Fate vs. Karma vs. God's Will

[Mendalla]

Three concepts that are kind of in a similar space, but don't all mean quite the same thing.

Fate is a strong line in Western thought going back to at least the classical Greeks, probably much earlier. It basically says everyone, even deities, are bound by a force of nature that guides and controls their lives. It says we have no control over events in the end. Predestination for sure (destiny is a related concept) and probably predeterministic in many manifestations. Stoicism is pretty much defined by a belief in fate and that how we live and react to that fate is what matters, since our choices and decisions don't necessarily matter on a big scale.

Karma has an element of Fate in it, but we do have some control over it, too. This concept from Eastern philosophical and religious traditions says that how we live now affects our future lives and selves. So if am a total a**hole in this life, maybe I will be somehow under the control of a person like me in my next incarnation. We do have some control but not over our present life. And what we do today can affect us in multiple incarnations down the road. So Fate based on our past lives, which means can make things better for our future selves. Of course, Buddhism teaches that by following the teachings of Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha, we can get out of that neverending chain of incarnations. Some Hindu schools have similar teachings, too.

God's Will comes from the Abrahamic traditions and basically says that events that happen beyond our control are the will of Yahweh, God the Father, Allah, or whatever name our tradition of choice uses. Like Fate, we may have little or no control, save to accept God's will for us and live in accordance with it. Like Karma, God's will may be affected by how we live, believe, worship. It remains beyond our control, but we can maybe hope to influence God to favour or help us. Or not. For instance, if you accept the predestination of strong Calvinism, your ability to affect God's Will for your life is pretty limited. Again, it's more about living in accordance with God's Will, making it once more akin to Fate. I would argue that God's Will in this type of thought is really a modern, religious form of Fate.

The strong determinist strain in modern secular thought, mostly a result of recognizing how powerful things like the standard model, relativity, and genetics are on our lives, is kind of a modern take on Fate, replacing Fate as a force of nature itself with Fate as the consequence of living in a universe governed by deterministic principles. There are, however, weaker versions of this scientific determinism that see room for individual control in things like the uncertainty principle.

So what say WC2? Do you adhere to any of these deterministic philosophies? Why? How does it impact your daily life, morals, etc.? What other options do you know of?

 

[Mendalla]

I remain a bit at sea on this. To some degree, I agree with the scientific determinism version of Fate. How we live really is heavily shaped by our genes, upbringing, environment, etc. We certainly can make choices about our lives, but if we analyze deeply, we often find that we can trace the reasons for those choices to things in our background. In an essay for a philosophy class in university, I called it "choosing determined options", reflecting that our actual choices are limited by this background and environment, so that there may be options we simply don't know or don't consider because of that environment. Sometimes those limitations are obvious, as in someone with a particular disability not being able to choose to play a particular sport where that physical ability matters. Sometimes, though, they are buried deep in our DNA or mind so we aren't even aware of them. We think we have free will, but are really caught within guardrails that we don't even perceive unless we spend some time reflecting on them.

So maybe not Fate in the classical sense and maybe 100% determinist, but certainly not total free will, and probably leaning heavily to some kind of deterministic framework within which that "free will" operates.

 

[Mendalla]

Yes, I chose to start this thread because we haven't really tackled any "big questions" in a while. But was I fated to post it? Did my background make me more prone to this decision? Or was it a free choice?

 

[Luce NDs]

Now this hints of a domain hosting both logic and a countering state that is illogical. I know determined personalities that would claim they have control of such domains when one of the two seems across a barrier that is intransient from our present status as being extremely determined and refusing the possibility of anything beyond their emotions ... emotions appearing to me to be fluid as people change their minds if finding themselves facing a difficult situation. Is there anything more challenging that this separation of logic and illogic so the coupling can moderate itself? Some coming together appears advantageous for a greater purpose than individual desires that tend to be delinquent on logic as logos ... that's the word on mortal chaos on such topics that might subjugate themselves to the separations and departures ...

How much would one need to learn to understand such epic divisions if we were contrary to the populace learning anything of that sort? Is such contrary's existent as something causing dissociations in the mind so one part could evaluate the other position? Thus abstract ...

There are powers absolutely against such variations ... these may be dark and mysterious and in our unconscious domains ... leading to desires to look into it ... if we get into the mystery would it be like nirvana and the real world would be obliterated for a term as if it became like a dream? Such are the occurrences when we drift a bit into the alien domain called psyche ... an item some determinants do not allowed as it would cause uncertainty and need for further evaluation ... authority would object to such wanderings of the essence of mortals that we don't really grasp ... perhaps because of infinite separations for the purpose of supporting alter truisms ... as laid out in the generation of what's mythical initially ... fuzzy logos ...

Could this be a result of bits of light scattered through the dark substance of illogic's? ... what is illogic being an unsettled matter ... and thus theoretical ... indeterminate? Like the end to what is out there for consumption from the dark unknown ... something to write home about ... if for nothing but to make something spin (may appear as English), but alas ... not!

@ Mendalla it appears you really wanted to start this thread into the things irresolvable given our limited knowledge about things far out ... like thoughts of political powers ... who usually avoid as many questions as they are able ... yet will swear to a gross number of things ...

I really would like to escape the pit that previous persons of great desire have positioned us in as a gravid spot ... these can divert light ... and I've been told not to go there for reason I cannot fathom ... other than to control thought! Thus heated spots in the infinite spectrum ... that may be quantum and sporadically scattered ... parallel to RAM? Counter to that an entirely different set of lines and connections ...

Consider the power of pardon without responsible nature being interred ... that result in raising odors ... sheer metaphor!

 

[Luce NDs]

Should fate or spirit demand that we should learn things to take the load from those that are out of it?

I wonder about mortal leaning towards learning and education as I see the stats about Legionnaires Disease breaking out in NY Cooling Towers. We devised means to avoid this complexity in the late 70's and yet we slip back into the situation. Does that define illogicality overcoming logos as the greater word has within it something that we seem blind to because we preferred to avoid something undefined? Indeterminates proliferate ...

Power appear to support dislocation of knowledge, information and anything connected ... thus disconnects! Alas I'm told not to be cynical because the powers prefer that position and thus I Sue as as Sous-la ... going down? This was once J' Su as slipped under a cover stone ... a grand myth as such stuff is shrouded ... laid out badly? Appears so as few grasped ... be d' eath of me on the heath ... bog folks? With some preservations ...

Is it an abstract such imaginary projections ... that is to say right out of a strange domain like a processing device centered on a brain (medical folk sometimes refer to this as the greatest gonad that needs to be connected for some stray logic ... maybe to string a myth together .. so powers could by pass it?

Isle Logic ... isolated and autonomous ... because it is difficult to say where that came from ... a very long fabrication!

Let us reconsider a great weaver ... a bird headed for paradise as a place beyond where we're at? Thus requirement for Nestorians ... them that squawk?

 

[Luce NDs]

The greater thing seems to go far beyond laws, regulations and religion as a fixation ... a hard case to catch up with ...

It is said that may will not see this as blinded by something or other ... alternate truth? In economy altruism or another place ...

This place seems to be based on the former lay out ... solid legality ... as I've found in concerting church covenants that detract from process of making live better for the disadvantaged for the advantage of few ... hard cases!

It is suggested that no one should pay taxes as it is inhibiting ... and we don't know much about the logic ...illogic blossoms!

Some say insanity is not even contagious ... that it may be genetic ... do you catch my drift? ST Up ide ... ide being an alien breeze ...

More Eire to expose ... as peeling off a scull cap ... taking me back to some bad circumstances ... a brain exposed to cynics?