Does anyone believe in fatalism / predestination?

Anyone here in OT believe in fatalism/predestination? Isn't it just a way to release anxiety and put a persons mind at ease?

I dunna.

Yes, we are all destined to die.

Yes, in the sense that our chemical composition is designed to make us behave in a certain way and nothing is going to change that. However, we have no way of knowing what the outcome is so...doesn't that make it irrelevant?

Humans fool themselves into believing they have control over not only themselves, but also their environment and nature.

Humans foolishly believe that nature need to beg mercy from man when it is the other way around.

They foolishly believe they can direct human progression and growth.

When in reality people have almost no control.

A man is a natural being, a creature, part of nature.

When nature decides we are a threat, we won't exist.

Humans don't decide morality, nature and necessity does.

Your control is worth schit.

Right now we (as westerners) are living in unnatural ways in an unnatural time.

This "Disneyland" we are living in is not normal, it is not sustainable, and it is only possible as long as we have overwhelming prosperity to sustain it and a vast third world to exploit and dehumanize.

In the next 500 years you will understand the value of your silly "rights." Might makes right, always has, always will.

In unnatural times, the gazelle hunts the lion, the feeble control the strong, only because of "democracy" ie mob rule.

But as you will understand, Democracy is not actually "equal", it is a game within a game whereby people have the ILLUSION of equality to quell unrest. Instead of a coup you just elect who you want and that keeps people docile.

In reality a democratic system has its winners and losers like like any other system, where strength is measured in your ability to out-talk your opponent and outwit him, rather than beat him into submission. The elites still control everything, the media and banking, and amass vast wealth while keeping the rest of the population at their "jobs" and keeping you there thru tax code because if you make more you will get taxed more.

The people who know their way around that are insiders and elites who generally pay very little tax.

This is not a liberal diatribe on why the rich need to pay more taxes.

This is an illustration of the fact that in any system there is the weak and strong. No matter what govt or who is in charge, the people who are smartest figure out how to exploit the system to their benefit, whether thru direct repression or by talking a good game. Equality is not a condition that is recognized in nature.

How does this relate to predestination.

Well, people are what they are.

They can't make themselves smarter, healthier or more capable.

You get 1 body and 1 brain, and you get whatever you get.

If you were born stupid, there's no chance of you ever working your way to the top of Lehman Brothers.

At the end of the day who you are is who you are, and you can't really do schit to change that.

I don't think that we can assume that the world is deterministic or indeterministic because we don't have any real justification for believing that causality exists. But I assume that we have free will anyway because a lot of the things that we do would be meaningless in a deterministic world. It's just a pragmatic justification.ghoklebutter

The things people do ARE meaningless.

It's the reasons behind them that are meaningful.

At the end of this life we don't have body, money, house, car.

We are worm schit.

But if we lived and loved intensely then that's forever.

Your kids will someday die.

That doesn't mean having them is a waste.

You have them to love them, and to serve God/the world. The reasons you have them are meaningful.

They themselves are not. As I said your kids in a few decades will be wormschit just like you.

All people have in this world of any value is each other.

ZombieKiller7

If I tilt my head and squint it loooks like a space castle.

I don't think we have free will in any meaningful sense and I think that the universe is more or less deterministic (and even if it weren't, I don't think that would necessitate free will). But that doesn't mean that I am fatalistic about the matter, and predestination makes theological assumptions that I don't agree with (namely, that a God is involved in the first place). So despite my deterministic view on the question of free will, I subscribe to neither of the two.Blood-Scribe

If predestination was true that would mean freewill is an illusion.

Of course, whose to say freewill exists? As far as we know, we only get one life to live, and we can't change what we've done, it's a set path.

It's a fascinating concept to think about since it's so paradoxical.

Certain things are predestined but most aren't. But just because everything isn't predestined, that doesn't mean that there aren't "rigidities" we must deal with.

Imo if you believe that your life is entirely predestined then you are deluded.

[QUOTE="Blood-Scribe"]I don't think we have free will in any meaningful sense and I think that the universe is more or less deterministic (and even if it weren't, I don't think that would necessitate free will). But that doesn't mean that I am fatalistic about the matter, and predestination makes theological assumptions that I don't agree with (namely, that a God is involved in the first place). So despite my deterministic view on the question of free will, I subscribe to neither of the two.MrPraline

It's a meaningless question and "free will" is a meaningless proposition.

It just doesn't matter one way or the other.

I believe in America. America has made my fortune. And I raised my daughter in the American fashion. I gave her freedom but I taught her never to dishonor her family. She found a "boy friend," not an Italian. She went to the movies with him. She stayed out late. I didn't protest. Two months ago he took her for a drive, with another boy friend. They made her drink whiskey and then they tried to take advantage of her. She resisted. She kept her honor. So they beat her. Like an animal. When I went to the hospital her nose was broken. Her jaw was shattered, held together by wire. She couldn't even weep because of the pain. But I wept. Why did I weep? She was the light of my life. A beautiful girl. Now she will never be beautiful again.

I believe in America.

Aljosa23

[QUOTE="MrPraline"][QUOTE="Blood-Scribe"]I don't think we have free will in any meaningful sense and I think that the universe is more or less deterministic (and even if it weren't, I don't think that would necessitate free will). But that doesn't mean that I am fatalistic about the matter, and predestination makes theological assumptions that I don't agree with (namely, that a God is involved in the first place). So despite my deterministic view on the question of free will, I subscribe to neither of the two.EmperorBrosphus