I am not sure whether it is still strongly believed in Greek culture, but for the people that lived back in the era where it was widely thought, it is quite visible to see that they would have strongly believed that these “fates” determined their lives and were responsible for their actions. For them their lives were fully governed by fate and the gods, humans were just a shell for the things that the gods had to dish out and play around with. Examples of this can be seen in the old mythical movies. We have the videos Hercules and Jason and The Argonauts. In “Jason and the Argonauts” Zeus (king of gods) and the other gods watch over Jason as he makes his journey for the Golden Fleece. On his voyage, they come across all obstacles, which the gods have put against him, and situations, which the gods helped him out of. These movies helped to give an insight on how it was back then and the way the gods and humans worked with each other.
In our lives now, we believe in our religions but do not let It rule our lives either. I feel that I am in charge of my life most of the time, but, I do believe in fate and do think that things happen for reasons but I do not stand by it as being true in some situations. These days we are given the freedom of choice to believe what we want to believe and do what we want to. We have no laws saying you have to believe in this and you have to do that. I know that probably half my friends would believe in fate, and the other half would just dismiss it as something else. A reason why I find it hard not to believe is that you see people that tend to get all luck and some other people who just have trouble after trouble. One person we know wins nearly everything she enters, cars, holidays, cash, yet the odds of winning are very very slim as thousands enter and she still gets it.
In English, I am studying King Lear. I think that this also shows and example of fate. In the story, King Lear is faced with tragedy after tragedy and this is due to a disturbance in the ladder of life. In the era of Elizabethan Cosmology it was believed that everything had its place and hierarchy and it was supposed to stay that way or else dire things would happen. In this, it is already fated and known that if the ladder was rearranged that bad things would happen.
In conclusion, I believe that fate does play a small part in peoples lives, but the belief of it playing a major role in our everyday life for everything we say and do, is no longer adhered to. To me, the amount of fate in a person’s life is as much as the person is willing to let it be.
