Fate or Free Will?

Some mixture of both. I'm afraid to choose "both," though, because I know someone will misinterpret my theory if I do. First off, I believe that whatever's supposed to happen will, and you can do absolutely piss-all to stop it. These inevitabilities aren't, like, uberdivine intervention, and often result from your actions and the actions of others; sort of a bad Xerox of Ro's idea, I guess. Secondly, though, we must have some large amount of free will too; if we're just meat puppets, that clashes with my belief that while we're down here, we go through a series of tests. Think, like, spiritual exams. There isn't a mistake or catastrophe you can't learn from. I have no problem with the "why do bad things happen to good people?" conundrum. Do your parents shelter you and make sure you have a perfectly ideal trouble-free life, or do they try to teach you and help you grow as a person, sometimes in rough ways? I don't think testing's the only reason we're here, because that'd just be odd, but I've alread drawn enough conclusions to fill a novella and I tihink it's high time I stopped.

When you came into this life, you had already made the decisions. Now you go through it trying to figure out why.

So it's kinda 50/50, where you are the one who controls fate, yet it still leads you.

Hiko, you should be shot.


THAT CLASS WAS MEANT TO STAY IN SCHOOL. I DONT NEED THAT BOOK FOLLOWING ME AROUND MORE THAN USUAL. I ONYL TOOK THAT COURSE BECAUSE I WANTRED TO SKIP MR TOASTERHELD'S CLASS. THE COMPLICATED DISCUSSION WE HAD SHOULD STAY IN TEH CLASSROOOOOOM.

Please. For the sake of my sanity/not killing you. NO MORE.

I believe in the ultimate free will, the paradox (also known in the media as "the secret") where you subconsciously control all aspects of life...

Lawl, solid free will here. Everything else is just a bunch of events that just happened to you, and many of them are caused by your own choices and decisions.

Quote (bluebasium911)

Hiko, you should be shot.

OK. SHUT UP.
I've had enough of you bitching about Philosophy.
It's interesting, and you're the only one immature enough to push it aside.
HELL, EVEN DARK AND ZOLEM ANSWERED IT WELL.

On a happier note, I'm kinda happy with the fact that everyone answered this seriously. I'll be asking a few more questions as the year goes on. *makes another poll*

Free will all the way.

Which reminds me of the descriptiong for a living zombie (not I said living, not undead)

"A person with no free will or thought". Have to remember to tell them to eat and stuff, though.

I believe there is such a thing as fate, but it isn't set in stone. Anyone has the power to challenge it.

I like to think that life is like a bunch of interweaving strings, you can choose what path you take, but there is a set number of paths you CAN take.

Both. Going by theory, there are an infinite number of universes, each of which contain an infinite number of you making an infinite number of choices at an infinite number of ages using an infinite number of ways.

For example, in one such universe I could've killed myself, and would be dead at current. This would be both 'fate' and 'free will' at the same time, for I was fated to die in that universe the moment I chose it.

Thus, one could technically say we're 'fated' to whatever we do, but we also are allowed to carve out what our universe will be like.

But then again, that's all just theory.

-Twi