I was driving home from work, seeing a horrific accident. It just happened and I could see this distraught old couple outside of their car hugging and crying each other. Ironically, a young man that rear ended them didn't make it. His eyes were wide open and blood was streaming down his forehead.

Immediately after seeing the accident, I felt sick. My neck started to hurt, like I'm being choked. I have to keep touching it constantly to make sure my throat hasn't been slit. Needless to say, I had that feeling for a while after passing that accident. I was silent with no music for a good while after driving past the wreck, thinking about all kinds of shit in my head.

It's not a revolutionary realization by a long shot, but it's moments like that that remind you how easily your life could just end. And for what? Driving to somewhere. For someone who loves driving as much as I do, it scares me, because statistically, that makes my chances of drying in a crash much higher.

My mother would always tell me, " If it's your time to go, then it will happen so don't worry about dying. If it happens, it happens."

I always wondered about that. What about all those starving kids in poor countries? Does that saying apply to them? Or does it only apply to us because we're more conscious of our own existence with more education? What if it's the opposite and those children who have no formal education and are poor have more sense of life and death because of their circumstances? Or,are they just unaware because they were raised into a world with nothing to teach them?

With all the poor people in this world, it makes you wonder if there really is such thing as destiny or fate. I used to always lean towards the idea that one's life is pre-determined because of so many coincidences that happen. Now after seeing other countries suffer in the news and the accident, I have a hard time believing their lives are pre-destined to be poor while I have a chance to better my life. I have a hard time believing that guy who crashed into that old couple could not have some sort of responsibility for cause of his death.

When its your time, its your time. Ive lost quite a few friends recently including my best friend.

My friend was helping this woman once broke down on side of the road, well she stepped across the line onto the highway and was hit by a semi...horrible sight and bad way to go but quick nonetheless. But I stick with my religion and when its your time its your time. God has a plan for us all.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100212101034AA8P6UB

seen it

Well, I do believe in God as well, but I don't think death is planned, because it contradicts the idea of free will.

If death is predestination, then it can't be altered, it can't be stopped. If you are saved from death, then according to the idea of predestination death, it wasn't your time to die. But suppose someone saved me from death. That means, if my death is planned, then the person who saved me's free will was violated, and was 'forced' to save my life, or it was planned for them to save me, and therefore, there would be no such thing as free will.

Free will and predestination death can't coexist, and since I believe in the idea of free will, I don't believe in predestination death.

I might be wrong, but this is logical to me. If you have something different, I'm willing to listen.

there are many ways to describe this and there are many theories for this but what i think the mane reason for it is US.

It does not matter what religion you follow the same goes to every person...

"Act as if you are, you will draw it to you!, Act as if you are, you Become!

if you think about it you will see that it has a point there, so if you are driving, sad, depressed, and out of focus and afraid to get into an accident, well there is more than 60% chance that you WILL get into an accident, but if you were the exact opposite, full of life and joy and excited with no fear there will be less than 10% chance for you to have an accident.

so as a conclusion, in my belief, i find that every person creates his own desteny and as for the accidents, well face your fear and stay happy, life passes by so fast that you don't even know it.

"Don't worry, Be happy" (Bob Marley)

That is a very good point -Auset-

The statistics make for a good view of the odds of an accident, since if you are careless, miserable, horrible, it is more likely you will die. Logical.

If you are happy, outgoing, and not depressed, then you are more careful and you are less likely to die.

This makes for a logical sense of 'karma' and the idea that people create their own destiny. So this explains why certain deaths seem to have been predestined, when really, it was just who they were and what logically follows.

Yeah... no. Either (quantum) wave function collapse or the effects of human will (or both) oppose fatalism (note: does not (necessarily) oppose determinism; they're two different things).

How we die is not pre-determined (i.e. fated), but it is determined (i.e. part of a causal chain of (in all likelihood physical) events).

"Free will and predestination death can't coexist, and since I believe in the idea of free will, I don't believe in predestination death.." -TheDoctor

According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty. And
they "die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed
from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak
in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death."Source 4

That is equivalent to:

• 1 child dying every 3.5 seconds
• 17-18 children dying every minute
• A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 1.5 weeks
• An Iraq-scale death toll every 16-38 days
• Over 9 million children dying every year
• Some 70 million children dying between 2000 and 2009

What about the starving children of poor countries? Do they have free will? They have limited resources. So does free will only apply to countries with resources? Does free will begin the moment they are born into poverty?

" The statistics make for a good view of the odds of an accident,
since if you are careless, miserable, horrible, it is more likely you
will die. Logical. If you are happy, outgoing, and not depressed, then you are more careful and you are less likely to die. This makes for a logical sense of 'karma' and the idea that people
create their own destiny. So this explains why certain deaths seem to
have been predestined, when really, it was just who they were and what
logically follows. " -Auset-"

-Auset- the moment those children are born they're miserable, thus based off of your comment, statistically will die. (Although, one can argue they're not miserable if they have no other form of lifestyle to compare themselves to.) Are these poor people considered humans? Maybe there should be a new definition between a "human" and a "human with free will and the ability to utilize it based off of their environment."  

Lots of people find it hard to show sympathy to other human beings that die if they don't know them. I find it strange how it took an earthquake and the media to step in to help the people of Haiti, yet not very many broadcast the rest of the world dying.

" The statistics make for a good view of the odds of an accident,

since if you are careless, miserable, horrible, it is more likely you

will die. Logical. If you are happy, outgoing, and not depressed, then
you are more careful and you are less likely to die. This makes for a
logical sense of 'karma' and the idea that people

create their own destiny. So this explains why certain deaths seem to

have been predestined, when really, it was just who they were and what

logically follows. " -TheDoctor

Correction, that is TheDoctor's response to -Auset's-.

I think the point that there are starving children in poor countries is pretty conclusive evidence of free will in the universe, actually.

However, I do think it's important to make a clarification. When you say "predestination" are you referring to a metaphysical predestination in which someone's life is largely planned for them prior to them actually living it, or are you only referring to statistical "predestination", which you seem to be referring to as well.

When I meant miserable, I didn't mean those people. I was talking about depressed people, not the poor starving kids around the world.

Now, I don't want this to become a pointless argument, because otherwise, we would ruin this thread, and I don't want to do that to you.

And about your comment of kids having free will who have nothing, yes, I do admit, they don't have much free will, if any, but I still don't believe in predestined death, unless predestined death is prejudice in some way, and to me, that doesn't seem logical.

And by the way, my comment in response to -Auset- was for a car accident, not towards poor staving children. And the final comment said certain. it did not mean all.

I'm sorry if my statement wasn't clear enough.

well let me make it a bit more clear for all of us Doctor,

let me start from the moment that child was born, you see it is the free will that made his parents do what they did to deliver that child to life and thus they were happy...

now for the starving children... they start the starving process when they do not recieve the right nutrition, and that has nothing to do with the idea brought forward by OneShot witch was about a car accident... and to make it more clear, when i said what i said i did not say that if you stay happy you will become immortal for things might happen and no one can do anything about it... a person might come up to you at any moment and shoot you despite the fact if you are happy or not but if you were depressed you would simply give up but if you were happy and you love life you would make what ever possible to prevent the shot... thus the life that child was exposed to was a life of sadness and depression of lack of food and nutrition... Knowing that these people can farm and live in the jungle (full of food, from animals to trees etc...) so if they realy want to do something about it they can, but they were raised in a way that prevents them from doing so... Despite all the odds and i am not saying that poor people can be rich at any time (all thought i do believe so) people die every day and preventing death is hard, but not impossible and exactly THAT makes free will available. for if free will was not true and we don't have it then there is no way for us to make important decisions and protect our selves from harm.