Just curious...

Personally, I don't think any higher power guides us personally.
I believe there is balance in the universe and our actions change others, and other's actions change us. I believe a combination of our own choices, our brain chemistry, and the influence of others is what 'guides' us through life.

Ahhhh...thank you...I don't think I have ever looked at it this way! You have given me another side to my own opinion to consider! :flowerforyou:

Like I have said I don't think that anyone has gotten ugly :happy:

Oh but it will!!

That's up to the choices people make.
Or, depending on your beliefs, the choices god makes for this thread.
:laugh:

Personally, I don't think any higher power guides us personally.
I believe there is balance in the universe and our actions change others, and other's actions change us. I believe a combination of our own choices, our brain chemistry, and the influence of others is what 'guides' us through life.

Ahhhh...thank you...I don't think I have ever looked at it this way! You have given me another side to my own opinion to consider! :flowerforyou:

I'm glad I could say something useful/interesting! Out of curiosity, would you mind sharing with us what your opinions/beliefs are?

I don't mind at all. I think that God has a beginning and an end for all of us and he knows when and where these two events will happen and that is out of our control, but how we get from our beginning to our end is up to us, we forge our own path thru life based on a series of choices that we make, bad, good, or otherwise.

Theres consequences to decisions you make

bad decisions usually create bad outcomes (Unless you robbed a bank for a lot of money and got away with it, but then youre constantly feeling paranoid, still bad outcome.

Good decisions usually create good outcomes

As long as your path is lead by good decisions you should be fine.

If people need to believe in god to follow this path, to each their own. I personally just never needed help cause I understand this simple formula

This is going on a bit of a tangent, but....
I had some new thoughts about decisions/outcomes a few nights ago, and it occurred to me that not only do your bad decisions hurt you, but can also hurt other people.
For example, if you make someone feel bad about themselves, even in a small way, they'll possibly go and in some way make another person feel bad about themselves too to make them feel better. So, if you hurt one person, you're hurting a possible chain of many different people.
It's one of the reasons I think even small good things can be so important, because they can also spread like that.

Theres consequences to decisions you make

bad decisions usually create bad outcomes (Unless you robbed a bank for a lot of money and got away with it, but then youre constantly feeling paranoid, still bad outcome.

Good decisions usually create good outcomes

As long as your path is lead by good decisions you should be fine.

If people need to believe in god to follow this path, to each their own. I personally just never needed help cause I understand this simple formula

This is going on a bit of a tangent, but....
I had some new thoughts about decisions/outcomes a few nights ago, and it occurred to me that not only do your bad decisions hurt you, but can also hurt other people.
For example, if you make someone feel bad about themselves, even in a small way, they'll possibly go and in some way make another person feel bad about themselves too to make them feel better. So, if you hurt one person, you're hurting a possible chain of many different people.
It's one of the reasons I think even small good things can be so important, because they can also spread like that.

The chain of events could cause a butterfly to flap its wings on the other side of the world.

Theres consequences to decisions you make

bad decisions usually create bad outcomes (Unless you robbed a bank for a lot of money and got away with it, but then youre constantly feeling paranoid, still bad outcome.

Good decisions usually create good outcomes

As long as your path is lead by good decisions you should be fine.

If people need to believe in god to follow this path, to each their own. I personally just never needed help cause I understand this simple formula

This is going on a bit of a tangent, but....
I had some new thoughts about decisions/outcomes a few nights ago, and it occurred to me that not only do your bad decisions hurt you, but can also hurt other people.
For example, if you make someone feel bad about themselves, even in a small way, they'll possibly go and in some way make another person feel bad about themselves too to make them feel better. So, if you hurt one person, you're hurting a possible chain of many different people.
It's one of the reasons I think even small good things can be so important, because they can also spread like that.

The chain of events could cause a butterfly to flap its wings on the other side of the world.

:laugh: Bit of a stretch, but if someone you were mean to over the internet who lived on the other side of the world was then angry, went out for a cigarette, and attempted to step on a butterfly out of spite, then maybe.

. I personally would feel... pointless... if I went through life believing that everything I do has already been predetermined by a 'supreme being'.

It's the butterfly effect. A butterfly flaps its wings on one side of the world and sets off an extremely complex chain of events and a building collapses on the other side of the world.

Good Lord...I wish there was an option to remove your subscription to a thread.

/sigh

So I'm not a highly religious person, but I do believe that each person chooses their own destiny and that each person chooses their own path in life based on the decisions that they make. What do all of you think? Does God choose our paths in life for us or does he just assist us down the path that we choose for ourselves?

So yep... I believe there's a sovereign God - just one - who is omniscient and omnipotent who gives us meaning and is working out all things according to His perfect and pleasing will. I believe He lives in perfect harmony with his Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ - the Holy Trinity, and that Jesus (both fully God and fully sinless man) went to the cross and died so all the sinful crap we commit daily could be forgiven forever and we could have communion with God... talk to Him, pray, listen... feel His peace and be empowered by His Holy Spirit to live out the life we were each created to live.

But that's me...

Carry on.

Ok, but where do you stand on the subject of a predetermined and predictable destiny?

Have you ever written encryption software before? There is no such thing as 'randomness'. Pseudorandom number generation is the generation of a number sequence that is so long that it gives you the illusion that it is random, even though it is not. The longer the sequence, the stronger the illusion and the better the encryption. There can't exist a predetermined destiny without disolving free will in the process. It's called a paradox.

Ooh, I've never thought about that aspect.
Thanks for the information. I had no idea that random number generators were only giving an approximation of randomness!

That's why, given enough time, any encryption can be hacked theoretically. The better the encryption, the more computations it takes. As soon as someone creates a better encryption, someone else builds a faster computer and so on.

So yep... I believe there's a sovereign God - just one - who is omniscient and omnipotent who gives us meaning and is working out all things according to His perfect and pleasing will. I believe He lives in perfect harmony with his Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ - the Holy Trinity, and that Jesus (both fully God and fully sinless man) went to the cross and died so all the sinful crap we commit daily could be forgiven forever and we could have communion with God... talk to Him, pray, listen... feel His peace and be empowered by His Holy Spirit to live out the life we were each created to live.

But that's me...

Carry on.

Ok, but where do you stand on the subject of a predetermined and predictable destiny?

The same as on predestination and election. There is no time to God... so the beginning and the end are all the same to Him. He already knows what you will choose because He created you to choose as you do/will. He knew it all when He created you. You choose, but He made you choose.

... makes my head spin.

Then destiny is ultimately decided and/or predicted, including this conversation.