Additional settings for Safari Browser.
Fate vs. Free Will
The Case for Freewill
Grace Coleman- Guest Writer
There is no such thing as fate. Our futures are completely undecided. It’s not written out in the stars; it’s not in a crystal ball or a set of cards. It’s not something we are destined for. There is no great prophecy we are to fulfill. Nothing is decided.
Instead of fate, we have free will. Free will, the ability to follow our desires, to make our own choices, and to change something around us. That is what shapes the world, not fate.
Think about it, if all was decided by fate, then there would be no moral responsibility. Our actions are predetermined, and there would be no pretending anything else. Therefore, none of our decisions have any weight. Can you imagine a criminal standing before a judge saying, “Your honor, I was fated to rob this house, and I had no choice otherwise.” The argument would never stand, and the very idea is ridiculous.
Since there is no fate, I don’t see anyone standing before onlookers, who watch in horror, in a panic screaming “I can’t control it!” I don’t see heroes looking into a camera saying, “It was to fulfill the prophecy.” What I do see is people making their own choices, consciously and fully aware of what they are doing. I see heroes choosing to put their own lives on the lines. I see broken people choosing to hurt those around them, rather than help and heal. People are using their free will to shape the world.
Are we really going to blame the tragedies and triumphs of the past on fate? Are we going to justify massacres and heartbreak with fate? Are we going to shrug the sacrifices of brave men and women off as fate? It was destined to happen; therefore, it doesn’t matter? Nothing anyone could have done? It would have happened anyway?
The world we live in is shaped by the free will humanity has. Free will is our ability to change. Fate is an excuse for the times we have fallen short. In reality, there is always a choice, whether we like it or not.
There is no fate. Nothing is decided.
The Case for Fate
Kamryn Guthrie- Guest Writer
Every day we live not knowing if we will wake up the next morning. We go to sleep expecting to wake up again but what if fate had other plans? Fate is the development of events beyond your control, whether you believe in fate one day fate will decide your day of death. But death is not the only place fate plays a role in, in everyday life there are simple events that are controlled by our fate. Simple thoughts or actions that you don’t have a reason for doing can lead to the best decisions we’ve ever made. One example for myself was when I was in middle school. There was a quiet girl who I kept trying to be friends with. It took me until I was a sophomore year in high school to successfully become friends with her but I can no longer imagine my life without her in it. I had no reason for wanting to become friends with her in the first place nor to try as hard as I did but those unexplainable feelings are what lead me to follow my fate.
Everyone has their own fate. Together they either collide and conjoin. Using the same example as before, my friend likes to be alone so she wasn’t trying to befriend me at the time. At that point our fate collided but after we realized we are friends with similar people and hung out ourselves our fates then conjoined. Regardless of the similarities in the outcome, it’s intentional for that person's fate to pan out that way. The only difference is that the development of our fate was achieved through different paths.
Faith and fate go hand in hand. Although faith is a sensitive topic, fate has become a big part of faith. Many religions that believe in fate; Christianity, Hinduism, fates in Greco-Roman mythology. For Christianity it is the will of God you follow. God will send trials to test your faith and tempt you to sin. All of these temptations sent your way are fate given from the Lord. For Hinduism fate is a belief that there is a certain way you need to act or events you need to overcome in order to achieve the fate set out for you from the gods. Even in ancient religions such as the Greco/Roman’s, they believed in the Moirai. The Greek Moirai are three sisters; Clotho (the spinner who spun the thread of life), Lachesis (the allotter who measured the threads of life and decided the events of a person’s life), and Atropos (the inflexible who cut the thread, symbolizing the end of life).
There is a common belief that the people in our lives are there to teach us a lesson. They are given to us so we can become better people. Whether they are in our lives for a long time or not, the time they are in our lives shouldn’t be taken for granted. The things we experience with them will become memories but it was thanks to fate that we got to spend our time together. Our fate leads us to the people in our lives and guides us to live a good life.