Do you think about fate?

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Do you on occasion think about fate or some supernatural being, either philosophically or in blaming it?

(I read the attribution and aspergers article that someone posted and I want to see if the "social cognition" thing-a-ma-jigger it talked about might be related to "supernatural" or "external agent"(Like 'fate') kind of thinking)

I don't beleive in fate. Just like I don't believe in god, Santa Claus, or the tooth fairy. We need to let the idea that imaginary forces control our lives go because until we do, we'll use them as a crutch rather than improving ourselves.

I do believe God does stuff. I used to struggle between the 2 theological thought processes of Calvinism and Armenianism, then after personal experiences, which I won't elaborate on terribly in this thread, I questioned my ideas of "predestination" and sorta came to the conclusion that God doesn't control human beings actions. He can intervene, but he does not usually have direct control over human being's actions. In my case, I believe God "intervened" almost to the point of it being in spite of me, but in the end, I refused what he had planned for me. HOWEVER, what I learned was, basically, God is a good contingency planner. The Bible verse, often used in support of Calvinist kind of theology, "God works out all things for good for those who trust him." I realized God works all things for good, on the contingency that you trust him. Calvinist tend to work it out that God works out everything and it's a circular system of the trust is a good thing that God worked out for you based on you trusting him and you trusting him was worked out by God, and it's an endless cycle.

As far as the future, I try not to look at it so one dimensionally anymore. Alot of Protestants seem to have this idea, again, stemming from Calvinist kind of theology, of God's "knowing" the future. What I mean is, they look at it like God knowing everything will happen anyway, so why does he bother to do anything? What I believe is, God can know the future, he can direct the future, but I believe his doing in both of those things is by his choice. There's the Bible verse:

Waitaminute, but I thought God knows everything? He told him he'd surely die, thus he must surely die, right? No, the man will surely die if he continues on the path he's going.Obviously God does have the power to just completely override man's freewill, and hey, he does sometimes, but I'd have to say mankind is not "controlled" by God. God is sovereign over mankind, certainly, but mankind is not God's remote control car or something. So, because the Bible, etc, is written commands by which man can change his action and his fate, I'd have to say that man has free will.

The other thing, too, that I find interesting, in both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, it speaks of man as having "paths" to take, in plural. This, going with my personal issue, proves a lot. People think of things in this linear fashion of, "If I only did things ____ way, my life would be so different." Basically akin to the "Butterfly Effect" story. Now, I think differently. Basically, because I believe God works out all things for good for those who trust him, regardless of the butterflies I crush along the way. Yes, things will be different but they won't necessarily be worse and they could even be better. But that doesn't mean I can go along crushing butterflies along the way for fun or anything, a bad decision is a bad decision regardless. My old thought process would have been more like "but maybe God wanted me to do this bad decision for a greater end result." Which is a sort of a ridiculous thought process. Just, I believe now, God will work with whatever idiotic mistakes I give him.

So to answer your question, yes, I have/do thought/think about fate/predestination, and God very often. At first, it was troubling for me, especially when I was Protestant and all I had exposure to were Protestant ideas on the subject. But, now that I'm Orthodox (well getting there...) after reading Orthodox opinions on the matter of human free agency, it started to make sense to me. As a Protestant, I sorta secretly thought God was like, a kid with a remote control car, and now, I don't.

Hopefully my response doesn't get this moved to PPR. But yeah, that's some of my thoughts of the subject.[i]

Last edited by 1000Knives on 07 Nov 2011, 1:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

dont kno if fate exists, maybe it exists if there is an eternal mathematical equation in the universe

Here's an enigma for ya!

I believe in a creator.

I do not believe in fate.

Wrap your head around that one.

Incidentally, I don't blame the creator for anything either.

You find a flaw in Einstein's relativity reasoning but yet you act like this is some big paradox?

I must be missing something.

(Is this satire?)

Assuming you're serious, the answer is Deism!

The future will come, come what may

To a point, self actualised aspies/NT's can control their own fate, and take charge of their lives.

Sometimes spiritual intervention will occur if propitious circumstances entail an intervention as deemed fit by angelic realms

Fate? No.

Predisposition? Yes.

That sums it up for me!

Last edited by swbluto on 07 Nov 2011, 12:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I believe in both fate and free will - they both have an influence at different times and sometimes simultaneously.

I have no particular belief in fate or any supernatural force guiding anyone's destiny.

I find the idea intriguing to examine as a fictional or mythopoeic concept. Stories in which this sort of thing happens are interesting, if it's a part of the cosmology as defined within the fiction. For example, prophecy is a big part of Heroes and The 4400, although in both cases people manage to change the future after learning how badly things will go.

I find strict predestination to be rather boring.

I love self-fulfilling prophecies as a fictional device.

fate is simple the science of cause and affect

dont wear a seat belt and drive fast?
dont brush your teeth and eat sweets?
smoke and drink with a bad liver?
root junkies with hep C?


whats so crazy about fate?

I don't think that's fate. I think it's consequence.

This.

That's not what fate is. Fate is understood as a predetermined course of events that was set for you by God, or whatever else, and you can't change it. You have no control of fate. As opposed to the behaviors you have listed: they can be changed before something bad happens.

Although, fate would be used as an excuse when something bad happens to a stupid person from your examples.

I believe I may be fated to have no faith in fate, yet I seem eternally fated to read books that utilize fate as a convenient surrogate for plot or character development.