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Thread: Coincidence? I think not.

  1. #1
    Super papayahed's Avatar
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    Coincidence? I think not.

    Is it possible that a coincidence is actually just a one in a million random chance or is it possible that there are great forces at work in the universe kind like guideposts if you will giving little nudges in the right direction?


    I wonder.
    Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda


  2. #2
    If grace is an ocean... grace86's Avatar
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    I don't believe that anything is coincidence. My faith says that everything happens for a reason. But I think even without having an "established" faith telling you that, when something that seems coincidental happens, I think most of us always feel there is something more to it. Yes, I think it has to do with pushing us in the right direction.
    "So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss, and my heart turns violently inside of my chest, I don't have time to maintain these regrets, when I think about, the way....He loves us..."


    http://youtube.com/watch?v=5xXowT4eJjY

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    Two Gun Kid Idril's Avatar
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    I've never really believed in fate because then you don't have to take responsibility for anything, anything that happens, good or bad is because it was "destined to be" and not because of decisions you've made or the hard work you've done. We can change the entire course of our lives with one seemingly insignificant choice, there are consequences to everything we do and if we write it all off to fate then we don't learn from our mistakes and we can't take pride in our accomplishments. I think opportunities are always surrounding us, I think new paths are always opening up to us but it is our own decision to take them or not, not some omniprescient guiding force...but that's just my humble opinion and is probably just a crock of...nonsense.

  4. #4
    Super papayahed's Avatar
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    I don't really mean fate per se, more like a "suggestion". Like a big sign saying "Hey, have you considered this.."
    Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda


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    Usered Register Sarka's Avatar
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    At a point in my life where most people my age think they know everything (I'm 18), I've come to realize that when it comes down to it I know pretty well nothing about life, the world, whatever. I'm sort of of the Absurdist philosophy that we really have no way of knowing exactly what is going on with the universe--free will, God and all that--and so there is no point in trying to find out. Just sort of live, you know?? That's what I think we [I]ought[I/] to do, anyway; I think in a way we'd all be a lot happier if we stopped worrying about Heaven and/or Hell and what's going to happen to us and, like, live in the present... So I think whether or not Fate exists is sort of moot, because we can't really ever know for sure while we are alive (and who knows wtf happens when we die anyway) so just, like, go with the flow, man. Do what comes naturally. Like. Dude.
    "If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed." (Leo Tolstoy)

  6. #6
    Super papayahed's Avatar
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    ok, as an example lets say you have to make a decision between schools. The schools are equal in all aspects. You start seeing more advertisment/references to one of the schools where you haven't previously. Is this a "suggestion" or just coincidence?
    Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda


  7. #7
    Two Gun Kid Idril's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by papayahed
    ok, as an example lets say you have to make a decision between schools. The schools are equal in all aspects. You start seeing more advertisment/references to one of the schools where you haven't previously. Is this a "suggestion" or just coincidence?
    I would write that off to a coincidence because I have nothing of the mystical about me. It could just be a sub-conscious thing too, because you're leaning towards that school, you're more likely to notice mentions of it. And you know what, whatever helps you make those tough decisions is helpful, there are worse reasons to pick a school and I know this is just an example but I think the advice works for many situations.

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    I also believe that everything happens for a certain reason. There's someone above pulling the strings and making everything happen. It is HE who makes the decisions so I'll rather deny existence of a coincidence. Although, who knows...

    everything's goin' according to the plan
    And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats
    None knew so well as I,
    For he who lives more lives than one
    More deaths than one must die...

  9. #9
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    I feel as though that I have reviewed through this in my head so many times, that I hardly know what to think of it anymore. Perphaps, I finally ought to admit myself further into the transcendental thought - that several things exist (or may exist) far beyond the scope of human knowledge, cognition, and imagination. No one can quite prove or disprove fate and its connected concepts and theories; and this argument could further itself to concepts regarding free will and predestination (but let us save that for the 'Religious Texts' part of the forum).
    Life, in its constant and inevitable flux, even if either fate or free will did exist, could not possibly conceive of something so stable, constant, unchanging, or omniscent. One friend I have spoken to on this subject, obviously a believer in free will, theorizes that the belief in fate more functions as a cushion; hence when something bad occurs, one can shrug and claim it 'was meant to happen,' or 'that just seems the way it is.' My faith sways me more to the belief in inevitable fate (though I dislike that word 'fate,' and its connected terms), but I find my friend's thought a worthy thought.

  10. #10
    King of Plastic Spoons imthefoolonthehill's Avatar
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    Mathematically, I don't believe in the random - only Psuedorandom.


    Hence, I don't believe in what people concider coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. Whether that reason is because some Godhead moved it or simply the arrangements of atomic particles in the ground, or whatever, that: I don't know.
    Last edited by imthefoolonthehill; 06-19-2006 at 02:49 PM. Reason: fix my little therefore
    Told by a fool, signifying nothing.

  11. #11
    Boll Weevil cuppajoe_9's Avatar
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    What kind of coincidence? Many thing are not as unlikely as they seem.
    What is the use of a violent kind of delightfulness if there is no pleasure in not getting tired of it.
    - Gertrude Stein

    A washerwoman with her basket; a rook; a red-hot poker; th purples and grey-greens of flowers: some common feeling which held the whole together.
    - Virginia Woolf

  12. #12
    Wage Slave Manfred's Avatar
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    Many of you sound oddly like my girlfriend, which I don't necessarily find to be a good thing. She has a habit of interpreting every little slip of the tongue to be some kind of "Freudian slip," whereby what I actually said was what I truely meant, rather than just an error.
    For instance: Our dog, Sophie, poops on the welcome mat early in the morning, but I don't find it until I'm out the door for work, late.
    I call out, "The dog crapped on the carpet!", and leave.
    Translation: Since I said carpet instead of mat, I must be mad at the dog. Since I said dog instead of Sophie, I must hate the dog. Since Sophie is more her dog than mine, I must be mad at her. Maybe I want to break up with her.
    Result: She makes my life miserable for the next 5 days.
    It was fate that made me say it.
    "I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different."
    --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  13. #13
    Seeker of Knowledge Shannanigan's Avatar
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    Hmmm...I dunno....I had a "coincidence" today:

    The other day (Friday, perhaps Thursday?) I was on these forums, and someone had mentioned Edgar Allen Poe...reminding me of how much I liked his work back in high school. I went to the message boards about him and found a thread about members' favorite EAP short stories...and found that many liked "The Masque of the Red Death"...and I realized that I had never read that story. I found it and read it, and liked it, and the other night I even talked with my sister about it, finding out that she had read it before. I made a decision (which I mentioned in the "summer reading list" thread in General Literature) to read/re-read some of EAP's work this summer.

    Today I picked up "The Shining" by Stephen King. After the acknowledgements and right before the story is a half-page long excerpt from "The Masque of the Red Death."

    Now, that excerpt has been there since 1977 when this book is copywrited, and I never would have noticed it, probably, if it hadn't been for all the EAP relapse I've had in the past few days...but wouldn't this coincidence, if it is more than that, be kind of redundant if trying to push me towards EAP? I mean, I had already decided to read more of him this summer...

    awww, Manfred, I'm sorry....how about you have her read some of the modern literature revealing how Freud was "a complete quack"...as my psychology professor put it...

  14. #14
    The Yodfather Stanislaw's Avatar
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    heh, has anybody seen the movie constantine?

    Coincidence or fate; personally I have seen enough to perhaps think that nothing is really a coincidence, more like a trail of crumbs set out for us rats in the experiment of life to see what we will do.

    ---------------
    Stanislaw Lem
    1921 - 2006, Rest In Peace.
    "Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible"

  15. #15
    Super papayahed's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Stanislaw
    heh, has anybody seen the movie constantine?

    Coincidence or fate; personally I have seen enough to perhaps think that nothing is really a coincidence, more like a trail of crumbs set out for us rats in the experiment of life to see what we will do.
    That's what I'm talking about.

    Let's just say that someone you just happen to meet says something to you that gets you to thinking about drastically changing your career. Was that meeting just a chance meeting? Or was it the universe saying "hey, have you considered this idea?" Now, I'm not talking about fate here, I'm talking about what leads up to the decision.
    Do, or do not. There is no try. - Yoda


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