Do you believe in fate/destiny?

I was recently faced with the statement that some past events that had occurred had been because of fate. In fairness, I can’t remember what was said or by who, or even what it was about.

I don’t always file bullshit away for future use; it gets put into the shredder that an old man’s mind regretfully keeps in “standby” mode.

The main idea I tried to get across to the person was that I no longer have such a belief. It’s bullshit and a protective thing we use on ourselves to soften the bruises to our egos after a failure.

Maybe there was a time. I don’t want to think that I did, but if I once believed in fate, then I didn’t understand what free will is.

Fate is a concept. Oh, it works well in assuaging guilt, calming the tears of a broken heart, or soothing the mind after finding out that the one person you’re really into doesn’t like you at all, but rather holds you in contempt. That’s the hurt before getting far enough to even get a broken heart. It’s called rejection and scorn.

But let’s say for a moment that maybe, if not fate, there are some pretty cool or weird things that happen, which we utterly fail to understand. Because of course there are. Random, whether we think so or not.

And if you believe in God, then tell me how fate is decided by him. Does that mean that he is always holding you by strings like a marionette, reading from a script that he laboriously wrote before time existed?

The evidence that God is real is all about; one has only to be willing to see. Hawking and others devoted their lives to proving that the Big Bang was random and spontaneous, but they failed, all of them. Einstein himself wasn’t exactly a believer but did write in a letter, “There is a God, but he is never listening.”

Bitter experience in his early years and his subsequent exposure to science prompted him to call scripture many things such as a book of lies used to condition children and a bundle of myths from various cultures in ancient times.

He did, however, believe that the universe had an order and a beauty that seems to be a description of a Creator God’s work. The fact is he changed throughout his life and deeply regretted writing the letter to Roosevelt that started the Manhattan Project. He said if he had known what would happen, he would have been a watchmaker.

Here we see a burning question: was the atomic bomb an inevitable creation? A matter of fate?

If one believes in the multiverse, then at least one Earth, parallel to us in time, never had the H-bomb. It’s possible that World War Two never happened.

The concept of different timelines or parallel worlds is fringe science at best. If there is no way to prove a theory, the concept remains just that. However, in this world, what if Hitler never took power, and the Empire of Japan never decided that war was necessary to get what they needed? What if it had favored trade instead of a military expansionist economy?

The possibilities are infinite.

World War Two did not happen because of fate, no more than any other war in world history. It happened because men chose things that led to it. Their actions and verbal abuse, and speeches of racial supremacy did it.

When the American Army found its first concentration camp, high command had been hearing through military intelligence what amounted to rumors, but ultimately, intelligence had confirmed that something terrible had been going on. It did not help that the troops who found the camp had not been told. They were in shock at the sight of men emaciated and pale, all but dead, some dehydrated to the point where their sobs terminated in their throats. And that first camp was a work camp, which wasn’t even an extermination center where Zyklon B, which superseded the original Zyklon, was used to kill Jewish people, political dissidents, Christians, homosexuals, people with disabilities, especially mental disorders, and others. Jews bore the brunt of Nazi hatred, though no one can explain why it went that far. Heinrich Himmler was suspected of being more cruel and far more sinister than the others who decided that the use of the pesticide was a humane way for a “civilized” nation to kill its enemies. The war crimes trials at Nuremberg proved otherwise. Antisemitism wasn’t new; the Nazis just industrialized their hatred. It was not humane (as if war crimes ever can be). It was an agonizing death.

These camps were to be visited at Eisenhower’s orders, later, by command officers. In one instance, General George Patton refused to enter a shack with dead bodies stacked in it. General Omar Bradley communicated, “Georgie wouldn’t go in. He said he’d throw up.” That’s a quote from memory and not exact, but I can’t stomach researching it right now.

George Patton was a true-blue, cocky, tough son of a bitch. I’m not so sure that the allies could have ended the war without significantly more casualties without him. He knew that the German people, military and civilian, would be massacred by the Soviets who had suffered horribly in Leningrad and Stalingrad and everywhere between those cities and the border. The Soviet Army shelled Berlin mercilessly before moving in, but when they did, anyone they found in house-to-house searches was shot, the women raped, random torture was used, and Patton knew that all of it would happen. He hated it. Protested the splitting of Berlin. Out of this, a myth was formed: Patton wanted to invade the Soviet Union. In fact, he knew better and was a keen tactician and historian. What he wanted was to get them back across the border. To put them in their place. George never liked the Soviets and he bristled at never getting the chance to fight them.

The result was that the war in Europe ended. The Soviets declared war on Japan, but before they had the chance to do much, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war.

Einstein lived ten years past those bombings. He lived to see the Soviets use the same dreadful weapon in tests. Thus, we have his final words about regret at not being a watchmaker.

There is nothing whatsoever that I’ve written in this thought experiment that lends any credibility to the concept of fate. Himmler was a sadistic man with power, and he did what all sadistic men with power do. All his choices speak to that.

While I believe God is real, I see from history that he simply doesn’t control the affairs of humans. All of humanity has the gift of free will. Only one man was ever born for a set purpose. Yet, he still could have easily saved himself from the cross. He chose not to.

When each of us wakes from sleep, we don’t really consider how many choices immediately present themselves. For the needy, the poor, imprisoned, and the infirm, there are fewer possibilities than other more fortunate people have, but, yes, there are still choices. We choose with our free will.

But wait! There are so many things that can influence that will. You need to shower and go to work. That’s routine, right? Not so fast. Maybe you don’t feel well. You’re tired, sore, and you have a headache. Is that an excuse not to go to work?

Not sure? Well, wait until you step out of the shower. More tired, lightheaded, and no appetite. Little bit of nausea downstairs, too. You’re awake fully now, and your body is sending signals to your brain: don’t make us go.

What’s your choice? Call in sick, or go to work?

This decision is unique to every person and their jobs, their supervisors, their economic situations, their modes of transportation, and more. What they choose has nothing to do with fate.

Some people believe, as do I, that opportunities and chance encounters are the presentations of a higher power. In other words, God does not control your life. There is no fate. But consider how and when you met your spouse. Which types of things had to happen leading up to your crossing paths with each other? Now you see the complexities of life. You meet, but do you ask that person for a date, or do you let them go out of your life, most likely forever? Is that the right one to be with? Are you the right one to be with them?

A chance encounter can lead to happiness or misery. Did God drop a gift in your path for you to choose to take or refuse? Think of what that person makes you feel. How can you know even then?

The answer is simple: if, as many believe, there is true evil out there, and I promise you that there is, then is there not also good? God and Satan. The former wants what’s best for you, but ultimately, you’re the one who has to choose, as the latter puts tempting but destructive people and things in your path.

God gave us free will. He didn’t want to create just another animal. Even the earliest humans chose, developed, lived in peace, or became violent as a matter of choice.

This freedom is extended to our beliefs in him. He didn’t want us to automatically love him without deciding to. If that were so, we would be nothing more to him than what a child keeps trapped in a bird cage. The parakeet may appreciate getting food, but it can’t tell the child that it loves him. In fact, it has never known freedom, but at the first opportunity, it will fly away. The old saying applies: if you love it, let it go. If it comes back, then you can probably keep it. If it doesn’t, it never belonged with you at all. We can’t force love. We know if a dog loves us because they express it. But if that dog shows no affection, you have to let it go to someone it will be happier with. That’s what I think God’s dynamic with us is.

We are free to love. Free to choose.  With that said, so is everyone else. So what they do isn’t up to you. Bad or good, they affect us. Sometimes, it’s not his will for us to suffer. Prayer goes a long way, and he does give us miracles, but pain can teach us things we never would have known. He sees that. He may know how we will be treated and what we will do with what pain teaches us. But that doesn’t mean that he controls it.

“Fate” is a false concept that we use to give up, take a pass, or deny our part in something negative. And all we really have is our faith and each other. That is why love and kindness are so important.

“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”- Jesus Christ

King Kong didn’t have to climb up the Empire State Building with a woman he could never mate with. He chose that irrational action. And then he was killed for it. But he was an animal. We are not, and we shouldn’t act like one.