Casualty or destiny?

[argonauta]

So, which one do you believe in? or maybe a mix or both?

I was thinking about this quite a bit. For example, you leave your keys on the same spot everyday, but one day, say, your grandma calls making you answer the phone and leave your keys next to the phone. The next day you wake up, don't remember where you left your keys, and looking for them takes you 5 mins, and gets you behind scheduled. You then go in your car, and drive, and when you reach the highway there's a huge accident, in which you could have been if you didn't misplaced the keys last night. Is that casualty or destiny, or none?

I'm still not quite sure what to believe, but I think those type of 'casual' things happen quite often.

Another, similar, type of event is 'life' providing you with unrelated information for you to use in later events. For example: you're browsing the interweb, and some article catches your eye. You read it, and now you know something you didn't know before, but it was something you weren't looking for, and something you weren't interested in before reading that article. Then, the next day, say, you're watching a movie, and in that movie they make the reference to that something you read yesterday. That reference could have gone unnoticed, but because you read that article yesterday, now you pay attention to it. Is that just casualty? Or maybe because you relate what you just learn with what you're living on the moment, so you tend to find signs everywhere?

I think I'm more inclined to believe that everything happens for a reason. No proof of that, it might just be faith, but that makes me believe that sometimes bad things are needed for something good to happen.

Maybe it's just our need to feel special, and not to realize that it'd make no difference if we existed or not.

So, what do you think?

[Frets]

Forest Gump and The Matrix say you can have it both ways.

The only destiny I know of is we are all going to die.

Causaltiy states that things happen for a reason as well.
We may not know the reason only means we can not explain it.

Religion by definition is a means to explain things.
It may not be the correct explanation. It may be the most convient a the time. Death is a scary thought not for others but for you. One way to put you at peace about dying is to say. Don't worry there's an afterlife you won't be totally dead.

When I die I'll be totally dead. I can leave a will I can build myself a monument I can bear children. My kids won't be me, my monument to myself won't be me my will won't be parsing out bits of things I've owned won't be me. I share that same destiny with every single living thing. Trees have a life then die, Solar systems collapse.

[CVO Chris]

Casualty? The place you go when you have an accident? Don't you mean coincidence?

I had the strange phenomena yesterday of going to phone someone and just as I approached the phone/went to get it out of my pocket they called me. Rarely happens at the best of times but yesterday it happened 3 times in a row. Different thing altogether but it's just a fluke which is the same way I view what you mentioned.

Regarding the traffic accident scenario: another way to look at it is instead of being in it you may have prevented the whole thing from happening had you of been on time. I believe in destiny to a certain extent but I don't think it swings on the balance of trivial things such as forgetting your keys.

[jAQUAN]

It's pure coincidence. You can apply what ever level of perceived value makes you feel better but it just pure chance. I understand the desire to pull a couple of these things together and create some sort of precognitive life but it just not cost effective.
The brother of one of my colleagues has a doctorate in math and has been trying to form proofs through the use of dualities.
IMO its just not practical in our current state of evolution. One could spend an entire life attempting to learn all the nuances of cause and effect, or you just spend a little time building up your ability to react logically to anything.

[tidenburg]

That wouldn't be a very good reason for me to believe everything happens for a reason. You just need to understand "cause and effect" and then realise that the effect will often be the cause for another and so on and so on. Some pretty significant stuff can happen like your first example but these rarely occur in the average persons life (or at least without them realising.

[Frets]

As stated

it is just not practical in our current state of evolution. One could spend an entire life attempting to learn all the nuances of cause and effect, or you just spend a little time building up your ability to react logically to anything.

Humans really had no clue about gravity till Newton. Somehow we managed our daily lives without Newton. So did other animals including birds.

Someday (if humans live that long) everything we now think we know may be irrelevant because of advances in science. That's progress.

[robbmcaulay]

I had a dream last night that my flatmate came into the room all sweaty (easy now) and that he wiped his face on a particular cusion. I remember somebosy in the dream said "nice, we're gonna have to clean that now"

Then when I woke up, the said sweaty flatmate was stripping the cushions with intentions to clean them... FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. wtf.

I don't really like to overthink these things, and I won't be chirping into this thread, I just thought this was weird... *over*

[ViRGo_RK]

Argo, the instance you gave, I think simply the info prevalent in the movie only catches your attention now because you know it, so it's already on your radar. Therefore making it seem somewhat thematic, it may only be a coincidence brought forward to your conscious as a significant event. Had you not seen it on the internet previously, it'd just be another blip in the movie.

[jAQUAN]

As stated


Humans really had no clue about gravity till Newton. Somehow we managed our daily lives without Newton. So did other animals including birds.

Someday (if humans live that long) everything we now think we know may be irrelevant because of advances in science. That's progress.

I'm not saying research is pointless. Hell I'd fund any lab study if only to add to the list of things that don't work. I'm just saying over analyzing every event in an attempt to derive deep meaning might be intangible in the average modern life span.

[Frets]

Dude ever listen to college girls chat.

They spend hours and hours trying to analyze things with no analytical ability.
To them everything has a reason and trust me the reasoning is not based on imperical knowledge.

[jAQUAN]

Don't get me started on female reasoning. I've found its safe to post fix "but that doesn't mean I don't love you." onto every thing I say.

[argonauta]

It's pure coincidence. You can apply what ever level of perceived value makes you feel better but it just pure chance. I understand the desire to pull a couple of these things together and create some sort of precognitive life but it just not cost effective.

I do agree with that. You could relate two completely unrelated events, no matter what they are, as long as you want to do that. For example, you could reach the conclussion that the only reason you were born is because a bomb in Hiroshima exploded 50 years ago. If that hadn't happen, you wouldn't be here today.

Religion by definition is a means to explain things.

While that may be true, it doesn't mean that all means to explain things are religion. Believing in something isn't always a religion.

I would actually say that explaining things is part of human nature. That's why we find patterns everywhere, and try to relate them to us. That's why we like to look at the clouds and find forms in the clouds. What you see depends on your background though. Someone might see Jesus, and someone else will see the shape of a penis instead.

Even kids go and find explanations for everything surrounding their world, usually dumb and wrong explanations by the time you grow up, but when you were a kid, they made total sense. The thing is, the more you know, you realize you don't know anything at all.

Someday (if humans live that long) everything we now think we know may be irrelevant because of advances in science. That's progress.

Science sometimes trusts serendipity. LSD, for example, was discovered by chance. Progress might also be the result of pure coincidence.

Also, if everything we now right now might be wrong, or just a minimal percentage of what we should know, then how we go on? should we just wait till progress meets us, or should we try to explain the things we don't know, and work on them, try to see the errors in them, fix them, dump them, corroborate them?

[Frets]

Same way we always have.

The fierce battle of if the universe is steady state or expanding/collapsing has had what impact on our daily lives?

We accept what is known till there is significant evidence which contradicts it.
Bloodletting was very common thought to be a way of purging impurities from the body. This went on till some figured out the idea was pure quackery.

The next microwave oven could revolutionize the way we cook eat and have sex. Some may not like the way of having sex has changed. and may not buy it. Some may not like the new microwaves way of cooking and prefer our current microwave method. The world will not stop using microwaves waiting for the hope of different sex.

[ViRGo_RK]

I'm fairly sure one of the few constants throughout the years has been the way people have sex....

Sure there's been add-ons and adjustments, but the principles have remained the same.

[FlashLackey]

Believing in something isn't always a religion.

Are you sure? By definition, it seems that believing in something, whatever it is, is religion.

[koolbabs2000]

I'm fairly sure one of the few constants throughout the years has been the way people have sex....

- Well only the holes have changed ! he he he !!!

[koolbabs2000]

And that definitely is a CASUALTY !!!

[gerbick]

- Well only the holes have changed ! he he he !!!

Oh, that's where the fourth hole is, right there. Right there in the back of the knee.

[Googooboyy]

My religion teaches me destiny, which is a consequence of casualty. So I reason that destiny is a correlation of casualty, and I've grown to undoubt both.

But we can never really get to an answer because no one tells the future with 100% accuracy. It'll be really scary if anyone ever does, and if anyone ever does, I don't think I'd wanna know and spoil the excitement~

[ViRGo_RK]

If one can predict the future, one can change it, this canceling out their prediction. Therefore it'd be not only futile, but probably cause a black hole.