Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Most people in the past, and still many today, especially the successful ones, think their successes were preordained, as a reward for acts in a previous life perhaps, or as an answer to prayers, and there is little they can do to change it; their fate is sealed. This makes life simple indeed: rich people must deserve their fate just as much as the poor; there is no reason to prepare, and no reason to be conscientious, because nothing anybody can do will change anything. This is a mighty handy concept if serfs are expected to work hard and die young, and kings are to be afforded the right of divine power by the gods themselves.

The concept of fate was held for much of world history, only denied in the last few Centuries, most notably by Nietzsche's famous quote, “God is dead,” which means that people control their own destinies and God has little to do with it. In fact, luck contributes most to a person's path through life, and luck is the opposite of fate. Still, those who despair, and those who cannot compete, find refuge in God and in fate; and there is a modern re-emergence of fate in the concept that we each live in our own simulation.