A must do poll...[important]

Do you believe in Fate or do you believe in the ability to choose?

IE, do you believe that whatever happens is destiny? Or, do you believe that is a consequence of your choice.

I know many people are kind of in the middle, but I'd rather you picked one. Also, an explanation for what you think would be great too, because I am writing a paper on this and will need statistics and opinions.

Not quite a must do poll and is only important to you. Anyway I voted, hope it helps.

"The Ability To Choose" does not really relect my opinion, altho that's how I voted.

The ability to choose is not the opposite of fate.

We always have the ability to choose our courses of action, but what you're asking about are the results of our choices.

Anyway, I don't believe in "Fate". I believe that whatever happens to us throughout life are the consequences of our own actions.

Nothing is pre-ordained, and there are no mysterious or supernatural forces (read: God) which make us take the actions that we do.

But to imply that we "choose" what happens to us is not quite correct.

We choose to do what we do, but the consequences of our actions are often unpredictable and we're not necessarily choosing the results of what we do.

Philosophy class, huh?

For beginners and pot heads, sure.

I agree with plaw in that "We always have the ability to choose our courses of action." As a Christian I believe this (free will) but I also believe that in the larger picture, God helps us along the way so I voted for fate. If I ever get married I will credit it to God putting that woman in my life rather than the choice I made

I believe in coincidence as well as KARMA.

Fate is like Faith, not what I believe in.

If that's the case, Irish, then you believe in fate.

I remember how I met my current girlfriend of almost 11 years after getting up from a blackjack table in Atlantic City and wandering around the casino, where i found her having a drink.

Was it "fate" that made me get up at the exact time that I did? She was about to leave, so the timing was perfect. Another minute or two at the blackjack table and I would've missed her.

Or was it my "destiny" - was it "fate" - that caused us to meet?

Would we have met at some other time and place if not then and there?

If I hadn't gotten up from the table at that exact minute, the last 11 years of my life might've - probably would've - been completely different.

Was there a mysterious force over which I had no control that made me get up and start wandering around when I did, or was it just dumb luck?

Again this is why this question is so hard. As I said I believe in the ability to chose. You choose to get up from the blackjack table. Part of me can agree with that. However, part of me can also agree that God planned for both of you to meet up. Ultimately, to answer your question I believe it was God.

If God planned for us to meet, then it was God that made me get up from the table.

Actually, it was the friggin' dealer, who kept getting a 4 or 5 every time she had a 16, that made me get up.

Yes exactly

So where is our free will in anything, then?

Where are our choices, if it's God that's pulling our strings?

We may think that we're making choices of our own free will, but if you believe what you're saying, then we have no free will at all.

I don't think you can have it both ways.

Hey, we better cut this conversation out, or we're gonna wind up writing the whole paper for Don Chater.

My answer is "Yes", and a good example of it is found in Genesis 24 (yeah, I know, it's a book of fairytales to some, but you asked for my beliefs on the topic). Abraham's servant is sent to find Isaac a wife, goes to a well and prays, (to paraphrase) "Lord, may it be that the one You've chosen for Isaac will not only give me water to drink when I ask her, but she also offers to water my camels." So, along comes Rebekah, and, lo and behold, she does that very thing exactly.

Was Rebekah exercising free will? Absolutely. God didn't force her to do this. Was it predestined and preordained by the Almighty? Absolutely. So, somehow, free will and the sovereign will of God somehow work in perfect harmony. (Judas and Pharaoh are other good examples.) God isn't the Author of sin, but even when we screw up (deliberately or not), He can use it ultimately for His purposes to accomplish His will. That's what I am firmly convinced of because too many prophecies have come to pass precisely, even though the participants were acting totally free and independent.

Dunno how to answer.
I believe in God's will, and it's influenced by the choices we make. He looks what we choose, and helps us accordingly.

I disbelieve both of these. I beleive there are many uncorrelated factors affecting the outcome of each event in our life. Though they may be deterministic scientifically, they are so complex that they can be considered random for practical purposes.
In the 70s a new field of mathematics called 'chaos theory' was developed. It started from meteorology, where a physicist (Lorentz) found that the equations governing the weather are very sensitive to initial conditions. For those familiar with calculus, these were non-linear differential equations with initial conditions. Lorentz had just 12 equations then compared to the several hundreds used in today's computers. But even with these 12 equations, he would make a very small change in the initial weather parameters and run the prediction over and over for several days. The end results were dramatically different.
This phenomenon was not just restricted to weather. Slowly many scientists from different fields reported similar results. From population modelling in biology to stock prices in economics, chaos theory found application in several unconnected fields.
Note that all these factors are deterministic (no supernatural forces required - there are equations), but the computation is so complex that for practical purposes, it appears random. The cause and effect in every event in our life is very complex. How a choice affects another is not practical to compute and predict. Therefore the next event may not offer any choice to us. At the same time, there is no convincing reason to beleive that the events are pre-determined, as in the context of what is popularly called fate.
However, random nature of events do not imply any arbitrary possibility. The random events have bounded solution space. That is why we cannot be sure of future events beyond a limited certainty.

We choose our fate, by our actions, thoughts, words. Saying things are fate is a cop out. People may point to winning the lottery as fate; that's chance.