Does Fate Exist?

Have you ever noticed in your life how you are guided to people and situations that change your life forever. Is it fate that determines your future or do we have control on where we go? Are our choices we make everyday our choice or determined by fate. The people you've met in your past often determines where you work, where you live etc. They say things happen for a reason, do they really?

No.

there is no fate. there is no reason. fortuities just seem to be fate, because they change your life.

No. Didn't you see Terminator 2? Geez.

A man's character is his fate.
-Heraclitus


Truer words have never been said.

shit happens.

once upon a time... back in 99, i was hanging out at my community college and i met these two girls. best friends. i was hanging out with them and they gave me their number. as in they had an apartment together and they wanted me to hang out, and yes, in that way. so needless to say, i was feeling pretty good about myself. so, hoping to run into them again, i called out of work the next night and was hanging out at the school again. it was then that i met my former fiance. we clicked immediately (and i never called those girls) and while this is a very romantic notion, it is NOT fate. its true that had i not run into those girls, i would not have been there and met my ex fiance the next night, but that doesnt make it a divine action. its just a coincidence that was favorable to me.

Synchronicity is real!

"He has a wife you know..."

exist? no...does virtue exist? no. Do any abstract ideas man has come up with to explain something that goes against natural laws and logic actually exist? no, not in a material sense. Not in a sense that allows you to perceive it in such a way that you could manipulate it like clay. Sure, in an esoteric wacky sense it exists in man's mind, but that doesn't make it exist any more than it makes trolls, fairies and demons exist (which are really all the personifications of abstract concepts anyway, just like three women being perceived as the fates.)

best answer yet

replying to myself to add: The real question is not, "Does ______ Exist?" but "Do you Believe in ______?"

for no apparent reason other than I feel clever for thinking of it, even though it's isn't all that clever a thought.

[Edited on Aug 04, 2005 by alpha_hazard]

Life is probability. That is all.

No. Because I'm in control of everything I do in my life.

Everything I do has not been pre-ordained

Exactly.

How bad would it suck to know that every single decision you make every day is pointless and that you will still end up in the exact place ten years down the road no matter which choices you make.

No. It only seems that there is sometimes because we only take note of improbable coincidences, but we don't notice all the millions of times there weren't. For example, everyone remembers the times they picked up the phone to call a friend at the precise moment the friend was phoning them, but they don't remember the thousands of times that didn't happen.

No fate but what we make.

I agree that there is not fate. some of the most important things that have happened to me have only happened because of one little decision that was minor at the time but led to bigger things. It's weird to think about if I make a different decision where I would be.

it's just lke luck...you make your own luck as well as deciding yer own fate ...coincidences ? yes...fate?..no

don't you think it's more than just that one decision though? It may have lead to other things, but each of those events came with a decision of their own, which you made one way or the other.

So, yeah, I think a small moment may snowball. But I think it's because we choose to push it further, not because it's running wildly away from us.

how do you know that it wasn't "fate" that caused you to make the decisions that you made, that ended you where you are? uh? explain THAT one!!

i predict not

It's interesting..
I think a belief in "fate" entails a belief in metaphysics.
Many people who reject fate reject it out of a lack of belief in metaphysics.
Many of these people instead claim belief in "free will."
It's my opinion that if free will exists , then it proves that metaphysical beings exist.

I'll explain why by copying my statement on the subject of the soul from the Philosophy group:

Now I'm a mere amateur in this kind of game, so be gentle.

Everyone seems to be saying "no", so I'll play devil's advocate and say "yes".

In the realm of nature, fate is real enough. But animals don't dwell on "what ifs", they act on instinct. And so they don't recognize fate, even as they're being squashed by a car or blown away by Ted Nugent or eaten by a coyote.

Most humans think they're above nature, therefore fate doesn't apply to them.