Fetal
Shared on Mon, 02/26/2007 - 12:41Last night before I went to bed I had a random thought. I remembered my old high school AP english teacher, a man I used to admire, and suddenly realized he was full of shit. I say this because basically he preached throughout the year of the virtues of predestination.
Predestination for those of you who don't know is the belief that everything we do in this world was scripted ahead of time for us. Our actions are not our own. Our feelings are preprogrammed so they lead us in the direction we are meant to go. Utter bullshit.
This thought came right after laying some cable, the subsequent wiping, and my return to bed, so you can rest assured it is reasonably well thought out.
When I returned to bed, I had the feeling this predestiny idea had some serious flaws. One of them being this hypothetical: Say you just up and killed a man, any man. To make this hypothetical interesting, let's say you murdered Ronald McDonald by stabing him with some day old fries. (note to self, does Ronald McDonald bleed like normal people, or does his bodily fluid come out in prepackaged packets of Grade A Ketchup? Makes you wonder what the mustard packets could be, god forbid the mayo.) Anyways, you get caught and have a trial. At the trial you plead innocent because why would you want to kill Mr. McDonald? You really dig Big Macs. You're innocent because you were predestined to do it, you say. You had no control over your life. Nothing provoked this killing, you just up and decided the world had had enough happy meals and someone had to die without ever really knowing why. Is this defense going to fly?
Hell no. I mean, according to this hypothetical you shouldbe found innocent anyway because you murdered a fictional character and that my friends is a clear sign you're fuckin A nuts and should be found mentally incompetant. But no one would take you seriously because we all, deep down, know we have choices. We know our actions have repercussions. This is simple cause and effect. You're guilty you fruitcake. You killed a clown.
Put that simplistic model aside and let us look at the foundations of predestination. Logically there is no foundation for it. Predestination is a belief, or something you have to make a leap of faith to believe. This is probably why predestination is espoused by a few religions, an example of which is Presbyterianism. Presbyterianism's only claim to be different from other sects of Christianity is the fact they believe in predestination. My high school teacher was Presbyterian. I now know being Presbyterian can be synonymous with deluded. In other words, instead of saying, "Hi, I'm John and I'm a Presbyterian", you can now say, "Hi, I'm John, and I'm deluded."
I say this only because being a Christian and believing in predestination are kind of at odds. Supposedly God, Jehovah, gives you the choice to believe in him. If you don't, then you are not admitted into heaven, or forced to swallow 2 goldfish whole to join the heavenly choir instead (there is no crying in baseball, but there is hazing in heaven). Well, if God predestined you to not believe in him, then he has not given you a choice. Is this not a conflict?
Do not try to tell me that you are allowed one choice in your life, and that is to believe God or not to believe. If you're allowed one choice, what is to stop you from having two, or three or more? It is a slippery slope when you start making allowances for an unprovable belief. "Well, i made my choice concerning God's existence. Better go rub that genie's bottle for my other two choices....wait a sec, I chose to rub the genie's bottle. FUCK. One more to go."
Basically, the way I see it, predestination is just an excuse for those who have nothing, and those who have it all to rationalize their existence, and their station in life. The have-nots don't because they're slated not to, not because they're unlucky, lazy or fucking crazy. The haves do because they were born to this life, not because they screwed people out of their pensions, are greedy as sin, or incredibly good at what they do. This excuse is a lot like the idea of social darwinism that ocurred during the late 19th, early 20th century. People used darwin's theory to prove why they, the rich, had, and others didn't. Namely because they believed they were the evolutionary winners.
All in all I've thoroughly destroyed any notion in my head that predestination was ever a valid model for society. The intellectual drivel I've spewed onto these pages is enough to make me believe I have choices, we all have choices. I just refuse to think I'm mindlessly living my life only to see it end.
Now, for some reason, I have the urge for a Big Mac.
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Comments
Submitted by Devonsangel on Mon, 02/26/2007 - 12:48
Submitted by Brad on Mon, 02/26/2007 - 12:50
Submitted by Drost on Mon, 02/26/2007 - 13:00
Submitted by OldManRiver48 on Mon, 02/26/2007 - 13:15
Submitted by Kwazy on Mon, 02/26/2007 - 18:53