Doh!......Fatalism

I really try to be an open minded person...and keep my mind open to other views and opinions outside of my own....and I've even changed my opinion on some things over the years, but there is one viewpoint, one philosophy that has me seeing red and one in which way too many people seem to espouse...Fatalism and more specifically Theological Fatalism. What a load of crap!!.

I'm all riled up about it again because it seems to be popping up here and there. Just this week the newly elected mayor's wife stated in an article in the paper that she's a fatalist and when it's your time to go...it's just your time to go. WHAT?! Again I say what a load of crap. That kind of thinking drives me crazy. My own mother thinks the same way! I can't tell you how many people I've heard being interviewed on the tv news after a preventable car crash say....well you know it must have been God's will...and when it's your time...it's your time to die.

What a bunch of bullshit? How can so many people embrace this silly idea? I'll tell you who espouses it....it's all the sheep out there! Sheep, sheep they're everywhere! And they seem to find comfort in this philosophy. How can you find comfort in a philosophy where you are nothing more than a pawn on God's chess board at the mercy of his every whim? It just doesn't make sense.

I think the folks attracted to fatalism are those that need some kind of explanation for why bad things happen to good people. Fatalism does that...it was God's will or it's part of God's Plan for us. I'd like an explanation too, but the Fatalist reason for bad things happening to good people doesn't cut it for me.

I suppose the biggest problem with theological fatalism that I have is that I don't believe in God in the first place or at least the Judeo-Christian idea of God...so naturally I'd have some trouble with the idea that things happen because it's God's will. But even the little more ambiguous idea of....when your number's up..it's up....well I still have problems with that. It still implies that someone or something is calling the shots and you are only a pawn in the game. Phooey. I don't like it.

And another thing...Fatalists are too ready to abdicate responsibility. Following preventable car crashes where some live and some die, I've heard the principals and families involved actually explain the disparity in who lived and died by citing that it was God's Will. Hey stupids...how about Billy Bubba shouldn't have been drinking and driving and racing!! And Billy Bubba's friends shouldn't have gotten in the car with him. No, of course they didn't deserve to die...but they made poor choices and unfortunately paid for it in the most costly way. How about owning up to poor choices?

But what about the innocents in the other car? Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer to that...sometimes Shit Happens. It doesn't mean that it was supposed to happen...it just did. I believe cause and effect along with free will are responsible, but the relationship isn't always obvious and may never be understood. That's the universe. We don't always see the intricate relationships and interdependencies, and we may never understand why some events occur.

Fatalists are often the ones to point to terrible things like the 911 attacks or the AIDS epidemic and say, it was God's will. Or for those poor souls in the Towers they say of the ones that died... it must have been their time to go and for those that lived...it just wasn't their time. Again I say Bullshit!

So the sheep take limited or no responsibility for their actions....because it's God's will! Well I wish God's will was that the sheep think for themselves. DOH!