The Fatal Solution

Fatalism is the belief that a person has some pre-ordained fate, and that their own decisions have little or no impact on the outcome. It's an old concept. The ancient Greeks were big on fatalism, but always within the larger scope of life as a human drama or morality play. We may know ahead of time that the character is doomed to a tragic end, but how he gets there and how he composes himself are revealed in the journey. The Greek gods had great influence over human events, but not control. They might help guide an arrow to give their preferred side an advantage in battle, and similar interventions, but men were not depicted as puppets under the direction of all-powerful gods.

Christianity carried the Greek balance of fate and moral agency into the modern world. The Christian god is all-powerful and all-knowing, but does not normally intervene in human affairs. Christians pray for guidance or strength to navigate life in a holy way, rather than directly for some specific outcome. Muslims are more fatalist, constantly evoking language such as "God-willing" or "God wills it." To them, the spirit force controls all things. Such a mindset risks being abused to excuse immoral acts. Genghis Khan - the most murderous human to ever life - took fatalism to an extreme, dubbing himself the "Scourge of God." If God was willing to let a people be savaged by the Golden Horde, he mused, then they surely must have been wicked and deserving of punishment.

It may appear that fatalism has been relegated to the dustbin of Western history, lingering only in 3rd world backwaters. Actually, the modern world is incubating a form of fatalism more extreme than anything imagined by the worst of history's wild-eyed fanatics: determinism. It's been brought to us by the scientific branch of materialism - the modern effort to remove all meaning and purpose from life. [I suspect that materialism is itself a branch of the larger progressive ethos of Occidentalism, or hatred of the West. Part of hating the West mean attacking its traditional religiosity and transcendentalism. The reason the Left self-describes as the "pro-science" party is because they believe science means anti-Christianity. And they are correct, so long as they are referring to science that is obsessed with materialism and randomness.] Determinism is the belief that the world is governed solely by physical laws of the universe. That is said to account for human behavior as well, which they take to be merely the result of physical processes in the brain over which we have no control. The major scientific explanation for consciousness is that it is but an illusion! Just an interesting side effect of information-processing brains that evolved for material advantage in the world.

It is a bitter pill to swallow, that consciousness is just a quirky aspect of a purely mechanical universe, which we're also told is doomed to eventual heat death. No wonder suicide rates are through the roof, and measured happiness at all time lows. The increased malaise especially affects whites. Think, all that alleged privilege comes with added misery. Is it guilt? No doubt the nonstop shaming has its effect, but, then again, that is still a low-grade disease. Our ancestors survived much worse than shame. It can only kill the weak, but we are weakened already by rampant materialism and demoralization. I believe that whites are especially affected because our psyches are most dependent on the transcendent. Take it away and everything goes haywire, resulting in despair, escapism, and self-numbing through drug use. 70,000 overdosed on opiates last year. The number is beyond alarming. Many try their best to fill the "God-shaped hole" that has been forged by blind atheism. Liberalism is just Neo-Puritanism. All the aspects are there: a strict moral code, shaming of the impious, public displays of virtue, destruction of heretics, mystical forces of evil, and the constant threat of apocalypse as punishment for our sins (both original and earned). It's not that the spiritually religious are immune from fanaticism, but that fatalism leads inevitably to fanaticism.

In a world where materialism reigns, questions such as this one are considered to be profound philosophical discussion.

If the Big Bang were to occur under the exact same conditions again, say in a separate universe, would the outcome be the exact same?

If you browse the answers, you might be relieved to find that most answer in the negative. Consider just the first part of the top answer.

Very likely no. The universe is probabilistic [...]

Those here who follow William Briggs' blog (linked on the sidebar) will understand that probability is not a concept in the physical world. It is a measure of our own uncertainty. Calling the universe probabilistic is a convenient way to accept the materialism viewpoint without having to deal with the implication that their own thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are not their own, but merely an inevitable consequence of physical processes put into motion billions of years ago by the Big Bang. They resist determinism just enough to avoid facing its logical contradictions, but not enough to avoid the soul-crushing conviction that existence is futile and tragic.

Clearly the fatalists pose an existential threat to our civilization. What are we to do about them? I suggest that we start killing them. It's morbid, but please entertain, for a moment, the scenario of murdering a determinist.

Me: Okay, I will be murdering you now.
Determinist: But you can't! Murder is immoral!
Me: What role is there for morality? I am merely following the physical processes that occur in my brain. You and I are both powerless to affect the outcome.
Determinist: Your logic is impeccable. Yes, then, please murder away.

The nice thing about murdering fatalists is you wouldn't have to kill all of them. You might not need to kill any. Just the threat could do the trick. People who survive attempted suicide jumps off bridges report that they immediately felt a sense of regret and a strong will to live. Even the most determined determinist will likely find something subliminal in life, if the alternative is to become a murder statistic.