First, my disclaimer.

I am not writing this in any way to make offense of the families of the victims of the massacre, but to discuss a theory involving destiny and free will.

I noted that one of the victims was a professor who apparently was a holocaust survivor. There is a post about him on ATS and someone mentioned the idea of destiny having allowed him to survive the holocaust so that he could be the one to sacrifice his own life and save his students by whatever actions he might have done. That is fair enough.

I have a problem with this theory though. If one is to say this man fulfilled destiny by surviving a possible death sentence in one time of his life to basically "pay it forward" many years later, then isn't it also possible that the shooter who killed and injured many might have had to carry out his deed quite unbeknownst to hisself so that it prevented possible futures of his victims or changed the course of time for our ultimate benefit?

I know it seems contrary at one (this) point in time, but maybe one of those engineering students would have contributed in a key way to designing or discovering some part of something that would have lead to the destruction of all humanity.

It is certainly possible, so who are we to say that the killer acted in free will, yet the professor who saved many that day was an agent of destiny.

Ok,
Now you are sending chills up my spine! This was a senseless act of volence. I'm not even going to try to speculate on reasons in my post. However, I will give you one thing, whatever the twisted logic is this did happen for a reason. As a little boy, I was taught that everything, no matter how horrorable, serves a greater purpose in life, and the over all scheme of things.

Tim

Moral accountability. If we are destined, or pre-destined in our actions, than it's difficult to maintain that we are also agents morally responsible for our actions. This is something that I think both religious people in the Calvinist vein (God has pre-ordained all our actions) and those who believe in a kind of biological determinism overlook. We believe in free will because we want these types of actions to be morally accountable.

(Of course that in itself is not an arguement that we have genuine free will. It just indicates what the logical consequences are if we in fact are destined in our actions.)

Originally posted by Toromos
Moral accountability. If we are destined, or pre-destined in our actions, than it's difficult to maintain that we are also agents morally responsible for our actions.

Uh, that's not what I was after. I believe in moral accountability, and responsibility.

My point was in refrence to why spacific people died that day. Yes, it is a terrable tragidy that people died that day. However, I believe that for what ever reason, it was their day to die, as sad as it was. When it's you time to die, you will die, and NOTHING in this world can prevent that.

Tim

Originally posted by Ghost01
Ok,
Now you are sending chills up my spine! This was a senseless act of volence.
..................whatever the twisted logic is this did happen for a reason. As a little boy, I was taught that everything, no matter how horrorable, serves a greater purpose in life, and the over all scheme of things.

Tim

Which is why I am not talking about what the gunman though he was doing, but a higher reality/dimension that exists that controls these things. I guess it is similar to the concept in the movies "Final Destination" where death finds people. Those movies talk about death being destiny and having order. Although this may be so, it should also extend to life having destiny and order as well. So, the professor survives 60+ years ago so that he can save others today, but the gunman may have "had" (saying that word loosely) to do what he had to do, even though he thought it was for his free-willed reasons, he may be a pawn in a game and actually being manipulated by this same spirit of destiny. Where it cannot come to him and say, "I need you to shoot these 30+ people because a few of them will do something later", but it does convince him that certain groups are evil and so he sees fit to take care of them with murder. The spirit or influence of destiny decides which ones lose their lives according to what has to happen.

Originally posted by Ghost01

Uh, that's not what I was after. I believe in moral accountability, and responsibility.

Tim

I was just posting to the OP's comment in general, no one specific. Since everyone will eventually die, I guess it would be hard to argue against the fact that everyone will have a particular day to die.

First, my disclaimer.

isn't it also possible that the shooter who killed and injured many might have had to carry out his deed quite unbeknownst to hisself so that it prevented possible futures of his victims or changed the course of time for our ultimate benefit?

.

just like god tells people to drive through the drive throw to get beer,or ciggs or moneyNOT

[edit on 4/24/2007 by pantherlady39]

[edit on 4/24/2007 by pantherlady39]

Originally posted by pantherlady39

just like god told you to drive through the drive throw to get beer.NOT

If God told you to do something, how would you know the difference between your own voice and his? If you say God only tells us to do the right thing, then you must account for all the wrong things you have done. If you say he misleads us into doing evil then you are making God out to be the author of evil. Which one of those voices do you listen to?

Originally posted by ben91069

Originally posted by pantherlady39

just like god told you to drive through the drive throw to get beer.NOT

If God told you to do something, how would you know the difference between your own voice and his? If you say God only tells us to do the right thing, then you must account for all the wrong things you have done. If you say he misleads us into doing evil then you are making God out to be the author of evil. Which one of those voices do you listen to?

we do account for our wrongs cause GOD does not MAKE us do good or bad.we have that choice.

[edit on 4/24/2007 by pantherlady39]