Thread: Coincidence or Fate?

If you think about it only one of them can exist. If there is luck there is no fate, if there is fate there is no luck.

Luck

At times I have felt lucky, seeing things happening almost in the way and at the time I wanted it to. My definition of luck is things going your way when you most expect it not to. I was definitely late for college leaving at the time I did, I got on my bus, plugged in my iPod and got lost somewhere and to my amazement when I woke up I had ages left until college started.
Luck is getting into the shower at 4 in the morning and still getting warm water (Those living in England might know what I mean ). Luck is suddenly getting super fast reflexes when your precious Galaxy S2 is about to fall from your hands.

Is it all really luck though?


Fate

I haven't yet felt like I have some sort of fate or destiny but sometimes I have these sort of dreams, more like premonitions of something that hasn't happened yet - when I do get them I make nothing of it as it doesn't make any sense but at times weeks go by and I experience that exact same moment I dreamt about, these moments I dream about are very brief, I don't feel like I dreamt it so I could change something, it feels like I accidentally pressed the forward button or something as when that moment comes my only reaction is .

I know for sure that I am not the only person that has these kinds of dreams as I have discussed it with many of my friends and they too have experienced the same thing.


What are your thoughts on the matter - Luck or Fate?

Do talk about your experiences involving these dreams/premonitions as I find them very interesting!

I don't believe in fate, the whole idea that your life is already decided and written out before you're even born seems somehow medieval. The thought that a person can't change the course of his/her own life is one that depressed people often have. Makes you feel very powerless, the thought that no matter what you do, nothing will change. This is linked closely to self-worth - if your actions don't matter, your whole existence starts to seem insignificant. Seeing that you are not worthless and that your actions actually mean something and can make a difference are very important in recovering and starting to build up your life again, piece by piece.

I haven't had premonitions in the form of dreams, but I've had these things where you clearly hear someone coming home... and a couple of minutes (anywhere from 3 to 15 mins) later the person actually comes home. I've also had dreams where I wake up, take a shower, eat breakfast etc. and then when I wake up I'm actually not sure if I really did all that and then fell asleep again or if it was just a dream. :P

I agree Kiel, one would feel very powerless knowing there is nothing to change our fate but then again who knows of their fate? People tend to think that fate is just their current situation - it isn't, it is a learning curve that affects what you will do next and what you will become. I see many people consulting Psychics and those people on random channels who say they can tell your future by paying a little price, I don't believe them at all and they have been proven wrong many times. I don't know much about the predicting of fate but I am on both sides at the moment as there is no answer to this question.

However, something that makes me feel like fate does exist is the Matrix - a brilliant movie if people don't just focus on the actions. Although it seems you have a choice you can only make one and that choice may have already been made for you.

I have those dreams too, sometimes I don't even know if something was a dream or reality, I even go ask my friends if they remember the time when so and so happened only to realise it was just a dream lol, so embarrassing when they say awwww you've been dreaming about mee!

I think fate is a theory made to bring meaning to everything. If something unfortunate happens and it can not be understood by humans, some people often tries to explain it in metaphysical terms. Some things can only make sense, if the explanation is 'destiny'. Fate is often a part of religion and the main purpose of religion is (in my opinion) to give life a meaning. If a man is dying at a hospital and the doctors already have him declared dead, but still survives and is going to be fine, we can not fully understand it. Against all odds the man survives. Maybe it was his 'destiny' to live, or was it?
If we consider luck to be the answer to things that doesn't make sense, we haven't really found the answer we was looking for. Sometimes i think it can be more satisfying to create a parallel metaphysical reality, which we can not see, but we still have to respect.
I do not believe in fate myself, so i will agree we you two guys and consider the meaningless luck as the primary answer to things we can not understand.

Everything is pretty much random, but we fear that randomness and uncertainty, so we create superstitious concepts like fate, luck and etc.

I like your answer Azitox, I too believe in randomness! I guess us humans like to give reason to everything :L
Is it wrong to believe in all 3?

I believe in what I would call fate, but not in the sense that many others believe fate to be. People tend to point to this thing called fate when talking about gleaming into the future. Or maybe talking romantically about meeting someone, or missing a airplane flight that crashed, etc etc.

All I believe 'fate' to be is the idea that something was bound to happen, given the circumstances.

Example: Why did the grate on the ground suddenly break as Joe Blow walked on it, leading him to fall to his death?

Here is a seemingly random event. However upon closer examination... If you could see all the factors that would determine when it would break, then it would have no other choice to break precisely when it did. You would have to consider if there were any manufacturing flaws, the type of material used to make it, how many people walked on it before him, the weight of the people that walked on it before you and the force in which they were walking... and of course all of those things are the way they were because of something else. For instance the peoples weight would have been a factor off of various life events, and their genetic makeup, upbringing etc.

Its quite literally impossible to figure out all the reasons something happened, but it doesn't mean that there wasn't thousands of things that lead to everything that happens. Now THAT is what I would call fate or maybe inevitability. =)