Question of the Day

[ayoub]

Are omens simple coincidence or not?

Comments

[inmyocean.livejournal.com]

Not coincidences. The reason we may feel they are is because we cannot always see them and when we do we feel it is by chance not by purpose.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Do you feel that the more we lok for them, the more likely we are to find them?

[inmyocean.livejournal.com]

No I feel the more open we are to their existence and to the world around us, the more in tune we will become with them and they shall reveal themselves to us in good time.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Very excellent answer...

If we look for them, we'll find them anywhere, even if we have to make some up in our own minds, rather to just stay open and let them come to us...

[huggscancer.livejournal.com]

they happen for a reason

[pan16.livejournal.com]

I think that whatever name you give it, or any other similar phenomena, all that's really important is to learn to recognize it when it happens.

[shadowshape.livejournal.com]

entirely agree
love and blessed be
xxx

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Yes, they do...

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Good answer :)

[pan16.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[pan16.livejournal.com]

Thanks.
Love and blessed be to you too. :)

[evergladesqueen.livejournal.com]

not. too tired right now to elaborate
*hugs*

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

:D

[mighty-rontor.livejournal.com]

That depends on whether you read something as an omen or not.

[stardances.livejournal.com]

Not coincidence. It usually takes a bit to understand what an omen will mean, but they are there to help guide us if we pay attention :).

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

What would you define as an omen?

[reynold.livejournal.com]

I've had one too many thing happen to me to believe in coincidences anymore. Things seem to happen for a reason...

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Yes, they can be hard to interpret, at times...

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Well said...

[mighty-rontor.livejournal.com]

An uniquely unusual event that is indicative that another event may happen in the near future. Foreshadowing in real life.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Does it have to be a foreshadowing? Can it not simply aid to focus current thoughts?

[mighty-rontor.livejournal.com]

On a mundane level, I think that's exactly what it does. One starts looking for signs if they're already on track to notice them in the first place. If one's worried about a friend's health and a bird flies in from outside, one might be predisposed to attach significance, for better or worse, to this "weird event" about the friend's health.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Our minds make connections that may not be there?

[mighty-rontor.livejournal.com]

The connection might only be there at an unconscious level.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

So how do you know whether it's a true omen, or just your subconscious trying to give you evidence for what it wants?

[mighty-rontor.livejournal.com]

I think they can be one in the same. I think that in most cases that the mystical/spiritual aspects of omens work their way through the unconscious mind because one's initial reaction is typically a powerful, visceral shock. One doesn't know why one is reacting so strongly to the sign presented them. Only after the initial shock comes the analysis of the omen.

Either way, omens are never simple coincidences. They're always unusual, even if one is skeptical of them. It'll still make skeptics say, "Well, yeah, it was sort of weird..."

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

That, my friend, was a good discussion :)

[mighty-rontor.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was! I liked it! =)

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

Nothing is coincidence. So no. *smirk*

[fox-bard.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the universe works in patterns. Based upon those patterns I believe in omens.

However! Just because I believe in their existence doesn't mean I believe in exact interpretation. Just think of George R.R. Martin's A Clash of Kings. Every king thought the red comet was for himself. Obviously, most of them were wrong.

The problem with omens is that everyone has to make that omen apply to him/herself, and unfortunately, by the time you know what the omen means if it even applies to anything you are remotely doing... it's generally too late.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

:D

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

I agree on the problem part... :)

[fox-bard.livejournal.com]

I don't believe that omens are necessarily mystical or supernatural. They are simply manifested patterns. Our universe works on patterns - if it didn't, we wouldn't be on a planet in a solar system that has patterned itself around a single star.

An omen is literally just an event or a symbol that may be believed to fortell the currents of future affairs, provided that one can properly and objectively interpret what pattern is being demonstrated.

For example: Fish die in a river. A village on that river might see this as divine wrath, and thus an omen of the village's destruction. The problem is actually a toxin in the water that is killing the fish, and this toxin will take a main staple of food from these people as well as possibly physically hurt them. Thus, the village/community will be virtually destroyed as some stay and die, and others leave to find a healthier place to live.

There is nothing mystical here, except that the villagers may believe some divinity is responsible. While the villagers need to find an understanding for the phenomenon that trips onto the psychic, the phenomenon itself is actually mundane.

In uncertain times, humans innately turn to omens the way they do to religion. All cultures around the world do this to some extent. It doesn't actually matter if the omens are fortelling real events, or if people are just attributing psychic inference onto mundane patterns. The omen is what it is in the mind of the person casting a prediction on it.

Another example: You wake up and nothing goes right. You spill coffee on your shirt before you leave making you late for work, you almost get into an accident, your boss chews you out for being late and crap goes generally wrong, all at once. We say, "It is going to be a bad day." And it is, for the most part. Many people agree that if things go very badly in the morning, that pattern will continue throughout the day. Now, other mitigating factors may be involved, such as our dispositions after we've had a thoroughly frustrating morning. There's nothing psychic here. It's just a pattern. The good news is that once we are aware of the pattern, we can either break it and make a new pattern, or suffer under the old one. The choice at that point becomes ours.

Based on this hypothesis, the real question isn't really whether or not we believe in omens... but how much emphasis do we put on them? They don't have to be magical or divine, but they can offer some small comfort and sense of control over events which we seldom have any control at all.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

An excellent discussion... I have to agree with the spilling coffee thing...

If you think it's going to be a bad day, it will be...

[torisrabbit.livejournal.com]

are omens like signs??

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Yep :)

[torisrabbit.livejournal.com]

ok, then my answer is yes, i believe in omens, because i think there is signs everywhere and we just do not see them....and then sometimes we see them clearly.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

:D