Cause and Effect

[Shams al-Ma'rifa]

Haha, here's a thought provoking story I thought I would share with you guys:

"What is Fate?" Nasrudin was asked by a Scholar.

"An endless succession of intertwined events, each influencing the other."

"That is hardly a satisfactory answer. I believe in cause and effect."

"Very well," said the Mulla, "Look at that." He pointed to a procession passing in the street."

"That man is being taken to be hanged. Is that because someone gave him a silver piece and enabled him to buy the knife with which he committed the murder; or because someone saw him do it; or because nobody stopped him?"

Lol what do you guys think?

[Manco]

It's faulty reasoning. A man giving someone a piece of silver doesn't cause the other to kill, it enables him.

Huge difference between the two.

Even so, cause doesn equal excuse. If I punch you, you might get a grudge and kill me later. Me punching you was the cause, it wasn't an excuse.

[Shams al-Ma'rifa]

I think this story was also intended to demonstrate the action of fate... If only one condition was not met, then the man would not have been hanged. So the next time you experience an unfortunate event, know that fate might have been involved instead of just a singular cause to blame...

For example, if you were laid off from work, would it be fair to blame your boss or would it be equally as fair to blame it on a remote event taking place somewhere in India or wherever? An event that was not under your control... That is fate...

[Taiji]

I think it would just be self-indulgent to do either. Better get looking for work, and sue for wrongful dismissal if you think you have a case.

[Shams al-Ma'rifa]

I think it would just be self-indulgent to do either. Better get looking for work, and sue for wrongful dismissal if you think you have a case.

Why sue when you don't find blame, I mean sure you could make a few bucks but I thought this was the ethos...

[Taiji]

Why sue when you don't find blame, I mean sure you could make a few bucks but I thought this was the ethos...

Why try to avoid finding blame when it serves a purpose?

[Shams al-Ma'rifa]

Why try to avoid finding blame when it serves a purpose?

So why are you being fired... because of you, the boss, the corporation, India, Jews, fate, or all of the above and more?

[Helm]

Even if someone stopped him that's still attempted murder.

[Shams al-Ma'rifa]

Even if someone stopped him that's still attempted murder.

He wouldn't necessarily have been hung if that was the sentencing thus preventing two deaths, or at least the loss of an innocent...

[Helm]

He wouldn't necessarily have been hung if that was the sentencing thus preventing two deaths, or at least the loss of an innocent...

If someone had stopped him then he wouldn't have been attempting the murder well enough.

[Shams al-Ma'rifa]

If someone had stopped him then he wouldn't have been attempting the murder well enough.

Ok cool...

[hellas1]

@mkesadaran,

Regarding the background of this interesting little story, which brings me to my point:

Mullah Nasruddin was a Sufi.

He believed in God and in God creating the world.

Sufis believe in "mystical" union with God (Allah) and place great importance upon the Sheiykh for spiritual guidance.

Quote:
""What is Fate?" Nasrudin was asked by a Scholar.
"An endless succession of intertwined events, each influencing the other.""


THE POINT:
The positing of this answer is within the context of Sufism:
God, who lives in Eternity, per se, started the universe, which functions on causality, bounded by God's ultimate oversight.

Mullah Nasruddin understood this about God, as he was a type of "Sheiykh."
All of Mullah Nasruddin's stories revolve around the "awakening" of unspiritual people by Mullah Nasruddin doing or saying something SEEMINGLY crazy.

I think it's cool.
Does that help?
hellas1

[Taiji]

Why are you asking that question?

If it isn't going to help you get a job, or help avoiding losing one in the future, then you are just wasting time. You don't have to go into denial about it (fate), pretending that there was nothing that you or anyone else could have done, and you don't have to beat yourself up about it, you just need to get another job.

I think you should find a better analogy, I just mean I'm sure there is one which conveys your point better.

The reason this one doesn't work is that it assumes the listener has problems dealing with their emotions. And then it doesn't try to help that person learn to deal with them better, it teaches them how to cope using denial.

If you got sacked, it was your fault - you did not make yourself very valuable, you did not join a company that would survive the recession, ... etc. there are elements which are out of anyone's control, yeah for certain but you are responsible for every decision you make.

If you can't cope with that fact then a belief in fate might help avoid having to become the kind of person who can cope with that fact. Just like not stopping using a crutch might turn you into a cripple.... only in reverse... if that makes any sense at all

[Shams al-Ma'rifa]

Yea you're definitely over thinking this...

[The Dude]

Yea you're definitely over thinking this...

He is thinking about it, he's just reaching opposing conclusions to yours. The thing is that the word "fate" implies that no matter what, you couldn't have helped it. That's what fate is. Not cause and effect, because we all have a hand in cause and effect. The mulla in your example claims that the man was fated to murder someone because he had been given a silver piece. The fact that he decided to buy a knife with that however, is his own responsibility.

You could say that since it was fate, he'd have found another way to obtain that knife regardless and that may be so. But then it isn't a matter of cause and effect because in a cause and effect scenario, A leads to B, and X leads to Y. In this case, A or X would've both lead to Z. Z being a knife murder that nobody could've prevented.

There's no such thing as fate. There's only defeatism.

[Shams al-Ma'rifa]

The mulla in your example claims that the man was fated to murder someone because he had been given a silver piece. The fact that he decided to buy a knife with that however, is his own responsibility.

The mulla is not implying anything in particular, he's just explaining his point to a man who has a faulty view of cause and effect. Fate is "An endless succession of intertwined events, each influencing the other."

I'm not saying that the man shouldn't take responsibilities for his own action as you choose your own destiny, I'm just saying that there were multiple factors involved that led to his sentencing...

If he didn't have the silver piece, he wouldn't be able to buy the knife thus killing the man...

If nobody saw him, he wouldn't be convicted of murder thus preventing his death sentence...

If somebody had stopped him, he would have most likely received a lesser sentence thus preventing the death of two lives, if not one of an innocent...

Cause and effect is not black and white... You can tell your kids that you shouldn't commit crime for risk of jail time but that's not always the case... You can commit the most hideous, inhumane act in history and you would live free if certain conditions are met... Likewise, you could be the most caring person in the world yet have to suffer through the most inhumane conditions in the world...

Fate is always at work or else the universe will fall into random chaos...

[Helm]

What would be the difference between fate and entirely random chance?

[Shams al-Ma'rifa]

What would be the difference between fate and entirely random chance?

Order out of chaos

[Tecumseh]

You can't get lazy with a question like this. You can't just go back to the person giving him the silver piece. You go back two months previous when he caught his wife of ten years cheating on him with his best friend, the man he would later stab. You go back a year before that moment, to when he was fired from his job for being incompetent and lazy, losing his job later becoming the reason for his wife's slow falling out of love with him. You go back to when he was a youth, and he wasn't discplined properly by his parents to give him a better work ethic and drive to succeed. You also go back to when he was even younger and his teacher failed him arbitrarily on an assignment that he worked hard on, thus instilling in him a sense he would have the rest of his life that he would probably fail despite his best attempts at whatever he attempted.

You go back to the night his father proposed to his mother and they conceived their son. You go back to the origins of their society, and its founders decision to build the walls which protected the city the parents lived in. You go back, you go back, you see there is an explanation for every little thing, an excuse even.....

However, we have to take something else into account. Despite this inevitability, this unquestionable existence of fate and an excuse and explanation for everything, we have to believe otherwise. You can't be lazy. You can't simply say, "fate" made me do it. You have to believe you have responsibility for your actions. Society simply wouldn't function without people who believed in personal responsibility. Everything we have collectively worked for would go down the drain. We would simply accept that evil in ourselves and in others exists, and that it is excusable because there is a reason for it, instead of believing in good, and actively saying this is wrong and working against it. Society requires people who believe in good, and that bad is not excusable.

The truth is, evil exists, and it has an excuse. The other truth is, that we need to believe the opposite. There is no excuse for evil, you have to take responsibility for your actions, and you need to believe that you should be good. Society, and the welfare of humanity depend on it.

You can always blame somebody or something, the point is, you shouldn't.

[The Dude]

It's not even just a question of believing. You do have responsibility for your own actions. Can't be helped. Every step in the process you just described, Tecumseh, has been a choice. And all those choices eventually lead to that one single horrible murder, but really, any of the choices could have been different. The fact that they weren't however, leads people to be believe that there is this level of inevitability to what happened when really thats not the case.