Destiny is a reality.

Well, it is obviously fruitless to debate further with you. Pleasure to meet you. BTW...no evidence exists for a supreme being, perhaps you should tell your overlord that one. Especially considering he wants us to believe with no evidence, but gave us minds for evaluating evidence. Thank you for wasting the time of everyone involved in this conversation.

Maybe it is your destiny to fuck off?Edited by Larni, : More polition

This just goes to show how foolish you guys are.You attempt to diagnose someone based off of his choice of words from the internet.You stoop to his level when he starts bullshitting people.You cuss more than he does.And most importantly, you just won't accept the fact that some people are simply better than others.Anybody want to start a debate about abortion? I am for it.trollface

Outside of my signature...where did I cuss when asking you to clarify your position? I believe I told you pleasure to meet you...is that a diagnosis? No, I continued to ask for clarification of your stance, which you have not dealt with in any of your responses to these messages. Rather, you have taken your idea to ridiculous extremes, which only serves to show how ludicrous your proposition is. Well, this just seems like you want to treat others as less because they are not as good as you. That is a terrible viewpoint, and one I would say borders on the lack of humanity you tried to place at the feet of atheists. Not in this thread as that would be off topic, which is against the rules of this forum. I'd prefer you start your topic on atheism considering your lack of understanding of what being an atheist entails.As for the premise of this thread...you have yet to differentiate destiny/purpose from simply using prior knowledge to make educated decisions about the direction to take one's life. The only way of recognizing a Purpose is to use hindsight, which falls under the same problems that Nostradamus' accuracy or Biblical Codes do. Until you can find a way to separate your meaning of destiny from the myriad of other possible explanations, it is meaningless to discuss. If you want to believe that your sky daddy gave you a purpose, feel free. personally, I'll look to the human condition, my past, and whatever education I can gain to do the best I can for our species. Edited by Tempe 12ft Chicken, : No reason given.

Heh...Um, I don't know if you're saying I actually got it right and I do understand you, or if you're making fun of me

No worries, it's just a discussion board.
Sorry if I came off all authoritative and junk, it wasn't my intention.

You got it right. You pretty much took what was in my mind and put it properly on text, in a way that the others would've been able to understand better, compared to my vaguer statements. lol. Thanks.

You do realize that what Stile said is exactly what I am questioning from you? Do I think that everyone has a future that will make them happy? Yes, but to consider it a purpose or destiny implies some sort of outside force that ensures the individual reaches or does not reach the goal, depending on circumstances. This is why I have been asking you to differentiate between "something that we as humans use our own logic and reason to determine the path that makes the most sense for us based on previous experience and lessons" when compared with "something that someone else planned for you, regardless of whether or not you will attain it."If you mean the former, then first off there is no need for a divine force controlling our destinies, but rather we are personally in charge of doing what makes the most logical sense for each individual's current situation. Second off, I could agree with this in the fact that I do think each individual has some future on this Earth that would make them truly happy. However, if you mean the latter, than I have to disagree because if it was preplanned, the only way to know that you achieved your destiny is in hindsight, which is a terrible way to verify that your path was preordained. You're already there, everything will seem to have conspired to get you there.....because you're there.If that makes sense?

It's almost making sense. Not completely yet, but I'm getting it.So like, I actually believe the latter. God Himself, in my opinion, determines what we should do. And then, either we do what we should do, thereby fulfilling our destinies, or we don't, thereby not fulfilling and ending up becoming miserable losers.For example, I genuinely believe that I, Bee Brian, am destined to be a leader of sorts. I exaggerate things by saying, "OMG, I CAN RULE THE WORLD! TROLLOLOLOL" But in a way, it's sincere.

So we have over 40 messages on this thread based on a mistaken use of words to mean something that they don't mean in normal usage.Amusing, but not a good start.Enjoy

The two things that you mentioned, now that I think deeper into it...Here's what I think...Believing that your purpose is the way it is because God said so is equal to UNHATCHED EGG.Believing that your purpose is the way it is because God's creations determined so (like you got traumatized, inspired, promoted, etc) is equal to BABY CHICKEN.To go even further, believing that you yourself determines your purpose is ROOSTER/HEN.There comes a point in a person's life where he or she thinks, "You know what? It's about time I take responsibility for my life." However, I think it takes a TREMENDOUS amount of maturity for that person to say something like that and mean it.I'm just a 23-year old man. I'm not a sage. Therefore, I'm an unhatched egg.

Hi there, and thank you.

Okay, now we can at least move forward a little bit in the discussion. Sometimes, getting an understanding of what the other is saying takes time, no need to resort to making random comments that do not further the discussion, ya know?Using your example of you were destined to lead...What if you got a job leading (either a large corporation, a country, or even the world), but found that the job did not fulfill you in any meaningful way? Would you remain in the job because it was your destiny (which you stated was preordained by God) or would you rather live a purposeful and happy life finding something that you do actually enjoy?Using my music example for myself. If it was God's intention that I become a band director in High School, am I not refusing his supposed destiny because I found it unenjoyable in practice? In this scenario, is my purpose still what I had felt strongly it was for over twenty years, or am I actually changing my own individual purpose/destiny by deciding that happiness in a career is more important than following a preordained plan? This change in a plan should, according to you, leave me unfulfilled and ending up miserable, yet the actual task I had strived to achieve was making me miserable already. In this scenario.....how does one know it is their destiny/purpose from an outside source outside of hindsight when they actually achieve happiness?

And this is the aspect that I buy into. We determine what has worth in our lives and we make our decisions based on previous experience. Whether or not we want to accept it is our burden...we are ultimately responsible for finding our own purpose. Having one preordained runs the risk of having a purpose an individual does not enjoy and that seems cruel of an outside preordainer (if you will), especially considering the vast numbers of individuals on this Earth, many of whom may have enjoyed the purpose one individual was forced into. If there is not a way to differentiate between "God-given" and "Human-earned", then the argument becomes moot because, as seen with Bible Codes, anything can be made to fit a prediction after the fact, the key is predicting before the fact. The number of individuals who express dissatisfaction with work situations regularly shows me that purpose seems to be more human-driven.

I'll use myself again as an example.In a school, I was a class representative and teacher assistant. I was also the Volleyball coach.But I'll focus on the former two here...I was, in a way, MISERABLE when I had those jobs. I had to deal with incredibly immature people of my own age group. I had to be the more grown up person in order to do my job.But although I was "miserable," I was very fulfilled.I think I should've differentiated pain and a lack of pleasure against misery. Misery is bad, pain is good. Pain makes us stronger.Pain is when our wives nag at us, yet we tolerate it, because we know that this beautiful woman is the same woman who will give us warmth and love... and lots and lots of pleasure.See it yet?