Haha, this particular comic is cool on many levels. While I was in the army, I spent a bit of time pondering over this particular question - If every event in my life has happened for a reason, doesn't it mean that I effectively have no free will over how I act?
This army guy I knew replied me in a way similar to Utahraptor's answer. Free will and predestination are mutually compatible.
Two ways to explain that would be
1) Free will is utterly deceptive. That means that even though we think we are acting out of free will, actually we aren't. But it doesn't matter, so there.
2) What one person views as predetermination is actually another person's free will. For example, if I put a normal piece of sweet into a bottle of containing ants, I can know that the ants will be attracted to it, before I even put the candy in. The ants to the candy out of free will, but my actions predestined the ants reaction.
(If you're gonna answer, "But humans are not ants!", a substitution of ants and candy with say, a human and a hundred dollar bill can be made.)
Similarly, as Christian, Psalms 139 is used as to substantiate the point that God has an ultimate plan for us (ie presdestination), even before we were born. Leads to pretty fascinating questions like, "Why does God curse some people to be gay ?", or , "Why does God curse some people to have Down's syndrome?"
I mean, scientists have made flies gay, and Down's syndrome is definiately caused by a duplication of a chromosome. So, I do believe that many afflictions have a certain level of predetermination to it, especially as a life science student.
I think, this answer can only be truly answered, along with many other questions like "Why did
So, as T-rex says, "Now, let's never talk about it again!" I have really much more pressing things to think about anyway. =p
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