Monday, 5/16
Do you believe in fate? Why or why not? What experiences/evidence has help shape this view for you?
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This is a blog for students in Meredith Aby-Keirstead's Introduction to Philosophy class at Jefferson High School in Bloomington, MN. There is an expectation by the instructor & the JHS administration that the same standards for behavior & respect at JHS apply to the blog.
19 comments:
Aaw shucks. Well while it might be ambiguous and idealistic but I think there is a reason why things happen. More than just cause and effect though. Maybe it is part of some greater plan but that’s too windy a road to wander down right now. What I see as evidence is us. You. Me. Everyone we know, knew or will know. I also think we have choices that we make because of our life experiences and biases that influence ourselves and others later on.
So running with that, all those people came to be and came to interact with us by a long series of events. And if you weren’t you because of a difference in that series then who would you be? No one? Nothing? I think there is more to us than just brains and bodies, a soul if you want to call it that or maybe “ghosts in the machine” but to steal a thought from Thornton Wilder “We all know that something is eternal... and that something has to do with human beings.” I’d agree with that. So if there is something in each of us that’s eternal then if you were not you who could you be? Well something from this line of thought is why I believe in fate, or at least of form of it, and in that form there is free will too, just a free will that was always going to happen the way it does.
Personally, I do not believe in fate. I think it’s easy to believe in it but not practical or logical. Things on this earth seem to be too complicated to be planned out for us. I think we all possess free will and that free will guides our actions based off of our morals and personal ethics. I wouldn’t argue that each single action effects a much larger scale of outcomes though. During my life, I’ve realized that it is almost pointless to plan anything, although it is required to in our society. Everything can change in a matter of seconds, and more then rarely does. That’s why I cannot believe that life is planned out for each of us in a certain direction. Every person has the ability to dictate their lives in any way they would like.
I think your belief in fate is a religious opinion. I personally believe that God has a plan for everyone's life, so that would amount to fate. Like God has a person out there for you, a soulmate, that you'll marry and grow old with. Sometimes fate takes different turns, but I believe in the end that God had planned for it to happen. My parents unity is what I call fate. My grandfather's death is what I call fate, because God wanted him in heaven. Everything that happens in my life, every single event, has meaning and depth to it. There's a reason for all the struggle and happiness.
I think we make our own fate. There are different outcomes for the choices we make. So we get to decide how the choice we made will end up. Some people think that fate is being guided by something or that their life has been planed out for them. Many religions hold this belief and so do a lot of people. Im not saying that it is wrong for people to believe in such an idea but it is not my personal view. We get to decide what to do and accept the outcomes of our choices.
I don't know if i necessarily believe in fate, but i do believe that everything happens for a reason. Situations in life lead us to figure out where we're going, and who we are meant to be...but as for everything being specifically planned out for us, i find it hard to believe. I believe that there is a plan for everyone, and a path to lead them to what they are supposed to be. I think that certain people and events are placed in everyone's life for a reason, but some things are just not under your control.
I do not believe in fate. I believe that at any moment, I can change my destiny; everything is within my power. Of course, one can always theorize whether or not those decisions were predestined and completely out of my control. I simply don't have the energy to go down that road however, and I simply live my life as it comes to me. I find fate to be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things; does it matter whether or not it exists? Nothing will change. I am still me, you are still you, and the world simply goes on.
I do indeed believe in a set stream of time, with the same events always occuring and nothing can change them. This in no way conflicts with my belief that we have free will. When one is passing through time at a normal speed, they percieve that they are making decisions, influenced by their life and experiences, as they are. However, because of their experiences they will always choose the same decision. If a person believes that their actions are governed by fate, and decide to make an action, that action is what will always take place, despite the belief that their decisions will never influence the future. I believe this not because of a higher power, but becaus there is no true randomness, as everything can be predicted if all of the variables are entered into the equation. If the situation is the same, it will always produce the same results. Thus, because I believe that what we percieve of humanity is all governed by the flesh, and the flesh is governed by chemical reactions, time shall always remain the same, and the future can be predicted.
I guess i believe that everyone creates there own fate. Each person was not born meaning to walk a certain path. I think that fate is what is meant to happen based on the decisions made by each individual person. Growing up with a more realistic mother than optimistic i have come to believe that a good attitude cant bring you the distance. People need to work hard for where they advance in life. Its not fate that one man is rich and another homeless. It was a series of different life changing decisions that separates the too.
I do believe in fate I think that you are still allowed to make choices but you will still live out your fate in the end.I believe this because of the experiences that have happen to me. For example i have gotten in a lot of situations that appear to have threaten my life but i am fine because i believe i have a certain day when it is my time to die. These live threatening experiences have been the events to help shape my view.
This is a tough question. I haven't really thought about the existence of fate before. I believe that as humans, we are programmed to want to believe in something. Whether that something be fate, a God or gods, or simply striving to be successful or happy, it varies person to person. Personally, I think that I believe in choices. If that intertwines into fate somehow I'm not sure, but I do believe that humans have free will. With this free will, I've always wondered if fate plays a role later on after a decision has been made. Maybe I made the decision, or maybe someone out there already knew what decision I would make and what the effects of that decision will be, or maybe I had complete control overall and the future is unknown. Overall, I still am struggling to understand and grasp the idea of fate over personal choice and the regular happenings of this world. In someway, I feel that people choose to believe in fate because they don't have anything better to believe in?? I still don't really know!
Fate is a tricky subject that, depending on religious faith, alters the viewpoint. From my experiences I have gathered that we what we do is our decision, good or bad. When something bad happens someone always says “there’s a reason for it.” Often times the simplest answer is the most correct and here, the reason is to grow and learn from the experiences. Let’s take an example of an innocent nine year-old girl who ends up accidentally drowning: there is seemingly no reason for it and so logically, one doesn’t exist. What happened happened and we must move on and take the drowning as a personal learning experience. Although this example is morbid, it demonstrates the fundamental version of fate. Also, many people need control in their lives so the idea of fate to them is unacceptable. To say there is a preordained path that is set in motion before we can say otherwise seems to complicated to understand without a notion of faith. Faith is the rudiments of fate; christians believe they’ll go to heaven if they act right while other religions believe in reincarnation. They obviously can’t both be right, right? Can some people go to heaven while others are reborn? Logically no, but fate and faith are not logical.
I don't know if I believe in fate. I believe that things happen for a reason, but I don't think that it is all coincidence. I think things fall into place, and that there are reasons that certain things happen at certain times for certain people. I have a very religious point of view on this topic, and it is hard for me to give my opinion with out saying that I feel that God causes things to happen.
But then again, maybe fate is something I believe in. Maybe, God creates, and controls fate. I have always been a strong believer in the "one door closes, another one opens" philosophy.
I guess, what I'm trying to say is that I don't believe that "fate" is related to fairy tales. A lot of people tend to think of fairy tales when they think of things that happen by fate. I don't like that idea, because fate doesn't always cause a positive outcome.
I don't know if what I believe would be categorized as "fate," but whatever it is, I think things do happen for a reason.
I do not believe that "fate"plays a factor in our lives. I believe the things that happen to us are mostly consequences of our actions or circumstances and things don't happen simply because they were meant to. The choices we make determine who are are and what happens to us. Just because you are smart doesn't mean you are destined to do something great. It takes a lot of hard work and determination to succeed in something,thing don't just happen because of fate. In my life I know that I've had to work towards what I want. Things didn't happen for me because of something I was destined for, I had to make the right decisions and act towards what I wanted to happen to me.
My beliefs on the matter have been changing moderately over the past while, and I never really find the totally correct words for it. I don't (and never have) believed in this landing I'm fated to have. I've never believed that there is some place that the universe or some higher power expects out of me. But I do believe that there is some type of leniency to it all.
I believe that I'm poked in some direction, and that certain things happen that were essentially supposed to. Like some object of my life that happened not coincidentally, but because my life, however I wish to define it, saw fit to have it happen. For example, my girlfriend calls it Ka, she pulls the idea form a Steven King series, Dark Tower. To the two of us, we both believe it, I believe in roughly the same system that she does, and due to this, we see certain things strangely. And this might very well be a super cliched example, but it works, and it supports it. I had apparently originally asked her out in the only way that would have even made her think of yes. Later we found that some material I was writing had dependancies on her, without really knowing it. A character, who was a love interest for a character based on me, had the same initials. It gets cheesier.
Anyways. I don't have things to support it, that's just one that popped up quickly, and there really is more with that example, just too deep. I've had evidence again and again, and I've had proofs that just kind of make it hard to think "just a coincidence," because it was too ridiculous otherwise.
Do you believe in fate? Why or why not? What experiences/evidence has help shape this view for you?
The issue of fate is an important one, and a common subject of philosophical discussions during everyday life. I would like to think that, given 100% full knowledge, science could predict the state of the universe in the past and future. After all, the decisions of humans and other animals are made by processes of the brain, which obey the laws of physics and could theoretically be simulated down to the last atom. The recent development of the field of quantum mechanics seems to deny this belief, with new scientific ideas supporting the possibility of random chance. However, there is nothing to stop us from postulating that “random chance” is only an indicator that we do not yet have the knowledge to understand what determines the outcome. This seems to be the view expressed by Albert Einstein: “Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret.”
So, ultimately, the philosophical question of fate is independent of the findings of science, because the argument can always be made that science will make further discoveries in the end. Whether fate exists or not, I think that it is important to take responsibility for one’s decisions as if one had free will- of course, if fate exists then we cannot “choose” to take such responsibility.
I believe in fate up to the point that I acknowledge the probability that events are on a set track but I don't see a need for any reason or meaning to it. I think a problem with the way people think lies in the assumption that everything means something and has significance towards some kind of goal or plan by a higher consciousness, we just want to think there is to justify our own existence and the events that we cannot control. The events in my own life have shaped this conclusion because they have seemed pretty random and meaningless in a way.
I don’t believe in fate. Sure, I’ve had some odd experiences in my life where I feel like my life is being guided out, but those are the exception rather than the norm. Most of the time, I feel as if I am in control of my life to an appropriate degree. Certainly not in total control, to be sure; I don’t think I believe that it’s possible for someone to be in complete control of their life at any time. Enough, control, though, that I feel it’s appropriate to call what I have free will. As an example, I had the choice to stay up until 2 AM last night or go to bed at a reasonable time. I personally remember consciously deciding that 2 AM was a fine time to go to sleep, and thus that’s when I went to sleep. There’s no fate there, in my opinion.
While I do not believe predestined actions and events, I do believe that everything happens for a reason. People have control their own actions, and can choose to act and live a certain way. When confronted with a tough and easy option in a hard life decision, I believe that it is up to the individual to make their own decisions and choose the outcome they prefer. When people have difficult life experiences, they learn more about themselves and other people. I think that things happen for a reason and it is up to the individual to turn it into a positive or negative experience.
I don't believe in fate in that every single little thing we do is predetermined. I believe that whatever is up there will guide us every now and then when necessary, but otherwise we are left to our own devices. The main reasons I have is that I wouldn't like it if my decisions had no impact and were not even my own really, and that any remotely nice God would not have made the world what it is today. The world is full of fighting, killing, rape, war, and just a bunch of bad things that I believe are our fault and no one else's. If fate exists separate from a deity, then I would find it even more disturbing that nothing at all has determined everyone's life.
My main influence has probably been with media that deals with this question like "Ordinary People" and "Full Metal Alchemist," but I don't think that I could point at something and say, "Well that's obviously not fate, must be free will." Some people make some crazy decisions that seem to defy any plan, but you could argue that was all fate. I really think that it's just an opinion of whether you want to believe that everything is planned out and under control or that your decision is important and could make everything better or screw everything up. I prefer the latter.
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