Fate vs Free Will

[rachel28]

Fate vs Free Will

thanks katesm, belive me i have spent ages pondering this question, and mannaged to stay "sober" not dry completly but i have been in control, i have used my free will, an i feel so much better in my head, i suppose i havent just kept chuckin it down my neck, cos i can, i had a few an thought hard about each 1, an i know i dont rally want it, dont really want to b drunk, my free will has had fun, makin paper snowflackes an god knows what else wiv the kids, now its down to me to continue in this way, thinking b4 i do, i know i can FUNCTION very well with a drink, but its not the same as actually LIVING without a drink, now things r looking a bit more hopefull in my head , my body shouldnt fight this change quite as badly, i hope ! xx

[sujul]

Fate vs Free Will

Lots of interesting answers here....I'm wondering though whether these "either/or" questions are not more properly "both/and" --I agree that our lives are more likely a mixture of fate and free will--

But then I also think that we have no friggin idea WHAT'S going on at all....I mean maybe even the QUESTION of fate and/or free will is just completely irrelevant...and the way our lives are really constructed or unfold is so incredibly different from the limited way our minds can think that the whole thing is incomprehensible to us....sort of like astronomy is to my cat--completely unknowable and it's beyond his ability to understand that there even ARE such things as planets, stars, moons...or anything outside himself, for that matter!

I think our existence is probably like that...we simply do not have the capacity to fully understand why we are here or where we are going--or how this all works....we might get flashes of something beyond our--limited--selves, but our "understanding" will only take us so far....there is something beyond understanding--some may call it faith or maybe trust--but the faith I am referring to is not something that can be put into words--words are just a human symbolic system that refer to something beyond themselves and words only limit whatever that is...sort of like trying to tell someone about a dream--even as you try to talk about it, it slips away and you know you haven't captured it at all....In fact, anything I can actually put into words is already less than thing itself--to me, even the word "God" is a limited referent to a vastness beyond knowing, beyond any mere human understanding..not a BEING or anything else I might be able to conceptualize--but rather the inspiration that produced our universe and continually unfolds and extends itself...

So, fate? free will? I don't think any of us even know what these words refer to! Even if I were somehow given an explanation, I probably wouldn't be able to grasp it--no more than my cat understands astronomy--no matter how simplistically I describe it to him!

Okay--I'd better stop here before I get totally carried away..sorry for the middle-of-the-night ramble...! I'm off to bed now!

Oh, about alcohol--that's pretty clear--like many others here, I have a choice only over the first one--after that I'm no longer in charge! Buh-bye, alcohol--good night all!

[tawnyfrog]

Fate vs Free Will

I really like not belabouring the point.

I take great comfort in knowing and accepting that there are some things I will never understand. And that's fine by me. It gives me peace.

I am. Current but impermanent.

[Change]

Fate vs Free Will

Fate is just something we tell ourselves to make ourselves feel better. Life is random.

[Guest]

Fate vs Free Will

OK, I was making lite of this in my earlier post, I belive in predestination, what is going to happen in life will happen. Yes we are given decisions to make and I believe God knows the decisions we are going to make before we make them. I just have always had this belife that God wouldn't make me just to watch me self destruct. Is it fate that I have a mass in my right breast. Yes. Is it my free will that I procede to have the biopsy done? Yes. Whatever the out come after the biopsy, it was meant to be. Just think about all the ways your life would have been different if you had not been in the right place at the right time fate/predestination. Example, I was a flight attendant with Eastern Airlines when they folded, I went home took a job in a furniture store for a few weeks until American Airlines called, during that few weeks, my husband just happened to stop in that store looking to buy a piece of furniture. (BTW, he didn't buy it from me) He changed my life, showed me what it was like to be loved and respected. But it was my free will to marry him. I hope this make sense to someone it really is hard to explain a belief system. Plus Miss Mary isn't quite awake yet. Another thing, ever had that little something that makes you say whoa. I was getting ready to turn left in traffic, I had the green light. Something said hold back a few seconds. I waited abot 10-15 seconds a car came speeding through the intersection. If I had went when the light changed I most certainly would have been struck by that car.predestination.
Smiles
mar

[rottrod]

Fate vs Free Will

Good post Mar, I too, met my husband in a "fluke" type situation like that and he and I both know, and knew it right when it happened that it was no accident. We didn't even live in the same town or state. It was fate, predestination, whatever anyone wants to call it, but we believe it to be God's hand in our lives. If someone else wants to try explain it away as something else that's fine, it won't change my mind.

[morrison]

Fate vs Free Will

Wow, such great answers. I was afraid to come back after I posted, cause I was feeling "strange" again. But, I shouldn't under etimate the great minds on this board. Sometimes, I feel like I excersice free will. And sometimes, I feel I have ZERO control. As far as the drinking goes, I really love the answer about the first drink. That really nails it. The first drink is our chance to excersice freewill. Maybe I just make excuses. Nobody ever put a gun to my head and made me have the first drink. But, being an alcoholic, I feel the freewill is immediately gone. The chemicals start to mash together in a way, where I don't think I have any control, and that is why I can't have just one. Thanks everybody. Sometimes I worry so much that I'm weird. Hell, I've come to the realization that I'm freakin' weird. I hate it, cause sometimes when I feel like I have my stuff together, I think of things I've done and said, or posted on this board, and I feel sick. When I'm drunk, of course I'm going to be strange. But even sometimes when I'm sober, I don't like how I behave, even when I take my meds. I don't want to take so many meds where I feel like I don't exist though. Oh well, I guess I will forgive myself one of these days. Wish I had the free will to do that.

[rachel28]

Fate vs Free Will

u r wonderful morrison, i wish u would forgive yourself or at least stop giving yourself such a hard time, u cant change the past, only what s to come, for that lighten up on yourself, an give yourself the creit u deserve, lots a love, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[louise]

Fate vs Free Will

Listen to Rachel Morrison. I don't think you are "freakin' wierd". Your thread has a 5 star rating. I doubt its the first time. Simeybear and Rottrod, thanks for sharing the stories of how you met your husbands. It certainly does make you think. And yes, I have had that exact same I have the green light but I better just sit here experiences.