Fate Vs. Fate: Fate Or Free Will?

Sara Ratliff

LAL101

4 October 2017

Fate or Free Will Are our lives only a set out plan controlled by fate? Do our choices and our actions determine our futures? What is the defining factors that affect the course of our existence on Earth? These are all questions that have afflicted society for centuries. As actor William Shatner once said, “The conundrum of free will and destiny has always kept me dangling.” Previously, this debate has been present mainly in the theological world between different religious denominations. However, recently this examination has moved to the secular universe. I am of the belief that we can live our lives with free will over our actions because of my ideas on humanity, my views on life, my understanding of reason, and my belief that there is a Creator.

Yes, very much so. Often, one will hear the example of our fight or flight instincts or of when a person places their hand on oven burner and automatically removes their hand without conscious thought because of a reaction from our nervous systems. Every brain is hardwired with basic survival instinct such as these, however that does not take away free will. Critics of free will try to explain it away with science, saying that our actions result only from the movement of atoms and molecules within our bodies. They talk of the “Illusion of free will”, that as human beings, we have no say in our decisions (Harris). In my opinion that reduces humanity into what can only be described as a series of programmable