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Enjoying "Oedipus the King", by Sophocles
Ed Friedlander MD
erf@kcumb.edu
http://www.pathguy.com/oedipus.htm#predestination

2. Predestination
Long before we "got civilized", ancient Europeans (Greeks, Vikings, others) were already talking about "predestination". If something was going to happen, it would happen and there was nothing you could do about it.
Why would anybody talk like this?
1. Ancient people may have been impressed (or wanted to be impressed) by the fulfillment of prophecies. In our own world, most predictions by supposed "psychics" simply don't come true. But people want to believe in the supernatural, and people like to tell each other about the rare occasions when something happens that a psychic said would happen. So money-making "psychics" make lots of predictions and keep them vague.
People have such a strong desire to believe in the power of supernatural prediction that they even invent stories of psychic predictions being fulfilled. The most......

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Approximate Word Count: 1303
Approximate Pages: 6 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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