Before I start, I will say that I am a very religious person. I do follow Christianity so my opinion might be bias.

Being raised around Christians, I have been taught many things through church and family. God has a plan for our lives, this being our Fate. But he also gave us the free will to do what we want. It might be good, and it also could be bad. Someone said something about "God why would you do this?" Or something similar. But in all reality, he didn't do it to you. He didn't cause you to rob a bank and go to jail. He gave you the free will to decide what you want to do with your life. It might not be apart of his "Plan A" for you, but he always has a plan for you. Your fate might have been to go through those series of misfortunes and then that leads to you turning your life around.

That might have been very confusing and might have in no way shown which point I was trying to put across, but in summary. I am saying that I believe people have both Fate and Free Will. Overall, you have a fate, but you using your free will, you might come to that fate down a different path than you were once expected to from the start.

(I hope this doesn't stir up any controversy, that's not what I was trying to do. I was simply stating my opinion on the matter and I respect everyone elses beliefs and opinions.)

I don't think you quite have the grasp on what you're talking about. You start with a strong statement then contradict it in your explanatory paragraph


You are not free to believe in what you want. If anything, simply by existing as a sentient human being, you are naturally biased against certain information.


Is fate just simply the course of events up to that point in time, leading you to do something particular in that instance? It makes more sense than something elaborately set up by a being for every single currently living, deceased, and future humans. Would the very being god itself not be subject to fate?

Being non-religious I don't believe that a god is determining, or know what will happen. Just gonna throw that out there before I start.
I don't post in discussion much, and probably won't continue to much past this thread, but this topic caught my eye as it's something I've been tussling with of late due to a few things happening around/to me.
I'm somewhat comforted by the notion that everything that happens is set. Not necessarily for a reason, but is going to happen, like the universe is nothing more than a series of coincidences strung together.
Regardless of whether that be right or wrong (I can definitely see the drawbacks in my argument) it brings me a degree of comfort.
The thought that "what will be, will be" almost like responsibility is taken from me by... well everything. A degree of absolution through insignificance.
Obviously who I am affects the decisions I make (and the decisions of others affect me too), but everything leading up to that point, and the matter that makes up my very being will determine the outcome, just as that outcome will determine the next. If that makes sense?

Upon reflection, the conclusion I came to was one of ignorance.
The comfort of thinking this way outweighs any other argument I can put forward to myself.


As for the rest of the opinions on this thread;

Ezio: do you mean you feel that the actions of one don't matter, because the overall outcome is already decided?

Was about to respond to Kradel when I realised Beast said pretty much what I wanted to say.
God being subject to fate is a weird side track that's kinda cool though.
If god made man in his image, and man is subject to fate, it could be logical to then say god is affected by it too. In which case, our fate is linked to something greater than a god by the question "what would decide god's fate?"
I'm interested to see what the religious people make of that point :]

Fate? No, i don't believe seriously in such a thing. One could argue that it was everyone's fate all along to become what they are, but then again, it could all just be random chance and/or determined by the environment. In any case though, if fate does exist, it's an inarguable and individual constant for every being in the universe which cannot be known until it has happened, and thus, in my mind, is not worth thinking about.

Free will? This is where things get interesting, because psychology has proven that environment has a HUGE impact on how we behave, or at least what we feel like we should behave, along with countless other subconscious things. Phobias, for example, can be instilled in people from a very early age (by connecting something with an upsetting event), and will likely stick for the rest of their lives.

Also, ever heard of Pavlov's dog? That phenomenon is not restricted to dogs and other beings of lesser intelligence than humans. I can guarantee you that if you were to be served food immediately after a certain bell got rung over, say, a few years, hearing that bell again, even years later, will INSTANTLY make you think of food and the good ol' times, and possibly even instill great nostalgia.

So, in a way, we don't have free will. Subconscious things are just that; below your consciousness. Your conscious acts are strongly affected by your subconscious; for instance, you might say "i'm not the kind of person who'd strike someone down at random", and that might very well be true, and you might very well have a little voice in your head saying that it's completely wrong to do that, but you CAN still do it on a whim if you ignore those feelings. In that way, we do have free will, but it's strongly shaped by your upbringing.

IN THEORY (since i do not advocate such a practice), you could almost certainly take an infant born by the pairing of the two most vicious serial killers on the planet, put said infant in care under a regular loving family, and get a perfectly ordinary child as a result. However, if said infant were to be raised by said serial killer parents without them going clean regular parent mode, it's very likely that the child will grow up to become a criminal. When it comes to personality, genetics mean surprisingly little.

You know all those things you think and feel are right and wrong? That's probably because you were taught so by people who were taught to behave how they are. Infants have JUST been ejected out of their little bubble and into the cold outer world, but they have NO idea how to behave in this world, a bit like an adult being shoehorned into a completely different culture, except with nothing in the luggage. As with animals, they will shape their behaviour according to what gives them the most goodness and least badness, and in the end, our personalities can damn near be summarized as a LONG list of things that have brought us good's and bad's. Touch thorn bush = Get hurt = DON'T DO. Eat food = Taste good and remove hunger = DO IT MORE. But of course, that doesn't account for everything, and i'm reasonably sure we don't know the rest of it.

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@Erth - Yes that is basically what I'm getting at.

I really do appreciate all of your different views on this topic. However, this was not intended to be based upon religious perspectives, but rather (at least in my mind) what free will could possibly mean if the our lives have are predestined. Like Issac mentioned a more abstract idea of free will being nothing but an illusion portrayed by the human intellect. So yes, I did have a feeling that this topic would steer this way, especially since I mentioned my own religious beliefs, although it could not be avoided.
Once again I want to thank everyone for their input. I appreciate all your time, but I do not want this to become an all out religious war. It is for this reason that I am closing this thread. Thank you all!