Do you believe in "destiny"?

[bogie]

Do you believe that whatever you do in life, the "path" that you take, the people that you meet and associate with, the events in the lives of others that involve you, are pre-ordained and meant to be?

For example:

"What would have happened to a family, whose life you became involved in, through marriage or whatever, if you had not intersected their lifes' path?".

"Where would you be if someone had not introduced you to a certain employer, where you landed a job, and either stayed or left?"

"If a friend was not with you when their family was all killed in an accident."

I think you see what I mean .... no matter what we do, or what we change our mind to do, is it all part of "the grand scheme of things"?

I know, heavy thoughts, but, considering your life, as short or as long as it has been so far, do you feel a part of the chain of events, or find this as just hogwash and things just happen by chance?

 

[Diamond Sun]

I like the idea of fate, but also don't like it, because then I feel that my choices aren't really my choices. So what's the point in agonizing over your choices if the outcome is already predetermined.
Plus, life would be really boring.

 

[Haggis McBagpipe]

Maybe agonizing over choices is part of one's destiny?

 

[Diamond Sun]

Oh, don't get me thinking in circles. I woke up with a headache, and this kind of spherical thinking is going to make my head explode!

 

[Haggis McBagpipe]

So you find out you're destined to die on one particular day. That day comes around and you are feeling understandably cautious. You decide that spending the day avoiding the many potential dangers 'out there' is far too risky... so you stay home.

Just to be sure, you even have the gas guy come up and check for undetected gas leaks. You lock all your doors. You keep away from the windows. Things are looking good. You decide this destiny thing is pretty suspect, and even if true, surprisingly easy to beat. You feel so good that you start to feel hungry when you realize that you haven't eaten all day.

You open a can of salmon....

 

[fubbleskag]

have you ever looked down and been filled with equal parts awe & disgust at the amount of hair, dead skin, and various food particles that collect in & around your keyboard?

that's how i feel when i think about fate.

i am disgusted by the human need to sensationalize every aspect of our life as being part of some greater cause; is it not enough to just be, and in being be happy?

and, at the same time i am awed by the length and breadth of the motivation that is founded on these greater causes.

 

[bogie]

Boy, fubbleskag, you are getting philosophical now

It all does cause you to ponder - but I suggest it should just be a realization "event" and continue on with life. If all is destined to be, then why worry or fret?

I originally posted this thought because I was looking back on my 56 years of existence, and wondered a lot of "what ifs". "What if" I didn't meet a certain person and help them through a difficulty, "What if" I didn't save someone's life?, "What if", "What if", "What if"??? Would it all have happened anyway - without me?

It is like the science fiction about "time lines" and making changes in past history (if this was at all possible) .... again ... "What if?".

My head hurts too, LOL, gotta get back to work and reality.

 

[peapod]

Hey! I just popped in to get my "bevvy" mail....I love that girl!!! but I have to comment on our newest memebers avatar...fubbleskag!!!! my avatar is in love with your avatar :lol
And you are most correct when you say "just be" life is not a hollywood movie, full of cheap sentiments, go out there and "do" and "be" you will end up "happy" sorta.... I will be back next week you all...try to hang on without me 8) undergrandnitz..a nice high five to my little buddy...keep reading :wink:

 

[fubbleskag]

Hey! I just popped in to get my "bevvy" mail....I love that girl!!! but I have to comment on our newest memebers avatar...fubbleskag!!!! my avatar is in love with your avatar :lol
And you are most correct when you say "just be" life is not a hollywood movie, full of cheap sentiments, go out there and "do" and "be" you will end up "happy" sorta.... I will be back next week you all...try to hang on without me 8) undergrandnitz..a nice high five to my little buddy...keep reading :wink:

there's a serious shortage of smoking chimps in the world. i picked up smoking-chimp.com last year for a buddy's business that hasn't taken off yet; i'm still trying to decide what to do with it.

have a great weekend, pea

 

[LadyC]

I originally posted this thought because I was looking back on my 56 years of existence, and wondered a lot of "what ifs". "What if" I didn't meet a certain person and help them through a difficulty, "What if" I didn't save someone's life?, "What if", "What if", "What if"??? Would it all have happened anyway - without me?

You really need to read "the five people you meet in heaven" by Mitch Albom. That's pretty much the theme of that story. But I won't say any more, other than... I really liked that book.
:wink:

We used to play the "what if" game all the time. And I often wonder if I crossed paths previously with those that are in my life now without knowing it. Same with my kids - I think of who their friends will be when they grow up, who they might marry, and I wonder if they've already met somewhere...

Cool topic.

 

[vista]

Destiny? No is a unbending term. As Diamond Sun commented, there are no choices.

Perhaps a better term would be a path.

Throughout life many things happen for a reason. Certainly, not everything has to be part of some great agenda.

But at times, one "knows" that there is a lesson here (perhaps from previous action), or in the end "it may work out better" later on that I did or did not buy that, take that course of action, go down that PATH, take that job, whatever.

Sometimes there is hardship from an incident that leads to a better result longer-term...

Throught life, I have a long list of curious experiences and I have become in-tune to them but not look for them. They come to me.

Skeptics, I feel puposely explain away special coincidences or special times of intuition.

Just this past summer my previous live-in girlfriend of 23 years ago came into my life as a neighbour up north or, depending on one's perspective, I came back into her life. Why? I don't yet. Time will tell, IF and only if there IS something to tell.

I don't look for something. I just go with the flow to see where it takes me. Later on without any particular timing - the puzzle - so to speak, reveals itself.

I say to myself, life is an amazing journey.

I am privileged to have the opportunity to experience this.

 

[Diamond Sun]

I think in any situation you can find the "silver lining", if you are able to look past the negative. Even someone dying can have a silver lining, it's just whether we choose to take advantage of the good, or just focus on the perceived bad.

Wait...what were we talking about again? I think I might have gone off on a tangent there...

 

[JDream]

I believe in it.. only thing I can say.. lol.

 

[sophy]

that's going to make my head explode.

 

[B00Mer]

Mr Destiny (1990).avi - YouTube

 

[Cliffy]

that's going to make my head explode.

Sophy, it was you destiny to dig up a 9 year old thread at this time so we can see what has progressed in human thought on this subject since it died back in 2004. None of those people who participated back then are still here, so we have an opportunity to read a whole new set of opinions. Hope your head didn't explode, cuz you might miss some important piece of information.

Personally. I think our destiny changes with every choice we make. And we could get into multiverses and parallel realities to really mess up your head.

 

[china]

When a cause is set going it must inevitably produce a result.
If a vast number of people, whether Chines, Russians, Americans, prepare for war, their destiny is war; though they may say they want peace and are preparing only for their own defence, they have set in motion causes which bring about war. Similarly, when millions of people have for centuries taken part in the development of a certain civilization or culture, they have set going a movement in which individual human beings are caught up and swept along, whether they like it or not; and this whole process of being caught up in and swept along by a particular stream of culture or civilization may be called destiny. If you are born as the son of a fireman who insists that you also become a fireman and if you comply with his wishes even though you would prefer to do something else, then your destiny is obviously to become a fireman . But if you refuse to become a fireman, if you insist upon doing that which you feel to be the true thing for you which is what you really love to do , you have broken away from the "destiny" which your father intended for you. It is the same with a culture or civilization.

I think that a man who understands this process, who breaks away from it and stands alone, creates his own momentum; and if his action is a breaking away from the false towards the truth, then that momentum itself becomes the truth and I think that such men are free of destiny

 

[WLDB]

No. If im wrong and it is I'll be pretty disappointed. Following some master plan for my whole existence sounds remarkably boring.

 

[Zipperfish]

In Newtonian mechanics, the universe is predetermined, clockwork running its course. In quantum mechnaics, as currently understood, the universe is random. So, in the former, their may be "fate" as in a predetermined usiniverse, but since we are part of that universe there is no choice we can make that change the outcome.

One of humankind's bigger conceits--the idea that we can make a choice and change the course of the universe.

 

[Cliffy]

In Newtonian mechanics, the universe is predetermined, clockwork running its course. In quantum mechnaics, as currently understood, the universe is random. So, in the former, their may be "fate" as in a predetermined usiniverse, but since we are part of that universe there is no choice we can make that change the outcome.

One of humankind's bigger conceits--the idea that we can make a choice and change the course of the universe.

Or... quantum physics: there is no reality without an observer, the holographic Universe. Does any of this exist outside our minds? Is all this a projection of our inner thoughts. If so, we have complete control because we create it. Was the god concept created to keep us from finding out who and what we really are? Are we our own gods?

Why do most people see the universe and reality the same way? Could it be that we have been programmed by religion, through our collective consciousness? Perhaps our toe hurts when we stub it on a rock because we are programmed to believe that is what should happen. Perhaps we are living in the Matrix, a program and that it is possible to escape the program or manipulate it. I contend that that is precisely what shamans and yogis have been doing forever. It is what the stories of Jesus walking on water, giving sight to the blind and turning water into wine were meant to show us; that we are capable of so much more if we can extricate ourselves from the mass hallucination of what we have come to believe is reality.