Just wondering what people's views on Destiny/Free Will are.
I believe that people can control their fate, that not everything is a predetermined sequence of events. It has been shown that believing in something strongly enough can make that something happen, however improbable it may be. A study has shown that patients in a hospital who are prayed for have a better chance of recovery. The human mind can influence things in a non-predetermined way.
Issac Asminov wrote a trilogy about something he called phycho-history. It concerns the calculations of how a large group of people will act, mob psychology in a way. The actions of a large group could be calculated, but the calculations could always be thrown off if an individual with enough conviction/belief appeared to change the psychology.
Even if humans are bound by destiny, I believe that humans would eventually become aware of it and break the hold that 'destiny' would have. Like the way humans can fight down INSTINCTS in favor of being CIVILIZED. The instincts of an animal will always drive it the same way. A human can change that, the same way a human can change it's fate.
Attack this all you want! My only reservation being that you attack my ideas, not my words or my analogies.