Fate or Coincidence?

[RogueMartian]

Do you believe that everything happens for a reason and that things happening one way or another are signs or do you believe that the world is just full of chaos with no reason behind it?

[Mr. Obsession]

Yes. Yes I do. :p

[DR. BELCH]

I believe there is a divine plan, but it's so muddled and confused at this point that it needs to be scrapped and a new one redrafted. In case you haven't guessed, I'm a conspiracy theorist.... :rolleyes:

[Pilmedium]

I often feel that everything happens because it is a person's fault. There is usually an understandable reason.

[Dark Spider]

I believe that everything happens based on the actions of the people. Nothing is "pre determined", but this is only my opinion...

I'm in a philosophy class and this very subject is so argurable, its pathetic. Here are some food for thought based on this topic (Some of this may seem confusing, by so is philosophy :) )...

There is one belief that everything is run by a superior being and all of the events in our world are pre-determined by him. This in turn leads into an argument in whether we have free will or not (But that's a subject for later :) ). This also turns into an argument of wheter everything happens for a reason, that whether we were put her on Earth for a specific reason or not.

There is another belief that everyone has free will and that their actions are not pre determined. But then comes the subject of free will. Do we truely have "Free will"? Are our actions solely based on our own decisions without outside influences? This can be argued no. Decisions are based on the way we think and how we perceive something. This in turn is based on our personality...but how did we come about your personality? You can't be just born with a personality, you have to develop it. Our personality is based on outside influences, whether its from the person who raised you, your friends, or a role model you idolize. Its from outside influences that our personality and your thought process come from. Then from this, our decisions are based off of influences from the people responsible for who you are. An example of this is raising a child. When you raise a child, you'll begin to make decisions on your child, based on the decisions your parents make when they raised you.

When you take all that into consideration, do we really have free will, when our decisions are based off of the possible decisions of other people? Our will isn't free, but rather taken from someone else. Our actions aren't pre-determined, but they sure aren't based off of our own decisions.

I'm not trying to make a point or give my opinion by mentioning all of this, I am just giving some food for thought and maybe start a possible debate...

[Depth Charge]

A little bit of fate, but I do believe that some people are "destined" to be things. Like what a mom says to a kid, "You are going to be a great dancer one day..." and he does, and is fantastical. Besides for that... nothing else but no reason.

[Nickdisk]

i believe in a little bit of both :)

i believe some things happen for a reason, and i also believe some things happen out of coincidence :)