to a fete once - it rained, I didn't win anything and it was crap Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 We went to a fete and were told to leave cos there were no dogs allowed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bignum Posted July 19, 2009 Author Share Posted July 19, 2009 Well said I think a belief in fate could be associated with a feeling that you're not in control of your life, or you're a bit scared of this big old world. It can be like reading a horoscope and having a random selection of vaguely descriptive events apparently about to happen to you. It's easy to give these random events some meaning and context and validate the claim. Human beings like predictability. They don't like to think the universe is made of of random events and encounters that may or may not have happened. Like religion, it gives some people comfort to think that events happen for a reason - even if they make up the reason. More realistic replies, thats spot on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl_S Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 I think the most interesting thing is that it is not proveable either way. Most of the world's population, through their belief in God, would appear to believe in pre-destinisation. Whether Uri Gellar can bend spoons or not with mind power, for me is ultimately not important. Neither is the existence of God and fate. Fete, is a french word of course, and from it we get Feast. Life is feast. Feasting, f*sting, and everything else that begins with F. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erol_h Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 where the hell did f*sting come from Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 where the hell did f*sting come from It came from the mind of Carl S. Think of him as helping to fulfil the forum's legal duties to the mentally challenged. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tannhauser Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 Serendipity, the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. An example being your avatar Carl. It reminded me of a character in a film, so I searched and when I found out who it was I watched the film (one of the the air traffic controllers in Airplane) and had such a great laugh with my wife that that night I got the best screw since I took her to see Cats. Thank you, Ewen, that's solved a mystery. I got the same 'Airplane' connection when I saw Carl's avatar, but I couldn't solve it. I thought it was one of the Hare Krishnas at the start of the film, but you're quite right, it's Steven Stucker, who plays Johnny. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl_S Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 In many religions f*sting, is a way of showing your willingness to God to succumb to His will. It is a sign that you fear and respect Him, and want to please Him. It is also a way of getting His attention, and showing that you are prepared to suffer for the true celestial nourishment you crave. It also helps focus the mind on other matters, in this case higher matters. It shows self sacrifice, which God approves of. Often it is combined with prayer, and done with other members of the same religion, and either during special holy times during the year or for a particular reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erol_h Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 the only reason anything should go up there is if it needs to examined by a doctor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ewen Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 In many religions f*sting, is a way of showing your willingness to God to succumb to His will. It is a sign that you fear and respect Him, and want to please Him. It is also a way of getting His attention, and showing that you are prepared to suffer for the true celestial nourishment you crave. It also helps focus the mind on other matters, in this case higher matters. It shows self sacrifice, which God approves of. Often it is combined with prayer, and done with other members of the same religion, and either during special holy times during the year or for a particular reason. So we are talking about f*sting then...for a minute I thought you were on about fasting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carl_S Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 Wow, thanks for that explanation Ewen. I understand it now. It's like a positive version of "if a butterfly flaps it's wings in italy, it will cause an earthquake in china". Say hi to your wife from me. Via airplane 2 perhaps. Awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tannhauser Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Well said I think a belief in fate could be associated with a feeling that you're not in control of your life, or you're a bit scared of this big old world. It can be like reading a horoscope and having a random selection of vaguely descriptive events apparently about to happen to you. It's easy to give these random events some meaning and context and validate the claim. Human beings like predictability. They don't like to think the universe is made of of random events and encounters that may or may not have happened. Like religion, it gives some people comfort to think that events happen for a reason - even if they make up the reason. You could also say that not believing in fate gives comfort, because it gives some people the illusion that they are masters of their own destiny It strikes me that quite often, people who disregard religious or mystical ideas and believe strictly in a physical universe cling onto the notion of free will. Maybe that’s the crutch they need. To add to a theme discussed by Steve and DB earlier. A scientific view of the world says that all events have a physical cause. right? So for every single event that happens, there are a set of antecedent events that result in it. A piece of dust moves to position Y, because a second before it was at position X, and a gravitational force acted on it. We don’t say that the dust chose to move to point Y, we say that it is inevitable that it moved there – according to the physical laws of the universe, and the series of events before, it was always going to happen. In fact, if an observer had all the facts available, they could have predicted it with 100% certainty. Yet we shy away from applying the same logic to human decisions. If one rejects all mystical ideas about the soul (as I do), then what are decisions? They are patterns of electrical impulses racing along neurons in the brain, and as such they are subject to the same rules as the piece of dust. Here I sit at 7:15, typing this sentence. I can say that I have chosen to write it, but this ‘decision’ I have taken doesn’t just mystically form from nowhere. It is a consequence of the interaction of millions of events since I was born and since the lives of the other posters were born – and of course, from before that, because the thoughts I have are the consequence of the way my brain is structured. I can claim to have free will by writing right NOW ‘Ozzy Osbourne fears umbrellas’. There! I have decided that for myself! Except I haven’t – the ‘choice’ of the word ‘umbrellas’ was a particular memory circuit being activated, as it had to be, by other cells in my frontal cortex, which are in turn obeying physical laws. In fact, if there was a supercomputer that could calculate the motion of every atom, it would predict with 99.999999999999% accuracy (we’ve got to allow for Heisenberg and quantum effects) that the sentence was going to be written as it was. Free will is an illusion caused by lack of scientific information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colsoop Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Its causality. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevie_b Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Some good points here. Are fate and predetermination (where God or nature has predetermined every single event that will ever occur, from the beginning of time onwards) the same thing? As colsoop pointed out, causality is pretty much certain to hold true. I'm uncomfortable with predetermination (and, conveniently, I don't believe in it). Does it break down when you consider the divergent systems I mentioned in an earlier post? Possibly not, it would just require a vast (literally unimaginable, and impossible for any living thing to build) computing power to process them. But maybe nature (or the laws of physics, if you prefer that term) has already predetermined what will happen at every point in the future. I hope that things aren't predetermined. I think/hope that highly divergent systems see to that. For me, predetermination is scary: it says "whatever I do, it won't make a difference to what happens" (have I got that right?). So, I can walk in front of a bus: if I die, it was predetermined to happen at that time, so what I perceive as my "actions" are of zero consequence. Shall I get up today to go to work, or sit at home wathing Jeremy Kyle? It doesn't matter: all the consequences have already been determined and set in stone. Whatever I choose, I would always have chosen that way (it's been predetermined), so why sweat about any decision I ever make from this point onwards? None of what I've written above disproves pretermination, it just demonstrates that if predetermination holds true, then the illusion of choice is indeed is a very, very deep one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Free will is an illusion caused by lack of scientific information. It's still irrelevant though, we don't have the scientific knowledge to know what will happen, maybe that's what sets apart the higher dimensional beings I've made up - they have a conscious understanding of all movements of all matter in the entire universe! Would that mean an omnipotent being with that knowledge exists in all time, or just understands all of time and is still in our time? Obviously time changes depending on where you are and what you're doing in the universe so an omnipotent being couldn't be in any time? Sorry I'm just waffling now. For me, predetermination is scary: it says "whatever I do, it won't make a difference to what happens" (have I got that right?). So, I can walk in front of a bus: if I die, it was predetermined to happen at that time, so what I perceive as my "actions" are of zero consequence. Shall I get up today to go to work, or sit at home wathing Jeremy Kyle? It doesn't matter: all the consequences have already been determined and set in stone. Whatever I choose, I would always have chosen that way (it's been predetermined), so why sweat about any decision I ever make from this point onwards? Why is it scary? Why should it change what decision you were going to make? Surely you'd make a particular decision to do something based on the situation at the time, if it's predetermined that you make that decision then so be it, if you knew that it wasn't predetermined would you change your decision on purpose just to prove a point? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexJames Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 I believe God has my life already planned... whether or not I follow it is my choice... but I choose to follow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Animal Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Its causality. Isn't that a TV show about a dyslexic hospital? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Free will is an illusion caused by lack of scientific information. I agree with that statement completely, but you're talking about having all knowledge of everything in the Universe all of the time. So this theory 'could be' true, if you were God Great flip side Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevie_b Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Why is it scary? Why should it change what decision you were going to make? Surely you'd make a particular decision to do something based on the situation at the time, if it's predetermined that you make that decision then so be it, if you knew that it wasn't predetermined would you change your decision on purpose just to prove a point? It's scary because it basically absolves everyone from any responsibility for any of their actions. I could do something really crazy, and it wouldn't matter because all consequences are predetermined, and nothing I could do would change any of those consequences. If you could convince everyone that predetermination and its consequences were true, I think society as we know it would collapse in about a day. Unpredictable doesn't even come close to describing what it would be like: it could go to complete anarchy, or it could turn the human race into a mass love-in, or anything in between. People wouldn't need to obey the law: all their actions and the consequences of their actions have been predetermined, effectively taking what people perceive as their thought processes completely out of the equation. People could commit heinous crimes against each other: it would have been predetermined that it would happen, so they wouldn't have to feel any remorse. I would hope that, in such a scenario, people would still hang on to what they used to know as a conscience, and retain qualities like compassion and love. But who knows? I remember watching a documentary 2 or 3 years ago in which the presenter interviewed a failed suicide bomber in an attempt to find out why they do what they do. IIRC the would-be bomber used an argument similar to predetermination to "justify" his actions. Some higher power (God in his case) had already determined exactly how things were going to pan out, so he was just acting out god's will. More than that, the bomber didn't have a choice in it. It was inevitable that these things would happen. He was like an actor following a script from which he physically couldn't deviate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheefa Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 I went for the Royal Air Force twice. First time for Pilot back in 2004 and the second time for Regiment in 2007. Both looking for Officer entry. I passed all the usual procedures/interviews/tests and got through Cranwell OASC twice. The first time I went I couldn't be a pilot as I had a slight stigmatism in left eye, only found out right at the end and the second time I couldn't join because of this random joint disease auto-immune 'somthing' that I had developed shortly after being accepted into training. Something is clearly not right here. That was my lifetime ambition out the window. Fate must have something to do with it, or just damn bad luck. And I don't believe God has any idea what he/she is doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 The first time I went I couldn't be a pilot as I had a slight stigmatism in left eye, only found out right at the end and the second time I couldn't join because of this random joint disease auto-immune 'somthing' that I had developed shortly after being accepted into training. Something is clearly not right here. That was my lifetime ambition out the window. Fate must have something to do with it, or just damn bad luck. One of my lads at work tried to get into the Navy to be a sparky. He got though all of the tests and procedures and started the training... then it transpired he was colour blind(!) so he had to leave. Just bad procedures I think. They're medicals should be thorough and upfront. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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