Because events that are inevitable do not occur for their own sake. They're inevitable because they're predictable and essentially unstoppable.

My apologies, I have a tendency to do so. The OP isn't all that clear to me.

Truthfully this goes into areas of inevitability making it so humans feel hopeless in that no matter what they do, "Something" will happen. As said this can be both good and bad in its own right with bad things mostly getting the historical marks. Luckily that is changing for the better as we strive for a happier world, but it just happens at such a slow rate it seems to be trumped by the bad.

Can't fathom the horrors of those people in Japan as they heard about that nuclear power plant running rampant.

That everything can to some degree be deduced to its origin, I have no doubt of. But that a course of action can only have a single reaction, due to the nature of the action, is absurd. Any action can have a multitude of consequences, all each likely and unlikely to happen. It's just random chance.

I'm not trying to negate what you're saying because I agree with it. You and the OP are talking about two different things.

I'd also say that evolution is entirely valid since it does affect our history to an incredible degree.
Actually now that I've looked closer at the OP again, we are both slightly wrong. He's saying that if something momentous doesn't happen at one point then it will inevitably happen at another point, this isn't about predictability its about destiny, fate and other similarly vomit-inducing poetry words. This is about something that essentially hasn't happened, but will happen later on because it has to. There isn't really an answer to this since we don't know about things that didn't happen, there is literally no evidence that the majority of the world had to go to war in 1914 because we didn't do so at some earlier point.

It is actually a pretty ridiculous thing to believe since it can't be proven wrong or right. Its also dangerous to believe this, it gives justification for homicidal maniacs to become genocidal maniacs because they somehow knew that there was supposed to be a mass extinction event a couple hundred years ago.

This. There is no such thing as fate. Nothing needs to happen in fact the world would be a better place if humans didn't do anything at all.

First of all, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom Logic has to start somewhere.

Nope. I quoted him verbatim, and then told you what inevitable means. That's all there is to it.

I think you're reading far more into what he said than he actually intended to communicate.

True, this is exactly why I don't prescribe to it. Logic is the way to go.
This is the basis of philosophy, reading too far into things.

Hmm... I'm actually not sure what my perspective on this concept is

I suppose I might try a mathematical mixed with philosophical perspective, as follows. One might assume that their are infinitely many different things that might happen at any moment, that is, events. Whether they happen or not is based on their probability, which I guess would be influenced by, well, everything. Thus, it would not necessarily be true that a specific event must happen, but rather there is always a change of this specific event happening

Umm. The whole point is that axioms like that make up the very foundation of logic. You can't be "logical" without first making some assumptions. So if you reject the assumptions, there's nothing to reason about.

Heh heh, fair enough.

ehh i'm too tired to explain what i think about this right now so
false

History seems to have trends, sure.
Pratchett remarked it looked like one big blooper reel.

I suppose if you believe in the irredeemable stupidity and blind avarice of man, then yes, bad things are bound to repeat themself and are bound to happen in a slightly different way if one key event was changed.

However, I adhere a humanistic point of view and think that through education and social reform people can learn to become better at being human.
It will take some time, but I hope we are capable of it.

Well there are certainly historical events which had several factors building up over time that meant they would inevitably happen (like the great arms race before WW1 with every power building up it's army, the armies would eventually clash) therefore yes I think some events are inevitable on a cause and effect basis, just like adding two and two will result in a four or the build-up of magma in a crevice of a tectonic plate will result in a volcanic eruption. This doesn't apply to all of history though as there are cause and effect results that could easily have had different outcomes (or maybe even several different outcomes) so there is truth to your proposal, but it's not an absolute truth.

EDIT: Damn I misunderstood you. No I don't think all events are predetermined by..."destiny".

In a completely random universe where the flow of time is based on the rate of cause and effect there will be events that have to happen, but not because some divine intelligence designed it nor is it destiny. When you start with a cause an effect will happen...

I thought what you said was good.. except for that part.
I never said things are predetermined by "destiny".

Well reading other replies, it seemed like that's what you meant (everyone is discussing destiny) so then I guess I didn't misunderstand you after all.

It's between the lines.

If it doesn't happen to day, it'll happen tomorrow (or any other randomly chosen point) because it can't be stopped.

Sounds very predetermined, maybe not in terms of when, but rather that it will.

Nope, you did not misunderstand me. You are one of the few who didn't bring "destiny" up in your post, and I think that's a good thing.

To be honest I don't really believe in destiny myself, but does what I wrote in the OP automatically imply that I'm talking about it? Surely there are other factors involved. Just because something is inevitable, doesn't mean it has anything to do with the supernatural.

I don't know what other word describes it other than "destiny." What else could it be? Or how else can you explain it so we can better understand what you mean?

I said that I don't prescribe to blind belief, I didn't say that I don't acknowledge its importance.

As applied to the OP's statement, which is more logical? That something that didn't happen a long time ago must happen again sometime in the future or that it is an entirely hypothetical statement since we can't actually know about what hasn't happened?

It almost does actually, simply because we can't predict the future. We don't have the foresight to know what is inevitable and what isn't, plus you can't have some things be inevitable and and some things be random. It has to be entirely one or the other. If everything is inevitable then we are not freethinking individuals, this I find is the unlikely scenario(as I said before, evolution trumps this argument). If nothing is inevitable then our lives aren't programmed from before birth, this is what I find more likely not least of which because evolution supports it.

In terms of natural selection, invitability is a fact in the sense that everything will at one point go extinct. That's how it seems so far. Extinction is invitable. But when we are talking about human behavior putting in motion events that aren't dictated by any natural constraints, inevitability seem less likely. You could say human behavior is tied to nature, and much of human behavior is found in nature, but there is only one animal that have all the qualities, humans. There are also behaviors that humans employ that few, if any, other animals employ. Take genocide as a prime example. How many species of animals systematically rid any other species of animals for the sake of getting rid of them?

Or how many animals employ murder, necrophilia, torture, [censored], genocide in the one and same species or race? How about something more postive? How many animals are capable of love, compassion, empathy, sympathy, charity in the one and same species or race? And what if you combine these qualities in the same species or race? How many animals do that? To state that human behavior and what it cause can lead to something inevitable just seems wrong, because human behavior operate outside the traditional bonds of nature and as such can seem to be exempted from some natural inevitabilities. There's too much random chance in human behavior because it is a composite of many behaviors, many of which appear to be very rarely found in other animals.

Or maybe I'm just having a bad day...

I'm having a pretty okay day, and I agree with everything you said here.

I agree with you here. I made my post regarding historical cause and effect events, not human behavior. That is a bit more tricky to predict, though most often not overly so.

You never know, if I move my arm to the left I could have rnough force to kill a fly, then animals that eat that fly wouldn't be able to or its millions of never born descendants, then a species could disappear from my state in 200 years.

Quite a lot actually.
Murder is as common as muck in the animal kingdom, premeditated murder as well, such as seen in chimpansees.

It is a mistake to classify just about anything humans do as unique for humans, and it is a bigger mistake to think humans are in any way special in the animal kingdom.
These kind of homocentric misconceptions cloud the issue more than they are helpful.
Extensive studies have been done as to the nature of empathy, particularly among fruitbats, and the mechanisms behind it are quite well understood. Not only does empathy increase the chance of survival for the group as a whole, members of a group also remember who is charitable and kind, and who always asks but never gives. As such it increases survival chances for the individual who is sassy enough to give in times of plenty.

Free will is also very much debatable, current consensus seems to be that there isnt really any such thing.
Free wont is another story.