Re: ramana maharshi and destiny
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 14:23:37 -0700
i'm sorry, but i'm still confused. i can accept your argument that knowing our destiny is an impossibility and thus making such assumption is false. i fully understand that the a conditional argument such as "if the earth is square then i am god" will always be a tautology (which will make me god, woohoo) since the PREMISE and CONCLUSION is both FALSE (the earth is never square and i am not a god). but my point is just to give another way of looking at sri bhagavan's argument, because he says "you cannot sit around and do nothing because you don't know what your destiny is." when someone said something like that, i automatically think: that means if we know what our destiny is, we can just sit around and do nothing? now, maybe sri bhagavan's argument is not biconditional (which means the converse is valid and sound as well), but if we assume it to be so, THERE IS A CONTRADICTION. if we assume it to NOT be so, then there's no argument, we'll be just accepting sri bhagavan's argument without dispute. now this contradiction is what leads me to NOT believe in such a thing as destiny.
also, if destiny keeps ---as you argue it to be--- changing, then what is the point of such a thing (destiny) to exist? in another word, it would make no difference whether destiny exists or not. i do not know what definition of destiny you went by, but i checked dictionary.com and found these definitions of destiny:
1. The inevitable or necessary fate to which a particular person or thing is destined; one's lot
2. A predetermined course of events considered as something beyond human power or control
3. The power or agency thought to predetermine events
and these are the definition of destiny i was using. BY DEFINITION, destiny means something that is PREDETERMINED, UNCHANGING. so if you say that destiny is changing, that by itself contradicts the definition of the word. think about it this way: destiny is a FINAL END. destiny is something that our life WILL EVENTUALLY COME TO (which is death, hahaha). if this final end keeps changing, then it won't be a final end. all i'm saying is that, if destiny EXISTS, then the life of a person will CONVERGE to that destiny, no matter what that person does. BUT, if destiny does NOT exist, then we have full control of our lives and nothing is predetermined. i find it contradictive if you say destiny exists but events are not predetermined. you can only go one way or the other, but not both.
aside from that, although i do not believe in destiny and i think events are not predetermined, there is one thing PREDETERMINED and INEVITABLE: our death. yeah, that's something i made fun of in the above paragraph. so i guess that's what the screenwriter was thinking about when they made the movie "final destination"
i'm sorry, but i'm still confused. i can accept your argument that knowing our destiny is an impossibility and thus making such assumption is false. i fully understand that the a conditional argument such as "if the earth is square then i am god" will always be a tautology (which will make me god, woohoo) since the PREMISE and CONCLUSION is both FALSE (the earth is never square and i am not a god). but my point is just to give another way of looking at sri bhagavan's argument, because he says "you cannot sit around and do nothing because you don't know what your destiny is." when someone said something like that, i automatically think: that means if we know what our destiny is, we can just sit around and do nothing? now, maybe sri bhagavan's argument is not biconditional (which means the converse is valid and sound as well), but if we assume it to be so, THERE IS A CONTRADICTION. if we assume it to NOT be so, then there's no argument, we'll be just accepting sri bhagavan's argument without dispute. now this contradiction is what leads me to NOT believe in such a thing as destiny.
also, if destiny keeps ---as you argue it to be--- changing, then what is the point of such a thing (destiny) to exist? in another word, it would make no difference whether destiny exists or not. i do not know what definition of destiny you went by, but i checked dictionary.com and found these definitions of destiny:
1. The inevitable or necessary fate to which a particular person or thing is destined; one's lot
2. A predetermined course of events considered as something beyond human power or control
3. The power or agency thought to predetermine events
and these are the definition of destiny i was using. BY DEFINITION, destiny means something that is PREDETERMINED, UNCHANGING. so if you say that destiny is changing, that by itself contradicts the definition of the word. think about it this way: destiny is a FINAL END. destiny is something that our life WILL EVENTUALLY COME TO (which is death, hahaha). if this final end keeps changing, then it won't be a final end. all i'm saying is that, if destiny EXISTS, then the life of a person will CONVERGE to that destiny, no matter what that person does. BUT, if destiny does NOT exist, then we have full control of our lives and nothing is predetermined. i find it contradictive if you say destiny exists but events are not predetermined. you can only go one way or the other, but not both.
aside from that, although i do not believe in destiny and i think events are not predetermined, there is one thing PREDETERMINED and INEVITABLE: our death. yeah, that's something i made fun of in the above paragraph. so i guess that's what the screenwriter was thinking about when they made the movie "final destination"
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