Is There Such a Thing as Destiny?

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LovingLife

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Is Destiny set by your good and bad deeds?

It is funny how the map of our lives unfolds throughout our life and how one thing leads to another on the journey. You can’t help wonder if every decision you have made that leads you along certain path’s was predestined or do we have absolute free will or maybe a combination of both.
 
Hmm. I think absolute free will is illusion at best. I.E., our circumstances limited our movement, whether it be bounded by society, culture, issues, consequentialist problems, rules, ethics, laws, religions, taboos, misinformation rewritten history, relationships, bonds, inabilities, incapacities, disabilities, elitist politicians, loopholes, victimizations, learned behaviors, punishments, et cetera etc.

Enough of the list. This difficult philosophical thinking is burning my skull off, and I want to pull my hairs out in anguish just thinking about it, lol.

To have an absolute free will, I would say that it is anarchist in nature at large.

About deeds- that is too arbitrary. Ever read Critique of Pure Reason by Kant?

But yes. There is that "what if" moment... You are quite correct about that :cold:
 
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I think all things happen as a result of our choices and all choices are made for a reason. While I believe learning why we made (or make) certain choices is part of our journey in life, I think there are some things that we will never understand (and perhaps aren't meant to).

I don't believe we are pre-destined to do certain things or become certain people regardless of our choices.
 
Do you look back at your life so far and marvel at the complex connections that have taken place to bring you to where you are now? The times when you think you are going in the wrong direction, when things seem not to be working or uncomfortable only to find later that if they didn’t happen you would not have then achieved some form of success or joy!
 
Well... That's a tough subject. The plausibility's there, but if you look at it from a religious perspective, where God gave us agency (the right to do what we want), then no, there's no such thing as fate/destiny. It's just my opinion, but either God disproves fate/destiny, or fate/destiny disproves God; if our lives are led by destiny, then we don't have the freedom to choose what we do- hence, God would be a liar... I feel like I'm dividing by 0 here. Does any of this make sense?

Point is, no. Personally, I think that we've all been given the right and the ability to choose what we do, and that rules over any idea of preconceived destiny.
 
LovingLife said:
Do you look back at your life so far and marvel at the complex connections that have taken place to bring you to where you are now? The times when you think you are going in the wrong direction, when things seem not to be working or uncomfortable only to find later that if they didn’t happen you would not have then achieved some form of success or joy!
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I believe that is your brain making that connection by by trying to reason the past. As humans, we like nice, neat, straight, answers, but the truth is those are rare. Anyone can take a general thought and connect it to certain things even when there is no such connection.

I agree with Journey.
 
"Luke, you can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny. Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son."
 
I believe that throughout our lives, we will reach many points where we have choices. I believe that the choices we make during our lives result in our destiny. For me, it's all about looking within and making the choices that I feel in my heart are right.

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on anyone or anything. You realize that you control your own destiny” ~Albert Ellis
 
caz12 said:
how spose read that
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"Luke, you can destroy the Emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny. Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son."

Sorry, I thought you probably have the Usher syndrome, so I helped you out there. Um, sorry if i f***** it up, I do not know a lot about usher syndrome myself. I knew a friend who had one, but he's not really friend, just some random friend of friend of friend. Can you read at this level??

I'm pretty much wiped out now... Think I will sleep soon, not sure.
 
LovingLife said:
I believe that throughout our lives, we will reach many points where we have choices. I believe that the choices we make during our lives result in our destiny. For me, it's all about looking within and making the choices that I feel in my heart are right.

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on anyone or anything. You realize that you control your own destiny” ~Albert Ellis
Click to expand...

Don't know about that one. It can be contradictory... Feeling RIGHT in heart, while your rational brain is telling you otherwise...

I mean. You said "believe" in the first two sentences. It is a rational thought.

Then in last sentence you mentioned 'lookin, making, and feel in the righteous way'. That is the heart functional.

Oh, hell, English language itslef is too much screwed anyway, too messed up, too vague, too many hidden meanings and so forth. In other words, I don't even know waht i'm saying :)

You win.
 
It's interesting that you ask that question. I don't believe in destiny. However, a couple of things have happened. Of course you're familiar with school bullies. Well one such bully that I went to school with was fishing off the side of a bridge and he started to cross to the other side and he didn't look for cars and he was struck and killed by a passing car. I was looking up school mates online one day - I'm now 54 - and I found out that another school bully died at the age of 40.
 
:hmm: good question Lovinglife, I think there is a difference.... to make a distinction between freedom of will and freedom of action, that is, separating freedom of choice from the freedom to enact it. So with this in mind we will be presented with trails, success, friendship, love, and it is up to us to take them. And because our brains are very complex, (more than we give it credit for) our brains already has dreamed, imagined the scenarios and dramas that when we go ahead with something and it goes smoothly and strangely seem to go too well planned it can feel like it was predestined! I believe we have the freedom to choose our paths since then we can take responsibility for our happiness and success. :cool2:
 
I don't know what I think about it. The fact that we have or seem to have free will often makes people disbelieve in God. They say if there were a God why would men have followed Hitler? The idea of God even is used to justify Hitler, obedience to authority, but what if God gave us free will? What if God wanted us to choose to be better, more reasonable people? What if God sees mankind's value in our willingness and ability to choose to be decent, reasonable people and enjoys our contemplations and attempts to build understanding too much to give it away by an obvious rewards system. Some people aren't rewarded very well at all for good conduct. The New Testament was about one of them, but is bad luck the destiny for good conduct? For that to be the case you would almost have to suspect human agency, someone powerful saying, well, if that person tries to live by conscience we're just about bound to make life miserable for them. As a result all sorts of competing destinies get mixed up with each other.

God seems to have given us enough to have a chance, but we're using it up.
 
LovingLife said:
Is Destiny set by your good and bad deeds?

It is funny how the map of our lives unfolds throughout our life and how one thing leads to another on the journey. You can’t help wonder if every decision you have made that leads you along certain path’s was predestined or do we have absolute free will or maybe a combination of both.
Click to expand...

no.
 
I've always said that atheists can be very moral. Don't know why I'm told that is a contradiction.
 
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