Why nobody bothered making a fate for you
So ive taken a break from my super rigorous school day during my study to bring you another post, since they seem to be in such high demand.
So heres a little bit of philosophy for you. Hopefully i can put these silly fate fuckers to bed.
Free will and individual fate are total opposites. They are irreconcileable concepts that cannot exist in the same universe.
For all of you that do believe in a higher power that is benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient, christians this means you, then fate does not hold water. If a god is both benevolent and omnipotent and fate existed then there would be absolutely no way that bad things would happen, because no benevolent god would allow a bad thing to happen if he had the power to stop it, let alone plan for it to happen. Everyone would get a happy ending if he made individual plans, but as we know from experience not everyone does.
The argument that bad things happen for a reason in God's plan of sorts also holds no water because a god that is all powerful need not cause collateral damage to bring about his end. If everything lead to a happy ending for everybody, or even just the rightous, then this argument would be true. But looking at the real world this just doesnt happen. Plenty of people die unhappy and faithless due to the fact that bad things happen. A mother with a dead child may say that everything happens for a reason to keep herself warm, but i doubt that the dead child would make the same argument as he sort of gets the shit end of the deal doesnt he.
Now for the Gods plan aspect of it. Ive been quick to be told by christians that both fate and free will do exist by giving a fancy name to fate called God's plan, wherein God has a plan for each individual person and it is up to that person to either fulfill it or ignore it. This leads to a paradox because if God is indeed omnipotent and omniscient he would therefore have a perfect plan that no man could fuck up with free will. Man can have absolutely no power over something perfect.
I propose a different definition of Gods plan. While free will does exist, it has to according to our beliefs, Gods will is done in spite of. Observing what we know about the universe we know that it tends to lean in the right direction: natural selection, increasing intelligence and organization of life. The whole universe slowly ticking on towards perfection in spite of us because of universal laws we cannot change. That is Gods plan, a perfect universe in time despite free will. Do we have free will? yes. is it relevant? no. While we may be the masters of our earthly lives, we tend to lean in the right direction. We're rewarded for doing good things: chemical euphoria for things like continuing the species and for some of us doing what we know is good. We're punished for doing bad: guilt, regret. If we cant keep ourselves in check, our societies are increasingly set up to do so for us, attaching stigma to acts of free will that we have determined with our collective reason to be wrong, or idealizing acts we have reasoned to be good. Furthermore there are even nonhuman forces acting to keep us ticking towards perfection: STDs regulate an overindulgent sex life, heart disease discourages gluttony etc. Granted it isnt perfect yet, but with enough time and reasoning it will be. God's plan is our natural tendency towards good, and he'll get his perfect world at the end. The universe will move in the right direction in spite of free will. The perfect plan, perfecly flexible for the one variable tossed into Gods equation. Then why choose to be good? Cause in the end we're most likely better off, else youll fall victim to your conscience, or society will spit you out, or youll be smitten, or at the very least youll die and the damage you do will be for nill in the long run. Even if we did effect something with free will that brought the universe away from perfection, it would only be a temporary setback as none of us live forever as far as i know.
If you want to be given a reason for why shit happens, free will it is. A plane crashes and innocent people die because someone chose to be a pilot, or someone chose to be an engineer, or someone chose to start an airliner, or the guy in the window seat of the last row decided to eat that one fateful twinky that threw the entire plane off balance. People die in earthquakes cause someone decided to build on a fault line. They may not have known better but it doesnt make it any less of an act of free will. If anyone can think of anything that shows this to be wrong then ill humbly accept that im wrong on this point, its just i cant think of anything.
If you believe god is neutral, why would he bother giving anything a fate. something has to give a fuck in order to make fate necessary if it exists.
If you believe god is malevolent, im not sure why youd want to believe that, he would most likely plan to make everything suck for everyone. If you believe that everything sucks for everyone, why are you still here? Everything, at least from my perspective, does not suck for everyone. So if fate existed, then this god did a shitty job, in which case hes not omnipotent or omniscient, so hes not really god.
And god doesnt have to mean the God that everyone thinks of. Hell it could even be the natural laws themselves, or whatever set them up.
If you believe in a god that is omniscient but not omnipotent, he may know the outcome but he cannot effectively change it and therefore cant fate anyone for anything.
If you believe in a god that is omnipotent but not omniscient, then he may have the power to fate someone, but would not know how or why because he would not be able to know the outcome. He may be able to wing it and make change based on his observations, but that isnt fate because its reactive not proactive.
If you happen to believe in no God or higher power then fate cannot exist because at hints at some sort of sublime plan for the universe, and with no higher being to contrive it then that plan cannot exist and if you argue that it does: youve thought yourself up a god, welcome to side of the superstitious, see above.
SOOOOOO long story short, i think ive done a bang up job arguing against individual fate, though i kind of proved a universal fate, at least from one perspective. though perhaps a little bit disjointed and too little detail. but hey ill clarify further if you ask or argue against. I totaly want that by the way so dont feel like an asshole if you dont agree. I like discussion, just be coherent
Thanks if you read the whole thing
So heres a little bit of philosophy for you. Hopefully i can put these silly fate fuckers to bed.
Free will and individual fate are total opposites. They are irreconcileable concepts that cannot exist in the same universe.
For all of you that do believe in a higher power that is benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient, christians this means you, then fate does not hold water. If a god is both benevolent and omnipotent and fate existed then there would be absolutely no way that bad things would happen, because no benevolent god would allow a bad thing to happen if he had the power to stop it, let alone plan for it to happen. Everyone would get a happy ending if he made individual plans, but as we know from experience not everyone does.
The argument that bad things happen for a reason in God's plan of sorts also holds no water because a god that is all powerful need not cause collateral damage to bring about his end. If everything lead to a happy ending for everybody, or even just the rightous, then this argument would be true. But looking at the real world this just doesnt happen. Plenty of people die unhappy and faithless due to the fact that bad things happen. A mother with a dead child may say that everything happens for a reason to keep herself warm, but i doubt that the dead child would make the same argument as he sort of gets the shit end of the deal doesnt he.
Now for the Gods plan aspect of it. Ive been quick to be told by christians that both fate and free will do exist by giving a fancy name to fate called God's plan, wherein God has a plan for each individual person and it is up to that person to either fulfill it or ignore it. This leads to a paradox because if God is indeed omnipotent and omniscient he would therefore have a perfect plan that no man could fuck up with free will. Man can have absolutely no power over something perfect.
I propose a different definition of Gods plan. While free will does exist, it has to according to our beliefs, Gods will is done in spite of. Observing what we know about the universe we know that it tends to lean in the right direction: natural selection, increasing intelligence and organization of life. The whole universe slowly ticking on towards perfection in spite of us because of universal laws we cannot change. That is Gods plan, a perfect universe in time despite free will. Do we have free will? yes. is it relevant? no. While we may be the masters of our earthly lives, we tend to lean in the right direction. We're rewarded for doing good things: chemical euphoria for things like continuing the species and for some of us doing what we know is good. We're punished for doing bad: guilt, regret. If we cant keep ourselves in check, our societies are increasingly set up to do so for us, attaching stigma to acts of free will that we have determined with our collective reason to be wrong, or idealizing acts we have reasoned to be good. Furthermore there are even nonhuman forces acting to keep us ticking towards perfection: STDs regulate an overindulgent sex life, heart disease discourages gluttony etc. Granted it isnt perfect yet, but with enough time and reasoning it will be. God's plan is our natural tendency towards good, and he'll get his perfect world at the end. The universe will move in the right direction in spite of free will. The perfect plan, perfecly flexible for the one variable tossed into Gods equation. Then why choose to be good? Cause in the end we're most likely better off, else youll fall victim to your conscience, or society will spit you out, or youll be smitten, or at the very least youll die and the damage you do will be for nill in the long run. Even if we did effect something with free will that brought the universe away from perfection, it would only be a temporary setback as none of us live forever as far as i know.
If you want to be given a reason for why shit happens, free will it is. A plane crashes and innocent people die because someone chose to be a pilot, or someone chose to be an engineer, or someone chose to start an airliner, or the guy in the window seat of the last row decided to eat that one fateful twinky that threw the entire plane off balance. People die in earthquakes cause someone decided to build on a fault line. They may not have known better but it doesnt make it any less of an act of free will. If anyone can think of anything that shows this to be wrong then ill humbly accept that im wrong on this point, its just i cant think of anything.
If you believe god is neutral, why would he bother giving anything a fate. something has to give a fuck in order to make fate necessary if it exists.
If you believe god is malevolent, im not sure why youd want to believe that, he would most likely plan to make everything suck for everyone. If you believe that everything sucks for everyone, why are you still here? Everything, at least from my perspective, does not suck for everyone. So if fate existed, then this god did a shitty job, in which case hes not omnipotent or omniscient, so hes not really god.
And god doesnt have to mean the God that everyone thinks of. Hell it could even be the natural laws themselves, or whatever set them up.
If you believe in a god that is omniscient but not omnipotent, he may know the outcome but he cannot effectively change it and therefore cant fate anyone for anything.
If you believe in a god that is omnipotent but not omniscient, then he may have the power to fate someone, but would not know how or why because he would not be able to know the outcome. He may be able to wing it and make change based on his observations, but that isnt fate because its reactive not proactive.
If you happen to believe in no God or higher power then fate cannot exist because at hints at some sort of sublime plan for the universe, and with no higher being to contrive it then that plan cannot exist and if you argue that it does: youve thought yourself up a god, welcome to side of the superstitious, see above.
SOOOOOO long story short, i think ive done a bang up job arguing against individual fate, though i kind of proved a universal fate, at least from one perspective. though perhaps a little bit disjointed and too little detail. but hey ill clarify further if you ask or argue against. I totaly want that by the way so dont feel like an asshole if you dont agree. I like discussion, just be coherent
Thanks if you read the whole thing