Poll: Do you believe in fate?

[IOwnTheSpire]

Does anyone here believe in fate/destiny?

I am honestly surprised that people would, because if everything is predetermined, something has to make that decision (like a god or some kind of great force), and hearing about what happened to James Foley makes me wonder how anyone or anything would choose that fate for someone.

Feel free to weigh in.

 

[Queen Michael]

Of course not, mostly because if there's some force deciding what our fate is supposed to be, then "It's fated to happpen!" just means that this force wants it to happen. So that's really no different from it being fate that I'm having an ice cream sandwich because I decided I was gonna get one.

 

[tippy2k2]

It may be anecdotal evidence but I find that the people who believe in fate are generally the same people who make shitty decisions and then blame bad luck for why their life sucks.

So to answer the question, no I do not believe in fate or whatever you want to call it. Life is whatever you make of it; you can sit back and complain that life dealt you a bad hand or you can do something about it, your call.

 

[Tanis]

"Destiny, chance, fate, fortune?they're all just ways of claiming your successes without claiming your failures."
?Gerrard of the Weatherlight

So...no.
No, no I do not.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I don't think our understanding of the universe is thorough enough to answer such a question. If there is such a thing like fate or destiny I don't think it works the way people think it works.

 

[Vault101]

no...its all random, there is no "karma" or system or logic to it really...its just chance...

but that won't stop me from going "touch wood" whenever one mentions bad things...because theres always that little voice there saying "what if?"

 

[Zhukov]

Yes, but not in the sense you mean.

Every time you make a decision it is governed by the circumstances in which it is made. Those circumstances include your own knowledge, experience and mental state as well as more obvious external factors.

Consider the last decision you made. It could be anything, from a life changing career choice to what you had for breakfast. Imagine if time were to be rewound so that you had to make the decision again under the exact same circumstances. That would include having no memory of the first time you made the decision or what followed, since you had no such memory the first time around. (If that sounds confusing or I'm not explaining it clearly, just think of it as Prince of Persia rules, but it's someone else using the magic dagger. not you.)

I believe that you would make the exact same decision a second time for the exact same reasons that you made it the first time.

If you apply that logic to every decision you have ever made and ever will make, then your life is essentially predetermined, although not readily predictable.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Yes, but not in the sense you mean.

Every time you make a decision it is governed by the circumstances in which it is made. Those circumstances include your own knowledge, experience and mental state as well as more obvious external factors.

Consider the last decision you made. It could be anything, from a life changing career choice to what you had for breakfast. Imagine if time were to be rewound so that you had to make the decision again under the exact same circumstances. That would include having no memory of the first time you made the decision or what followed, since you had no such memory the first time around. (If that sounds confusing or I'm not explaining it clearly, just think of it as Prince of Persia rules, but it's someone else using the magic dagger. not you.)

I believe that you would make the exact same decision a second time for the exact same reasons that you made it the first time.

If you apply that logic to every decision you have ever made and ever will make, then your life is essentially predetermined, although not readily predictable.

I was just about to post a similar answer. :thumbs up: ,)

I don't believe in fate as such, no.
However, I do think that everything that has gone before creates a situation in which your options are more limited and restricted than you might imagine.
Previous and current events most likely dictate your given actions in any future choice you might make.
Though you could make any choice you want, you would have to be aware of it and go against your thinking and instincts.
Though some things might just be unavoidable. Greater historical acts could have different people but a very similar story thanks to the prevailing undercurrents of the people involved. (see all the popular ww2 history tampering in media for example)

 

[zumbledum]

Does anyone here believe in fate/destiny?

I am honestly surprised that people would, because if everything is predetermined, something has to make that decision (like a god or some kind of great force), and hearing about what happened to James Foley makes me wonder how anyone or anything would choose that fate for someone.

Feel free to weigh in.

i dont believe in fate as that implies a guiding force at work, but i do think that everything is a case of cause and affect, and the future is predictable and set.

 

[Ranorak]

Yes, but not in the sense you mean.

Every time you make a decision it is governed by the circumstances in which it is made. Those circumstances include your own knowledge, experience and mental state as well as more obvious external factors.

Consider the last decision you made. It could be anything, from a life changing career choice to what you had for breakfast. Imagine if time were to be rewound so that you had to make the decision again under the exact same circumstances. That would include having no memory of the first time you made the decision or what followed, since you had no such memory the first time around. (If that sounds confusing or I'm not explaining it clearly, just think of it as Prince of Persia rules, but it's someone else using the magic dagger. not you.)

I believe that you would make the exact same decision a second time for the exact same reasons that you made it the first time.

If you apply that logic to every decision you have ever made and ever will make, then your life is essentially predetermined, although not readily predictable.

That's not so much fate, though.
It's the basics of science.

Under the exact same conditions you can expect the exact same results.

On Topic:
No, There is no evidence to support that our lives and future are guided through some means other then cause and effect.

 

[Verlander]

I believe that there's a mathematical predictability to the universe, but it's beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend it.

That's not the same thing as fate though

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

No, because I have no reason to. The overall process of a person's life can be predicted in some fashion depending on what kind of society they were born in (in the western world it's fairly safe to assume most of our lives will consist of childhood -> education -> wild youth -> job -> family -> old age -> death), but to assume every single moment, every single chocolate bar you eat, every fart you let out on the elevator, has been predetermined, is just nuts.

 

[default]

I think the general consensus is going to be overwhelmingly 'no', myself included, but I'd really like to hear the reasoning behind someone who does.

In my eyes everything is just the result of everything before it. That's not fate, it's only cause and effect.

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

No. Well that was simple.

However if you wanted to get real technical, you could say that everything you do and think now is because of things that happened before. But there's no point in bothering about that because it's impossible to trace or properly wrap your head around.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Despite fate having a part in some of my own writings, my own personal belief is that our decisions are the one variable we can control fully. I dislike the notion that that control is truly out of my grasp.

 

[JoJo]

Does anyone here believe in fate/destiny?

because if everything is predetermined, something has to make that decision

Not necessarily, determinism could exist from simple cause and effect in a physical universe, like one billiard ball hitting another, though it would be impossible for us humans to predict with so many variables in the real world. It's an open question whether we do live in a deterministic universe or not, I have a hunch we do.

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Nah. Destiny and karma are just neat little concepts that can be cool in fiction, but should never be used with any degree of seriousness in real life, as far as I am concerned. Just utterly fantastical concepts.

 

[Ravesy]

I do believe in fate, for example up until today I was actually looking forward to the new Dragon Age and thought Bioware might actually redeem themselves, and then I read that they are adding micro transactions to it and thus balance in the universe is restored.

 

[Nickolai77]

Well, do we have free will or not? The way you answer this question I think largely depends on the extent to which you think we are free to make our own decisions. The universe itself is deterministic, we know where Mars will be in the night sky in a 1000 years time but we have no idea where human civilisation will be then.

I don't think we're free as we think we are. The decision making process in our minds appears to be something we are fully in control of, but to an extent that is illusionary. The way we think is heavily coloured by our environment, our up-bringing, our mood at the time, our own genes, inherent personality and other factors as well. This is not to say we don't have free-will at all, but the nature of our free-will is difficult to comprehend and our decision making process is a process determined by factors within and beyond our own control.

If we don't have have free-will, then technically yes fate is real. It was inevitable that humankind would reach the moon in 1969 as it is inevitable that the moon will appear in the night sky, all determined by the complex laws of physics. I however think we have some sort of free will, but we're not as free as we think we are.

This would mean that, instead of having one predetermined destiny, it is more likely that any given individual has a series of possible futures, the likelihood of those futures occurring being determined by hundreds of factors that are beyond our own control.

 

[stroopwafel]

I don?t believe in ?fate? as in that our lives are predestined, but I don?t believe people are in complete control of their circumstances either. If anything fate can perhaps be seen as the current of a river; life has a tendency to flow in one direction. How many people you know are, for example, able to jump over their own shadow? My guess is not many. In life you have to deal with circumstances outside of your control, but having an either defeatist or optimistic attitude can make all the difference. It?s why some people flourish and other disintegrate under the same kind of circumstances.

Life most of the time boils down to ??making the best of the situation?? and some people are more able to do this than others. So yeah, I think within limited margin we are definitely able to exert influence which in turn can change our situation for better or worse. But even our decisions and the thought processes that precede them are mostly dependent on in- and external circumstances we have no control over; whether they be the ingrained view we have of the world based on our memories and past experiences, genetic susceptibilities, social circumstances etc.

I think the only way to avoid ?fate? is to be both aware and critical of your own thoughts, as this is what pushes your life into a certain direction. Always re-evaluate your own assumptions and be skeptical of your own ego and feelings. Fate is ultimately just another self-fulfilling prophecy, but it?s a persistent and enduring one. Espescially with human nature having a tendency to contradict itself. I think in the end only our imagination, self-awareness and clarity of thought can divert us from the course of fate. As everything else pretty much follows the river?s current.