Fate

For other uses, see Fate (disambiguation).

For other uses of "Fate," see Fate

Destiny refers to a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual. It is a concept based on the belief that there is a fixed natural order to the universe.

Different concepts of destiny and fate

Destiny may be envisaged as fore-ordained by the Divine (for example, the Protestant concept of predestination) or by human will (for example, the American concept of Manifest Destiny).

A sense of destiny in its oldest human sense is in the soldier's fatalistic image of the "bullet that has your name on it" or the moment when your number "comes up," or a romance that was "meant to be." The human sense that there must be a hidden purpose in the random lottery governs the selection of Theseus to be among the youths to be sacrificed to the Minotaur. Many Greek legends and tales teach the futility of trying to outmaneuver an inexorable fate that has been correctly predicted.

Destiny may be seen as a fixed sequence events that is inevitable and unchangeable, or that individuals choose their own destiny by choosing different paths throughout their life.

Destiny in literature and popular culture

This form of irony is important in Greek tragedy, as it is in Oedipus Rex and the Duque de Rivas' play that Verdi transformed into La Forza del Destino ("The Force of Destiny") or Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey, or in Macbeth's knowledge of his own destiny, which does not preclude a horrible fate.

Other notable examples include Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'urbervilles, in which Tess is destined to the miserable death that she is confronted with at the end of the novel; the popular short story "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs; and the M. Night Shyamalan film Signs. Destiny is a recurring theme in the literature of Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), including Siddhartha (1922) and his magnum opus, Das Glasperlenspiel also published as The Glass Bead Game (1943).The common theme of these works is a protagonist who cannot escape a destiny if their fate has been sealed, however hard they try. Destiny is also an important plot point in the hit TV show Lost, as well a common theme is Roswell.

Divination of destiny

Some believe that one's destiny may be ascertained by divination. In the belief systems of many cultures, one's destiny can only be learned about through a shaman, babalawo, prophet, sibyl, saint or seer. In the Shang dynasty in China, turtle bones were thrown ages before the I Ching was codified. Arrows were tossed to read destiny, from Thrace to pagan Mecca. In Yoruba traditional religion, the Ifá oracle is consulted via a string of sixteen cowries or oil-palm nuts whose pattern when thrown on to a wooden tray represents the 256 possible combinations whose named "chapters" are recited and verses interpreted for the client by the babalawo. The Ifa Divination system was added in 2005 to the UNESCO list of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Destiny versus fate

Although the words are used interchangeably in many cases, fate and destiny can be distinguished. Modern usage defines fate as a power or agency that predetermines and orders the course of events. Fate defines events as ordered or "meant to be." Fate is used in regard to the finality of events as they have worked themselves out, and that same finality is projected into the future to become the inevitability of events as they will work themselves out. In classical and Eureopean mythology, there are three goddessess dispensing fate known as Moirae in Greek mythology, Parcae in Roman mythology, and Norns in Norse mythology, who determinted the events of the world. One word derivative of "fate" is "fatality" another "fatalism." Fate implies no choice, and ends with a death. Fate is an outcome determined by an outside agency acting upon a person or entity; but with destiny the entity is participating in achieving an outcome that is directly related to itself. Participation happens wilfully.

Used in the past tense, "destiny" and "fate" are both more interchangeable, both imply "one's lot" or fortunes, and includes the sum of events leading up to a currently achieved outcome (e.g. "it was her destiny to be leader" and "it was her fate to be leader").

Destiny and Kismet

The word "Kismet" (alt., rarely, "Kismat") derives from the Arabic word "qismah," and entered the English language via the Turkish word "qismet" meaning either "the will\save Allah" or "portion, lot or fate." In English, the word is synonymous with "Fate" or "Destiny."

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Cornelius, Geoffrey, C. (1994). "The Moment of Astrology: Origins in Divination," Penguin Group, part of Arkana Contemporary Astrology series.

See also

• Amor fati
• Causality
• Determinism
• Divine Providence
• Fatalism
• Omniscience
• Predestination

External links

• Destiny and Free Will
• Dictionary of the History of Ideas: "Fortune, Fate & Chance"
• Destiny re-definied — Edge Life Magazine
• What is Destiny
• Destiny and Its Correction

Template:Cleanup Fatalism is commonly referred to as "the doctrine that all events are subject to fate or inevitable predetermination."

More precisely, it can refer to at least one of three interrelated ideas:-

1. That there is no free will, and everything including human actions, could only have happened as it did. This version of fatalism is very similar to determinism.
2. That although human actions are free, they are nonetheless ineffectual in determining events, because "whatever will be will be".This version of fatalism is very similar to predestination.
3. That an attitude of inaction and passive acceptance, rather than striving, is appropriate. This version of fatalism is very similar to defeatism.

Determinism, fatalism and predestination

The level of equivalence between determinism, fatalism and predestination is open to dispute. Determinism and predestination differ on the status of free will. Some fatalists deny that fatalism as a fact implies defeatism as an attitude, or put a positive interpretation on the acceptance of one's fate (amor fati).

Determinism should not be mistaken for fatalism. Although determinists accept that the future is, in some sense, set, they accept that human actions affect what happens - even though those human actions are themselves determined; if they had been different, the future would also be different.

In other words, determinists think the future is fixed because of causality, whereas (predestinarian) fatalists think it is fixed in spite of causality. Determinists think that if the past had been different, the present would have been different (although for them the idea that anything could have been different is purely hypothetical and not a real possibility). Fatalists think that even if you could change the present or the past, the future would still be the same. Human actions are for determinists merely a special case of the dependence of the future on the present and past, and have no special properties beyond that.

The idle argument

One ancient argument for fatalism, called the idle argument, went like this:

• If it is fated for you to recover from your illness, then you will recover whether you call a doctor or not.
• Likewise, if you are fated not to recover, you will not do so even if you call a doctor.
• It is either fated that you will recover from your illness, or that you will not recover from your illness.
• So, calling a doctor makes no difference.

Arguments like the above are usually rejected even by causal determinists, who may say that it may be determined that only a doctor can cure you. There are other examples that show clearly that human deliberation makes a big difference - a chess player who deliberates should usually be able to defeat one of equal strength who is only allowed one second per move.

The logical argument

Arguments for fatalism, although rarely accepted, do have a bearing on discussions about the nature of truth. The logical argument for fatalism says that, if there will be a sea battle tomorrow, and someone says "there will be a sea battle tomorrow" then that sentence is true, even before the sea battle occurs. But given that the sentence is true, the sea battle could not fail to take place. This argument can be rejected by denying that predictions about the future have to be true or false when they are made - ie, rejecting bivalence for sentences about the future, though this is controversial.

See also

• Accidental Necessity
• Amor fati
• Defeatism
• Determinism
• Insha'Allah
• Open theism

External links

• Fatalism, from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Fatalism vs. Free Will from Project Worldview

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