What is destiny?

Is destiny a sequence of events that determine the path of your life? Do we choose our own path, or is it already chosen?

My theory was that; in our life, we are faced with decisions, but they arn't decisions because destiny has already chosen your path for you, say for example you decide to go to the bottle shop and get a 6-pack of beer, there is someone robbing the store with a gun, you walk in, and out of panic, the guy shoots you and you die.
You were suppose to die then, and there, that way. If you chose not to go in and didn't, you wern't suppose to go into the shop and not die. Does that make sence?

Post your thoughts and ideas.

There is no destiny. There is only cause and effect.

There is no destiny. There is only cause and effect.
i agree, God gave us free will, that means we choose

If you mean destiny on a broader scale, ie we were placed here for a specific reason and to fulfill something, sure.

But this "should i get a soda or beer" stuff isn't predetermined.

There is no destiny. There is only cause and effect.


isn't that from the matrix?

I see your points though..

"should I get a soda or a beer"

It is predetermined, isn't it? Because that's the original dilema we're faced, the decision, which one do you get? Say you get the beer (i would) your decicion was made for you (maybe by you) all you had to do was live that decision, and you were never ment to get the soda at that point in time.

Make sence now?
We're getting down to the minor choises in life, if we go wider it gets trickyer

For example, I'm at University for my 1st year this year, where I will end up I don't know, but what if i never got accepted into university? That path of my life was never created and never was an option.

You said it yourself, the deision was made by you, not for you. I feel very in control of my life, most of the time. Anything connecting your actions to some sort of destiny is purely psychological, which does make it real in your own world, but that does not mean it was predetermined. Every person makes of their life what they choose, that's what is so great about life, you can do absolutely anything you want with it!

i think the whole "destiny" thing was made up buy a stupid guy who made a stupid desition... so he made up that that certain thing had to occur and that there was no other way it could have happened... so in this case it would justify his stupid desition and make him feel better... but thats just my opinion lol

You said it yourself, the deision was made by you, not for you. I feel very in control of my life, most of the time. Anything connecting your actions to some sort of destiny is purely psychological, which does make it real in your own world, but that does not mean it was predetermined. Every person makes of their life what they choose, that's what is so great about life, you can do absolutely anything you want with it!



yeah, i agree, but the idea i was trying to make, is the path that you do chose, or end up, is the path was was written for you.

The rest is is 'what if.."

I think you can take any sequence of events that ultimately lead it to a major event like death, love, birth, or whatever else and call it destiny. It's a cop-out.

Life is open ended, and that's what I like about it.

yeah.. sure u can make choices, but fate already knows where ur gonna be.


how the shit did Nostradamus make all those predictions if the future is open ended???

yeah.. sure u can make choices, but fate already knows where ur gonna be.


how the shit did Nostradamus make all those predictions if the future is open ended???

IMO, there's no such thing as fate. Like I said before, you can take any sequence of events and call it destiny, or fate. When people say "it's fate that led me here".. No, it's an algorithm of choices and consequences that brought you there.

Most of Nostradamus' sayings were clearly open ended and left no exact time period of when these events would happen. I'm sure I could make a hundred correct predictions out of a thousand if I made no time period evident in them. I predict the world is going to end in violence, heat, and chaos. ...NO KIDDING!

yeah i agree to a point.... clearly we can choose our own destiny. It's your choice to go out and get drunk, and it's your choice to drive home too.. but i think the outcome of your night is already known. Its the divine plan, everything comes together like a puzzle. No matter what you do, your following the one-way railroad track. And so does everyone else, so wherever u are, it could be for a reason...

Its the divine plan

Kind of relative to what you believe in, isn't it?

yeah my bad :screwy:


So why do you believe that life is open ended?

Mainly because I am highly agnostic. I can not claim to know what will happen after death, and what will happen during life.

If I had to put it in a metaphor, I'd put it like this:

Life is a forest. When you are born, you start making your path through the forest. Sometimes, you meet paths with someone else, and follow them for a bit, or just continue making your own. Being confined to a religion, to me, is like the path that everyone is taking. It's really easy, but it's just a pre-beaten path. Since I chose not to take that path, I followed some others for awhile and really learned, from their design, about how I could make my path through life more enjoyable and rewarding.

I believe that life is open ended because it makes it more interesting for me. Being confined to a religion that says I have a divine plan doesn't seem interesting. I think we make our own destiny, and will continue to think so until someone proves me wrong. Nobody can though. Nobody can prove that there is a true religion. Nobody can prove that destiny exists. Nobody can even prove that there is a such thing as love. (i however, would like to believe in it) Nobody can prove anything really. That's why life is open ended..

It's starting to make sence to me now...

I'm starting to have cross-ideas.

Take what your saying, then add what i'm saying to it (I can't sum what your saying up, too complex for me)

Life is open ended, but the path you chose is the path that was written for you.

You can also get lost in the forest, my idea was that if follow a path, like religion etc, you were NOT suppose to NOT take that path...make sence?
This is overloading my brain here, hahahah.

Anyway, i see your point and it's clear.

Some say you chose your own destiny, that's the trick, we think we're chosing, but we're not. The choise we already made is, and has been written for us already.



I'm at uni this year, first time. I was suppose to go to uni, If I drop out, I wasn't suppose to finish at the given time (3 years from now), but perhaps later in life. Although that is a choise I made, the path I chose was already written for me, no matter what.
Birth, death. Point A to point B. It's the points inbetween that we decide to take, but in the end, it was the only path written for us..

Say you need to get to your mates place. You know where you start (your house), you know where you'll end up (your mates place) But how you get there, although you know the way, you chose the sequence of differant roads to get there. The outcome is the same, but how you got there, there is only one path you take. There might be another road that goes around the corner, if you take that road instead, that's the path you were suppose to take..

I'm rambling a bit, just trying to elaborate (sp?) more on my idea...
But I agree with you.

but hey, for all I know, destiny Is being written right now and recorded, like a calculator, 2+2=4
then+now=tomorrow. Did that make ANY sence to anyone?
What happened yesturday, and what is happening now, determines what happens tomorrow. Say yesturday, you plan a trip to the movies. Today you did a ring-around and get all the people to go by train, tomorrow the train derails and you all die. Then+Now=Tomorrow.
You know then. You know now, but Tomorrow is the X factor.
I have a hard time explaining something to people that'll make the understand, because I know wtf I'm talking about, hahaahaha.

That's coo'.

Some say you chose your own destiny, that's the trick, we think we're chosing, but we're not. The choise we already made is, and has been written for us already.



Or.. it hasn't been written for us. Either way, nobody knows for sure.

something tells me destiny is death

so the only real question is when?



but what's easier? making up your own beliefs, or following someone elses? but it probably doesn't matter, if the shirt is the wrong size.


i guess if your promised 72 virgins its easier.. :loser:




why would you need proof when the only way you learn is from experiencing?

why would you need proof when the only way you learn is from experiencing?

I need proof because in order to experience the said heaven, I have to believe beforehand. Seems like a cruel joke to me..

but what's easier? making up your own beliefs, or following someone elses? but it probably doesn't matter, if the shirt is the wrong size.





Good question....

I think keeping an open mind is harder than both of those..

I guess Davo, what you're asking is whether or not you believe in Sartrian Existentialism. This is basically the idea that we have ultimate and total control and responsibility for our lives. We choose to walk across the street, and if some bum runs the red light and runs you over, it is YOUR fault according to Sartre.

I do tend to lean towards Existentialism but disagree with several of its other main pillars. Anyways, I don't think we will ever know. What really matters is what we want to be true. Some people feel intoxicated byt hte idea of not having total sovereignty over yourself, of not having total freedom of choice (I am fairly close to this). Then there are others that find peace in knowing that what happens to them is out of their control, that their fate is sealed and it is only up to them to accept and come to terms with that. Neither option is better than the other, it really just depends on what you feel you need.

The central premise about the paradox of cause and effect, destiny and decision is that your decisions are a product of the experiences, instinct and circumstances that brought to the point of the decision. The fatalists among us would tell you that there is no choice but that the outcome is predetermined based on the preceding events... ie when you think you are making a choice you are merely acting out a script because the very decision is not a random event.

Consider one of my friends who considers herself someone spontaneous and makes decisions at a whim - that very behaviour in itself becomes predictable and her predisposition and belief that she has a free choice makes her apparent unpredictability and unreliability something that we have come to expect. You could argue her attempts at randomness are part of a bigger pattern of choosing a certain path and are not random at all. She surmises that she does not want to feel trapped by her environment but her randomness places on a certain path.

Another school of thought is that there is randomness and noise in the exercise of events. You have to have possess a certain dispassionate sense of fatalism to think that life is simply a series of connected events with no other end game - something I don't subscribe to. There are certain moments in life - not everyday where the path you travel down provides a choice. There are enough of these to alter the path to your final destination which in the end is the same.

First of all, I do agree with your idea that nothing in choice is truly random or independent. Everything we choose to do yes is somehow conneted to preivious experiences, the older you get the more complex these influences are. But then again, are choice and influence mutually exclusive?

Here's what Sartre would say:
While previous events may have had influence on your life, the fact that you are aware of the possible spontaneity of your actions is in itself essential. That is, as he illustrated in "nausee", if you walk to the edge fo cliff and look down, you will most likely feel sick. The reason for this is that you are not afraid of a wind coming and blowing you off, you are afraid of the fact that at that moment, you have total control over you life. That awareness of your freedom is sickening.

So basically, yes, past experience does influence your action, but what was important according to Sartre was that there existed that "reflected conscience" that we were aware of the fact that we do have ultimate control over lives, not that our lives are the product of totally random decisions. So we may lead very predicatable lives whether it be get up, work, eat, sleep or more like that of your friend. Your firend is still choosing to live that way, and is therefore controling her destiny.

But then you start getting into the idea of whether or not we are controlled by the thoughts of others, basically if we are the product of our peers or not. That your friend has created a spontaneous image and is therefore "pressured" by you to maintain that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that seems to me that that was what you were talking about.

but what's easier? making up your own beliefs, or following someone elses?I'd say the latter, because you don't have to think on your own. Though I don't think that it is possible to think entirely independently of society.

I consider "destiny" to be a term used in retrospect to make sense of the consequence of an action. I can say that I was "destined" for such and such event, or that such and such an experience was "destined" to occur only after the fact. The destiny of man's "final end," which rays08 equated to death in his last post, can also only be determined after the fact. In this case, since the person in question does not exist (at least on this plane of existence), another individual must determine the destiny of the deceased.

The similarities between history and destiny should then become apparent. Both hold that cause-and-effect relationships occur. Both hold that a consequence can be traced back to certain factors. The Treaty of Versailles led to the discontentment of the German people which led to World War II, and me hitting a baseball at a person killed them. Sure, the outcome is pre-determined, but can only be predetermined after the fact. You can't write a book of history about the future. You can only speculate. It's the same way with destiny.

The only real difference between the history and destiny is that history tends to focus on the larger scale phenomena of large groups of people, whereas destiny tends to apply more on an individual basis. But this is only semantical convention.

I'd say the latter, because you don't have to think on your own. Though I don't think that it is possible to think entirely independently of society.

I consider "destiny" to be a term used in retrospect to make sense of the consequence of an action. I can say that I was "destined" for such and such event, or that such and such an experience was "destined" to occur only after the fact. The destiny of man's "final end," which rays08 equated to death in his last post, can also only be determined after the fact. In this case, since the person in question does not exist (at least on this plane of existence), another individual must determine the destiny of the deceased.

The similarities between history and destiny should then become apparent. Both hold that cause-and-effect relationships occur. Both hold that a consequence can be traced back to certain factors. The Treaty of Versailles led to the discontentment of the German people which led to World War II, and me hitting a baseball at a person killed them. Sure, the outcome is pre-determined, but can only be predetermined after the fact. You can't write a book of history about the future. You can only speculate. It's the same way with destiny.

The only real difference between the history and destiny is that history tends to focus on the larger scale phenomena of large groups of people, whereas destiny tends to apply more on an individual basis. But this is only semantical convention.

I get how you are applying your idea of destiny, but I'm not sure that I fully understand your idea of destiny. From what I understand, your are defining destiny as we usually think of it, but then go on to say that we can only know of it after the fact. I guess what I don't understand is how you know that there is destiny. What I think you've done is stated something that is true, that we cannot accurately predict the future everytime that we only learn of it ipso facto, but then assumed the "causation" of the actions in the sense that the action was destined. I'm not sure that I see your basis for why those events were "destined" or "pre-determined"