events.  I don't like the idea that our lives are basically like a movie playing out.  Something already written and decided that we just move through.  That type of fate I do not believe in.

I have to agree with litteacher. I tend to say that things happen because of fate, but my education tends to force me to examine the reality of cause and effect. So I guess my heart believes in fate, but my head does not.

I believe that free choice is a label we apply to mental phenomena which we do not completely understand and that we, as thinking beings, are not in a position of control over our own behavior in as great a degree as our consciousness would lead us to believe. 

For me, this does not mean that free will doesn't exist and this doesn't mean that we have to believe in fate. What it means is that there is a great mystery taking place right inside our own heads and the hand of biology and the hand of fate may, in the end, be one and the same. Or, they could be different.

It's impossible to know.

Personally, I try to hold back from making the "final" assumption on things that seem to be beyond my ken, so I do not believe in fate and I don't disbelieve in certain scientific and physical notions of determination, behaviorism, and the lot. 

Are you thinking about "fate" as something that controls us and that we are predestined for?  If so, I don't believe in that.  But there are certainly things that happen to us due to pure luck.  For example, it was pure luck that made me and my wife go to the same college where we could meet.  But was it fate?  I doubt it.

I think that sometimes I believe in fate in spite of myself.  I actually do try to be logical, and know that things cannot happen for a reason.  However it must be the romantic part of me that believes in fate.  Sometimes we can’t really control our thoughts, can we?  The world is a complex place.  I don’t think any one force out there can control everything.