is everything pre-determined?.

[Lonnie]

Everything thats happened from the beginning of time,
Do you believe its pre-determined?.

And if it is, just how much control do we have over our own lives?.

[A.Guest]

Have you ever thought that life is ended: you have already lived and this is an action replay?

[naomi24]

I don't believe that anything is pre-determined. Life presents us with a continual series of choices, and our journey throughout our lives depends upon the choices we make.

[mibn2cweus]

Following on from Naomi's excellent lead:

Experience with, and knowledge about how reality works, (cause and effect, what sustains and promotes life, etc.), provides us with more options and a better understanding of which is the best choice to make when faced with a particular situation.

[keyplus90]

Life is not pre-determined as far as human knowledge is concerned. We have a limited control and free will. Within that limit we have choices and we make those choices according to how much we know about that specific matter. Now what choice would you make is known by the creator.

It is just like as parents should be able to predict about the choices their children will make out of given things. Human can try and there is no limit on trying. But result would be what you wanted, that is not always the case.

[naomi24]

If the result of your choice is not what you wanted, then you make another choice to change it.

[karmgirl]

I read mia dolans book can't think what its called but she aid that your life is predetermined before you are born

[naomi24]

And do you believe that, Karmgirl?

[chakka35]

Who or what is it that does the predetermining?

[123everton]

I don't think life is predetermined although I tend to feel the day it ends is already written, a bit like an invisible use by date printed on the inside of your head.
I tend a view life as a journey, to use an analogy I find easy, if I wanted to travel to KIrkby from Liverpool there are a number of choices I could take, I could get a 20, 21, 19, 17 or I could get the train or a taxi, I could stop halfway and go somewhere else and so on. But ultimately I'd have to get to Kirkby, so if Livepool is as birth so Kirkby is death (it's not far off, I've been there!) but upon reflection there are times in my life when I've felt something was just fated to happen.
If the cap fits wear it.

[chakka35]

All you're saying there, 123everton, is that we live and then eventually die. But we know that. But none of us know whether our final destination is Everton Road, Breckfield Road North, Walton Breck Road, Cabbage Hall, Clubmoor, Norris Green or what have you. So what are you trying to say?

And will someone please answer my question as to who or what is doing the predetermining.

[chakka35]

Sorry, I should have said 'none of us knows'

[Lonnie]

Thanks for all your answers.

Like some others on here, I think its a possibility that there is a Creator, (not the Biblical God), however, there are some that think that God, if he /she exsists, knows everything that is going to happen until the end of time, which says to me, that nothing can be changed,

Also, assuming that there really are people who can foretell the future, in dreams etc, that would reinforce it.

Okay, now your all free to pick holes in that

[123everton]

If Kirkby=death, the point was we always end up in Kirkby and we arrive there when our sell by date is reached some of us will get there 30 years time some of us tomorrow, but I tend to feel that the day and date in which you die is already written the journey you go on to get there is up to you.
But like I said earlier, I do sometimes feel the hand of fate.

[naomi24]

Everton, Surely the journey you choose to go on determines, to a degree, when you will die? For example it's your choice whether to to drink and smoke yourself to death. You'll die earlier if you do, and later if you don't. I don't understand how the date of your death can already be written. Where is written?

[naomi24]

Lonnie, I'll get back on your post. I need to think about that.

[Teddio]

The Laws of Physics could not have predicted the current state of the Universe from the initial set of conditions which initiated the Big Bang. There is no "Clockwork Universe" in which every event can be predicted.
So no, it's not pre-determined, but we still have a lot of control over our lives.

[naomi24]

Lonnie, you say that if everything is pre-determined, then nothing can be changed. That statement smacks of resignation and defeat, but it is up to us to change, to the best of our ability, what it is we're unhappy with. Obviously it's not always possible to change some aspects of our lives completely, but we can perhaps improve our situation, because we are able to make choices. If life is indeed pre-destined, then those choices will be what we are destined to make, so defeat and resignation are not necessarily our only options.

Now to your reference to people who can apparently foretell the future - and I'm not talking about Madam Zaza sitting at the end of the pier with her crystal ball. I believe we know a lot less than we realise about how the mind really works. My husband and I are often sitting quietly and suddenly we both begin to speak at the same time - and we both say exactly the same thing - and in the same words - and it's often nothing to do with our personal lives. It might be about something totally unrelated - something in the news, for example. . I'm sure many people have experienced similar. Is there some form of telepathic communication going on? Perhaps telepathy is a sixth sense. I think so - and I think this is what happens when people have precognitive dreams or appear to foretell the future. Perhaps these people pick up in some way on others hopes and fears. I really don't believe it's because our lives are pre-determined.

[jake-the-peg]

150 years ago it looked like everything was pre-ordained and that if you knew where every atom was and how it was moving that you could in principle predict where everything would end up.

That the entire Universe unwound like clockwork.

Since then 2 important discoveries were made.

The first was chaos theory. Some bodies like the weather are so sensitive to their starting conditions that you have to know everything to an infinite precision.

We also discoverred that at the subatomic level events are truely random. Einstein hated this - God does not play dice he said - but he was wrong!

Put these two things together and our lives are full of random events nothing is pre-ordained.

How much control we have is another factor - I'm not a brain specialist but watching people like Darren Brown makes me think we have a lot less control over our deciions than we think we do.

But that's a different issue to pre-destination

[Lonnie]

Hi naomi.
That an extremely well thought out reply,

The telepathic communication between two people, and i've also experienced that, can be taken as a good example, because if, and only if, everything is pre determined, then whats happened then, has already been planned, same as the times and frequencey you eat or drink. from the most major events, to the most trivial.

Foretelling the future, which really is what got me onto this, there have been occasions when people have dreamt plane crashes etc, before its happened, (they say), so it got me thinking, because you don't know if your right, until after the event, but if these people have told the truth, they've seen the future, and it can't be changed, which says to me, trivial as it may seem, this thread, and all the others, were pre planned by who or whatever is supposed to have created us.

To Quote the King,
'The worlds a stage, and we must all play a part', except that our stage, is at the end of Marrionettes strings.

Maybe Gods not dead, just a Sadist with a warped sense of humour.

My apologies for the tone of that.