[Closed] Do you believe in fate?

Because they're all taught from a very early age that totally mental ideas are normal.

I blame Santa Claus

I think in major disasters like that the difference between tragic death and miraculous survival is so slight seemingly arbitrary that if you are in that circumstance its not an easy thing to rationalise.

I didn't watch the programme last night, but I saw an earlier one. Wasn't there an old guy who was practically standing right next to one of the bombs who was pretty much unscathed while all around him people were killed to peices. Its maybe not superstition as such, other than by turn of phrase, but its pretty hard not to be philosophical in those circumstances. Every milestone you'll reach in life thereafter is always going to be accompanied by the thought of how different things could have been.

We are taught from a young age to believe in miracles that happened 2,000yrs ago.

Recent miracles have shown themselves in teacups etc.

No wonder people act this way.

Why is that?

It's so widespread that it seems unlikely to be there by chance. At some point in our evolutionary history, it must have conferred some kind of survival advantage, causing the carriers of this mutation to be better able to reproduce.

Because to absolve yourself of the control that you have to determine your destiny is, for some, strangely comforting?

The human brain is hard wired to try and spot patterns. Totally random or unpredictable events don't fit easily in the human brain so it 'invents' patterns to account for them.

This isn't limited to humans. There was an experiment with chickens where bits of corn were dropped into the cage at random intervals. The chicken might be preening its wing when the corn drops. It sees the corn drops and eats it. it then repeatedly preens its wing in the hope this will make the corn drop again. If the corn doesn't drop the chicken carries on preening. If the corn drops the chicken is convinced it is caused by the preening.

Dumb chickens? Check out human 'lucky rituals'

You become a little curious about fate etc when you have a near death experience. I was about 5 inches away from meeting the big fella in the sky when i was 23 and it had a profound impact on me. Haven't become superstious or anything but I definitly have that what will be will be mentality now.

LHS - I had something similar when I was younger. I fell out of a 2nd story window and landed on a pile of bin bags. My left sleeve was ripped on the spiked metal fence I just missed and I scraped my nose on the brick gate post to the right. Any closer either direction and there would be no Big Bike Bash.

Never really thought it affected me mentally but I have always just thought 'Whats the worse that could happen?'

I think that the concept of fate is so popular because so many people refuse to consider the concept of coincidence. People take comfort in the believe that there's a plan - be it personal, local or universal.

People are generally frightened, irrational and superstitious. The Age of Reason wasn't really that popular with the masses.

Err there are stats about boys being too adventurous and meeting their maker. Its what lads do when growing up.

I used to cycle as fast as I could down a very steep busy road on a Puch or Striker when I was 5. Inches away from cars. Then there were the tree falls, landing on my head, knockouts etc 😀

@BBB - in answer to your question it's that you might type 'worse' rather than 'worst' on a forum full of pedants.

I've had a similar brush with my mortality, but that just involved myself and a few passers by who helped. I think the big issue for survivors of large scale traumas is accepting how they survived while those around them did not. Lucky underpants, coincidence, fate, divine intervention, scientific reasoning - pick whatever you want to believe in and rebuild yourself from that.

My wife and I on our honeymoon in Thailand on Boxing Day 2004 cme within 30 minutes of the fate of 4,000 other people at the resort area we had just taken a bus away from.

We've never thought any more of it than the close shave it was. But then Im a sceptic and atheist so have no time for bunkem no matter how comforting it might be.

Stoner, leads me to think - How many STW'ers have we lost over the years that we will never know about?

hora - we will never know

When a STW falls in the forest, does he make a sound if no is there to hear?

If a husband expresses an opinion is it still wrong if his wife is not there to hear?

Well we know the default answer for when a woman expresses any thought 8)

I believe in karma.

<Ignoring the howls of derision and ploughing resolutely on>

I think (to put it very simplistically) that if you are honourable, brave, courteous, honest etc that you do affect your surroundings and other people and I believe that what goes around comes around.

When a STW falls in the forest, does he make a sound if no is there to hear?

given we're all middle aged and overweight, it'll make a fairly solid crash. Then there'll be the sound of the air ambulance coming to attend to our grazes. And then TJ's caterwauling about self sufficiency, accompanied by the click of SFB's shutter taking photos of the arses of the ambulance crew.

That's the sound I imagine it'll make.

If it wasn't for the internet TJ would have a spot in Edinburgh holding a book and huraning people about some subject or other....

if a fat woman falls in the woods and no one is there, is it still funny ?

If it wasn't for the internet TJ would have a spot in Edinburgh holding a book and huraning people about some subject or other....

he'd have one of those sandwich boards, but instead of it being in praise of god, it'd all be about HR law and unions

"THE TRIBUNAL COMETH"

and on the back:

"JOIN A UNION but DISSOLVE THE UNION!"

Oh dear dear.

Pook and Stoner. You are now in TJ's sights (shakes head at the fragility of life and living in the eye of a storm)...

Hora - It was not their fault. IT WAS FATE

....and there can only be one. The Quickening begins...

They must meet here, the Spaniard, the dodgy scary-looking one and that Scot..

here...
[img] [/img]

I think (to put it very simplistically) that if you are honourable, brave, courteous, honest etc that you do affect your surroundings and other people and I believe that what goes around comes around.

Does that mean the 4000 that werent as fortunate as Stoner were none of these things?

No surfer - they were fine, it was just FATE

A friends school tried to raise money. Do you think that was fate*?

*I know it is spelt differently

We all get what is coming to us. Death.

Does that mean the 4000 that werent as fortunate as Stoner were none of these things?

Sometimes it takes more than one lifetime, and sometimes the gods have their own plans which override our efforts (ie, fate).

Sometimes it takes more than one lifetime, and sometimes the gods have their own plans which override our efforts (ie, fate).

So those 4,000 were bad people in their previous life?

Gods have their own plans? Do you have a shrine at home with paper masha idols?

What about the countless Indonesians that die periodically in natural disasters?- Are the Gods racist towards Indonesians?

So those 4,000 were bad people in their previous life?

Gods have their own plans? Do you have a shrine at home with paper masha idols?

What about the countless Indonesians that die periodically in natural disasters?- Are the Gods racist towards Indonesians?

Careful now, you’re inviting the "it all happens for a reason" get-out-of-jail-free card that religious people play when faced with difficult questions about their faith. 😉

I do however believe in a previous life. I wont tell you who I was earlier this century.

Yes, I realise that I have strayed into religious territory ...
which I feel uncomfortable about.

I don't know why people get killed in natural disasters. It is very sad. I hope they get a better deal in the next life.

hora - what was the bunker like in those final hours?

I don't know why people get killed in natural disasters.

Usually because the environmental charcteristics of the event exceed the design limitations of the human body.

Wrong side.

In that case I love some of your quotes

If you were my husband I would put poisen in your tea.

If you were my wife I would drink it.

Classic

I like the chickens experiment.

We are hard wired to look for patterns - cause and effect. This IS an evolutionary advantage. However we very rarely have all the information, and some people don't KNOW that they don't have all the information, and make poor links between cause and effect. A lot of human culture is based on this 🙂

I don't know why people get killed in natural disasters

I think thats the most appropriate of your comments.

I believe in fate. Last June (2009) I had an epileptic seizure while in bed at home that lasted over 45 minutes before the ambulance finally ran me to the local A&E. 8 year old son was downstairs watching TV, wife wasn't in work that day, the first annual leave she'd taken in over 3 months. Son claims to have not known anything was wrong until ambulance arrived. Under usual school day circumstances it would have just been me & Josh in the house. Arrived at hospital to discover that the neurosurgeon on call was the clinical lead & specialises in my type of condition (another piece of luck/fate).

molgrips - I watched a program where they did it. About a dozen chickens in seperate boxes and they all developed different rituals to get the corn to drop even though it was random.

When they introduced new chickens the experienced chickens taught them the ritual and they repeated it.

Can't remember what happened when they mixed chickens with different rituals but I am guessing some kind of holy war.

Yesterday is Saskatoon, a housewife cut her finger whilst chopping vegetables. At EXACTLY THE SAME MOMENT in Surbiton, someone opened a bag of peanuts and spilt them all over the ground. What are the chances of that????? Eh? Eh?

BigBikeBash, could you watch your spelling please. That is a STW warning

I wont tell you who I was earlier this century

Proof if proof were needed that Hora is in fact 8 years old.

So tell us then, what famous person were you from early this century?

Yesterday is not Saskatoon.

Maybe Yesterday WAS Saskatoon but from memory it was Monday

Tuttle, Buttle.....

missingfrontallobe - what about all the people that DO die on their own with no-one to help them?

Are you suggesting that you are somehow more special than them?

I would suggest that perhaps you are just more fortunate than them. After all, they don't survive to make up bullsh*t theories and post about them on forums 🙂

I wont tell you who I was earlier this century
Proof if proof were needed that Hora is in fact 8 years old.

So tell us then, what famous person were you from early this century?

FAIL 😆 I meant last century oops.

Yesterday is Saskatoon, a housewife cut her finger whilst chopping vegetables. At EXACTLY THE SAME MOMENT in Surbiton, someone opened a bag of peanuts and spilt them all over the ground. What are the chances of that????? Eh? Eh?

Strangely this reminds me of Amelie the film

People who claim to be reincarnated almost always claim to have been someone really famous.

Well your hardly going to be Missus Miggins from the local pieshop 😉

no, she's still alive, I saw her in the post office this morning
what a coincidence...

Absolutely everything is happening all at the same time. Without significance. 😉

I actually saw Craig Charles in Manchester city centre on Friday afternoon.

I didn't know if it was him playing him or Lister, or Lister pretending to be on earth....

I had to turn the programme off, not because it upset me but becasue of the way some people were describing the carnage and loss of life.

One guy who was cradling a woman, clearly overcome by shock and was unwilling to leave her as he believed that she was still alive was described by another woman on the scene that he should leave her alone and help her because "she was obviousley very, very dead"

Now i understand that people deal with things differently but It all came across a bit unfeeling and would hate for any of my family to be described like that

What program?

Our lives are full of these weird and wonderful chances. Some good some not so good. Each of us are full of things like, what if a particular ancestor didn't/did walk down that road, did/didn't catch that cold, go to the shop/not go to the shop etcetera? Times that by your life, your parents lives, and theirs and theirs and it's all a lottery of chances, it just depends more on how we view it.

[url= http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/hows-this-for-spooky ]My little story yesterday[/url] could have been interpreted as fate I guess by some. However I'm not that way inclined so it's just a coincidence to me 🙂

Orena - what part of that story is fate? I mean, it doesn't realyl have any bearing on your life, does it? I mean it's not like you met your life partner or something..

If there's some God up there manipulating things with amazing precision just so that we can go 'ooh look at that, I recognise that number' he's got a pretty weird sense of humour.

molgrips - I thought I would try being a God for a while so built an ants nest, well got some ants to do it. It was quite entertaining for a few weeks feeding and watering them and doing the occaisional ANGRY GOD destructive events.

I then got bored. I suspect that if there is a God he would have got bored by now too. This theory is possibly backed up by the fact most significant God stuff happened a long time ago.

the fact most significant God stuff happened a long time ago

Really? Presumably you have evidence of this. 🙄

God does exist. Not as man wants God to exist though.

Molgrips - God works in mysterious ways lol!

Ok admitedly not fate (but I did stay an extra couple of minutes at my mum's discussing this, so what if I avoided someone crashing into me on the way home?).

I just meant that it's also the kind of thing certain types of people might put down to there being a 'higher being'...like those who see Jesus in toast (actually, why doesn't anyone ever see Muhammad or Vishnu in food??!)

why doesn't anyone ever see Muhammad in food

Because you'd die.

I didn't see the programme, but surely believe in 'fate', is just belief in a deterministic universe, and no more or less rational than belief in a non-deterministic universe.

God does exist.

Thanks, i appreciate the recognition. 😉

Ok admitedly not fate (but I did stay an extra couple of minutes at my mum's discussing this, so what if I avoided someone crashing into me on the way home?).

Coincidence and luck aren't the same as fate- there's no sense of an inevitable event in these anecdotes.

Fate is not the same thing as determinism. Fate is meaningless in a deterministic environment. As is free will.... (discuss).

I obviously don't know what I'm taking about...think I'll go back to taking about bikes 😆

I thought about this on my way home last night. Many people see death as a bad thing, an end, whereas for a believer in reincarnation surely death should be viewed as a beginning.

So, looking at the deaths from eg the tsunami in Asia and asking where is the (good) god(s) in that, is possibly the wrong question. Perhaps a better question to ask as a challenge to the notion that there is a 'good' god/gods is why are the vulnerable allowed to suffer? and perhaps the answer to that is that they were bad in a previous life.

BTW, not preaching, just an interesting subject for discussion.

Incidentally, the early christians believed in reincarnation. The Roman emperor, I think, Constantine, and his mum decided that they couldn't use hell and damnation to subdue the population effectively when the aforesaid population believed in many lives (to get it right) - so he changed the bible.

I think (to put it very simplistically) that if you are honourable, brave, courteous, honest etc that you do affect your surroundings and other people and I believe that what goes around comes around.

I frigging hope so.

Fate is not the same thing as determinism. Fate is meaningless in a deterministic environment. As is free will.... (discuss).

It's the same as unusual or individual determinism though. Which it's why it's remarkable in a non-deterministic environment.

EDIT: It's remarkable because it (supposedly) happens [i]in spite[/i] of a non-deterministic environment.

petesgaff - When you do eventually die as we all with and if you are reincarnated you should come back as a dog with seven dicks* for the way you have behaved and the example you have set.

*to avoid any confusion, this is a good thing.

bear in mind the likelihood of something happening that has already happened is 100%

believing in reincarnation doesn't make it more likely to be true

Depends on what you consider fate to be. If it's some mysterious mechanical force innate to the universe, then perhaps. If it's the will of a god, then it's just the free will of some being.