Fate or freewill?

i think that you can do whatever you want, anything at all, but in the end, you end up dead.

It depends what you believe. Do you believe you have a predetermined fate? Do you follow a religion that believes in predestination? I find it hard to accept religions that preach about an almighty God that is all knowing and controls everything and knows exactly what you are thinking but then he is merciful and we are special because He has granted free will. How does this work? Islam tries to explain this by saying that we do indeed have free will but God knows us so well that he knows what decisions we would make anyway. This, to me, does not seem like a sufficient explanation. But anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that it’s all down to belief. What do you believe?

Free will could just be an illusion based on the fact that we don’t know our own future. If Time is truly immutable than so is our destiny. Or maybe only the past is immutable and we are the masters of our fate. And that’s just from a pure physics standpoint, not even considering the metaphysical or spiritual side of it.

This strikes me as the kind of question that cannot possibly be answered while sober :)

I sort of believe in determinism, but determinism as if it doesn’t really effect anyone, because it’s too far above comprehension. As though we can’t really change the course of history, because it’s predetermined based on the laws of physics, but since on the level of human understanding from a human point-of-view it can’t be detected, it doesn’t really matter, and we perceive that we have control over our own lives.

I believe in both. We are all meant for something but our actions(free will) determine how we get there, or if we get there at all. I guess it depends on if your the type of person who goes with the flow or if your the type who goes against it. But either way it seems like the smallest decision or action can change the outcome of something. I look at it all as sequence of events, guided by something greater than us. God, maybe but that seems kind of farfetched for me. As for me I like to go with the flow and only take action to disrupt it when I feel its absolutely necessary.

@qualitycontrol, by the smallest decision or action do you mean a simliar sort of idea as the whole a buttery fly flaps its wings differently than usual and causes a cyclone on the other side of the earth thing?

The Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines fate as the will or principle or determining cause by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do.

However, I do not believe that our faith is predetermined. I believe your “fate” is influenced solely by the choices and decisions you make to bring about these events. We all have the power to make our own choices, and these choices will shape our destiny. I like also think this quote does a good job of explaining fate…

“Fate is for those too weak to determine their own destiny.”
~Kamran Hamid

@0o_Niques_o0, Keep in mind that one’s fate can certainly be influenced by others. A serial killer, for example, unilaterally determines the fate of his victims.

@xyzzy I stand corrected. =) ...Yes, I believe there are some aspects of our lives that we have no control over.

if you have bad karma its fate but if you have good karma its freewill….....if that makes any sense.

@ shrubbery….Well, that’s the idea but not so exaggerated. I meant the actions/ decisions made by us, every day and throughout the course of our lives. What we choose to do, or not do will certainly have an affect on our “fate”, as well as the external factors that affect us. To answer the original question, we can change our fate. I think we just change it so often, as well as it is affected by external factors so often that there is no way we could see it as being predetermined, if you follow the logic that the tiniest action causes a change in our destiny. But then you still wonder why things end the way they do. For example, if you think of every event in your life that led you to where you are today. Sometimes you know a decision is wrong or bad but you still do it. Was that because you exercised free will or were you supposed to make that decision in order to follow the path you were meant to take? This is why I think both come into play. We have free will but also have a destiny in which we are meant to fulfill. It’s up to us to get ourselves there, or to not get ourselves there. It’s all how you look at it. If you feel better knowing that someone planned your life and are happy with that, then keep believing in that. If you want every day to be different and exciting, then make it so!

I think that genetics shapes our lives to a large extent influencing lifespan, physical appearance, and even your “nature.” This is demonstrated through the commonalities well beyond chance in identical twins raised apart.

Beyond that, there is a lot of random chance involved in our lives: drunk drivers, winning the lottery, childhood traumas, and millions more less impactful chance encounters.

So, there is some free will, but there are toher factors too.

I think that the future is preset, I am not a Calvinist but it seems to be true. Now I know that they say that future is always changing, but how do we know that it was predestined and all the events happened for one reason or another.

if the future was preset then could I knowingly disrupt my future tomorrow by doing an action that would throw off the course of my current life, would things still work out the same in the end? Would I fulfill my destiny? Well we couldn’t answer that because we have no idea what the end point is. If we did, then life would hold no meaning and we wouldn’t care about the consequences to our actions. But then again maybe I couldn’t physically cause an action that would disrupt this current line because I would be sure of the consequences and it would force me to fulfill my destiny. So does our predetermined destiny force us to make certain decisions that we see as “free will” or are we actually exercising our free will?

See also

@quality control, what you have just described reminds me of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. Do you think that if the witches hadn’t told him anything he would have followed his ‘destiny’ and killed the king? Um what is this called… is it “self fulfililng prophecy” perhaps?

I think the path you take is completely up to you, but the destination is always the same for everybody (death).

Life is all about choices and making decisions. With each decision you make, you can change the course of your life (to various degrees) and you influence the options available to you in the next choice…..
There’s no way it’s fate.

I definately don’t believe in freewill. The idea of it is just rediculous, but we have to pretend we have free will, otherwise there would be no point in living and continuing our speces. It’s a functional delusion.

@monsoon
If it’s not your free will, then who is making your decisions? and doesn’t that make you feel a little unimportant to know you’re just a pawn in someone else’s plan?

I don’t think theres a plan. I make decisions based on a combination of my genetics and personal experiences. If you want to call that freewill then we’re just arguing vocabulary, but I don’t consider that freewill. Everything I do is determined by forces other than my present conscious “will”. Are there any other factors you can think of that would cause me to act the way I do?

You may have reasons for making the decisions (which you can spend time complaining are unfair, but at the end of the day, you can’t do a whole lot about it, those are the cards you’ve been dealt, so take them, embrace them and make peace with them), but you still have to take responsibility for making them.

I think you must take responsibility for your actions, yes, but you have to be as objective as possible (also a functional delusion; being objective) and realize the factors that create who you are and who the people are around you. Is a cracked out homeless man homeless and cracked out because he has no self-control and is lazy and has turned down opportunity after opportunity to change his situation (let’s say for this example he has)? Or is he some one born with a disposition towards addiction, whos experiences have taught him a sense of noncontrol over his own life, and blah blah blah, do you see my point? Believing that there is no freewill does not have to be an empty depressing thing, it can be freeing to look at other people from this perspective.

How would you argue that we have freewill? I’m a psych student and have never been able to buy it. Its a big debate in psychology. :)

But free will will have to include whatever unique disposition you have (genetic and environmental), otherwise it’d be more like generic will, wouldn’t it?

You have your personality and your unique interpretation of your options, but it’s still you choosing the option you want to and you are responsible for it and the consequences of it – anything else is just a ‘victim’ mindset.

I just find it impossible to accept that my will is not my own. Nobody else is going to take responsibility for me, so it’s mine and only mine.

And that is what I refer to as ‘free will’.....there may be a better way to describe it that I don’t know of.

Most people, I would say, are raised with some sort of religion ingrained into our lives. With that usually comes the belief that we each have a fate or destiny…. Destiny? Are we really that naive? You’re telling me that no matter what decisions I make throughout the course of my life, the ending will have been pre-determined? By that reasoning, all of my decisions are pre-determined as well, leading me to my unavoidable fate. It’s ludicrous!! I may as well flip a coin to determine all of my decisions, because supposedly, luck and chance should be non-existent, and my fate will determine the outcome as well as my decision.

I don’t believe in “destiny,” that’s such a baggaged word. I’m not talking about religion here. I was raised a lutheran, believing in freewill (i would argue that christianity, the main religious tradition in the United States, advocates freewill, not destiny). I don’t believe that we have a predetermined fate, you make it sound like I think there’s a giant book of life floating in the sky with every action you’ll ever make written in it. Yes, we can agree, that’s silly.

In a way, though, things were going to happen the way they are happening. Unless you believe in parallel existences or something.

I would say it’s naive to believe that we have freewill; It’s wishful thinking. Everything I do has two motivators: my environment—present (something motivates me to do something) and past (learned behavior), and my genetics (my predisposition to behave in a certain way). Where in that is there room for me to make “choices”?

I don’t even understand what people think freewill is. Is it just that: that your life has many possible outcome that you can create? Fair enough, but you only create one, the others were never created.

Isn’t the past determined? It cannot change or be altered, and yet that was the future to the subjective viewer who existed before it. So wasn’t their really only one future possible for that person (given the factors I mentioned earlier)?

Perhaps it’s a matter of interpretation (we could just be arguing language, as I said earlier). :) In the end a determinist doesn’t care if other people believe in determinism. The world needs people to think or at least pretend that they have free will for it to function properly.

The Bible teaches free will and predestination. I don’t believe in fate.
If you don’t believe in predestination, read the first four verses in Ephesians. Why does the Word say that we were chosen before the foundation of the earth?

Fate. Every decision that you make will determine the course of the rest of your life. The beauty of that is in it’s self.