# Do you believe "everything happens for a reason"? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 1, 2007, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028 "2007-08-01T19:54:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2007, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/141 "2007-08-04T03:21:26Z")
[QUOTE=Omegaman] Your children are yours. [/QUOTE] Tell it to God. Oh, that’s right. Nothing is his responsibility. I keep forgetting. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2007, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/142 "2007-08-04T04:07:23Z")
[QUOTE=DiosaBellissima] And you know, I never once said my belief was universal or even vaguely true. All I’m saying (and as I said _repeatedly_) is that it works for _me_ and that each individual has to find what works for _them._ I’m sure that widow in Darfur has her own coping mechanism to deal with an experience so horrific that none of us can even fathom- but she still goes on every day, so she must have a way of coping. It might not be my way and it might not be your way, but she must have a way. [/QUOTE] Why do you think that? How do you know that she’s not just the actual equivalent of a zombie, so horrified by her situation that she is totally numbed by all the pain and grief she has experienced that “going on every day” is just a rote habit, not the product of any actual will or connection with her environment. Whenever I encounger this “everything happens for a reason” stuff I think of that poor South American girl that was trapped in the mud in the aftermath of a volcanic eruption. She was found, rescue was attempted, but they could not get her out of the hole, and another mud flood was on the way. So they had to shoot her. I wonder what lesson she was being taught? She must have been VERY naughty at some point. ---
**Author:** ![Yag\_Rannavach](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/858c86/32.png) [@Yag\_Rannavach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yag_Rannavach)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2007, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/143 "2007-08-04T04:16:09Z")
I think that a reason can be found for anything that happens, if you try hard enough. That isn’t to say that it happened for a greater purpose or anything, but that humans can fabricate a reason for anything. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2007, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/144 "2007-08-04T04:33:00Z")
[QUOTE=jsgoddess] Exactly, fellow heathen. 😃 [/QUOTE] :does the secret heathen handshake: > [@Omegaman](#): > > Maybe it’s because Satan desires them. According to the Bible, Satan cannot act unless God allows it. [Here’s an interesting article](http://www.slate.com/id/2162853/entry/2162854/) talking about the Book of Job: > [@](#): > > If God takes away all his good fortune, Satan says, Job will curse Him. God accepts the wager… In short order, four messengers arrive at Job’s house. The first announces that all Job’s oxen and donkeys have been stolen. The next that a fire from heaven incinerated his 7,000 sheep. The next that the Chaldeans took his 3,000 camels. And the last that “a mighty wind” blew down his son’s tent, killing all 10 of his kids inside. > > …Job doesn’t seem to curse God, but he certainly waxes against Him. “I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.” His flesh is infested with maggots, happiness has abandoned him, and when he seeks comfort in sleep, God sends nightmares. Job brilliantly mocks the famous line from Psalm 8: “What is man that thou are mindful of him?” Job turns it inside out, urging God to stop paying so much attention to man, since his attention is so unpleasant. > > …God knows he’s innocent yet punishes him. Poignantly, Job wonders why God would bother to make him—to fashion him “like clay”—just so that he can suffer. Job thinks it must be a game for God, an ego trip, like hunting a lion. (What’s interesting, of course, is that Job is right. God is behaving with manifest injustice, and it is a kind of game for Him.) I will not accept such a god as my god. The Bible is full of examples of God being vindictive, petty, and cruel. If you want to believe in divine beings, polytheism makes more sense. You can blame all the shit that happens in the world on fights between the gods. Believing in a single god that is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent is logically nonsensical. Pick one or two, you can’t have all three. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2007, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/145 "2007-08-04T22:01:10Z")
**jsgoddess** , here’s the thing…I am not denying that a lot of bad stuff has been done in the name of religion, and I am in no way trying to convince you that your opinion is incorrect. I just don’t agree that the examples you gave are illustrations of the thought process you said you had…that “The very existence of an omnipotent god devalues every obligation for every person.” In other words, that if God doesn’t fix a cause of human suffering, then humans aren’t obligated to try to fix it, either. The closest examples you gave are this prosperity theology, which I had never heard of before you mentioned it, and maybe also the Christian Scientists…although I don’t know if their philosophy extends beyond medicine or not. All the others are using badly-applied theology for selfish ends, I grant you, but as far as I can tell, not that specific justification. And I’ll bet a million dollars that in the vast majority of these cases, these weak justifications were used at the same time that people were urged to help people in other ways. I’m sure slaves were given medical help sometimes because it was the “Christian thing to do.” ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/146 "2007-08-05T00:45:04Z")
[QUOTE=SenorBeef] This seems to be a core part of the majority of people’s world views. They feel that if something bad happens, it was there to teach them a lesson, or had some other purpose. I guess they might think that if something good happens, it’s a just reward for whatever positive things they think about themselves. [/QUOTE] Most of what happens follows the rule of Actions Have Consequences. If something bad happens, it’s usually because something stupid preceded it. If something good happens, it’s usually the result of good planning and hard work. The rest of the time, it’s plain random chance. ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/147 "2007-08-05T01:03:34Z")
[QUOTE=jsgoddess] Tell it to God. Oh, that’s right. Nothing is his responsibility. I keep forgetting. [/QUOTE] Not the actions of humans. Free will and all that. Wouldn’t it be nice to blame it on Him? Keeps one from having to take responsibilty for ones self. I have experience in this as I was brutaly abuse as a child. So were my other siblings. Some of us rose above it, some never have. It took me 30 years to get right. And still I need His help to keep from letting violence rule me. For some who suffer, their is no respite. The poor and persicuted, they will have no peace at the hands of others. I do what I can but I am only one and just a drop in the bucket. ---
**Author:** ![OslerKnew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/58f4c7/32.png) [@OslerKnew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OslerKnew)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/148 "2007-08-05T01:22:52Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] “Everything happens for a reason” is bullshit escapism; pablum for people who cannot face reality. [/QUOTE] I’m just curious; why do you think your reality is any more valid than anyone else’s. Seems to me that you could allow others to find comfort in what you don’t - no loss to you. Bullshit escapism to you, life centering to others… what’s your beef? I am in no way religious, nor do I find a particular religious bent to the notion of “everything happens for a reason”. What I do find in that particular phrase is that for many it allows them to see the world in a way that helps them conduct their lives from day to day, to live through atrocities, to live through life’s minor trials, and to live a life that is worthy to them. What the fuck is wrong with that? ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/149 "2007-08-05T01:27:44Z")
[QUOTE=sturmhauke] :does the secret heathen handshake: According to the Bible, Satan cannot act unless God allows it. [Here’s an interesting article](http://www.slate.com/id/2162853/entry/2162854/) talking about the Book of Job: I will not accept such a god as my god. . [/QUOTE] Now is satans time. He’s got his hand in much evil in this world. As for the choice, I have made mine and you have made yours. As I don’t judge others I believe there can be peace between us and more importantly, between all and me. I am His servant and seek to do right in His name.Peace be with you. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/150 "2007-08-05T06:16:28Z")
[QUOTE=OslerKnew] I’m just curious; why do you think your reality is any more valid than anyone else’s. [/QUOTE] “Everything happens for a reason” is logically unsupportable. I am not sure what that has to do with my reality, whatever that means. If, for example, in some person’s reality all Italians were Satan’s minions and therefore should be shot on sight, would you consider that as valid as anyone else’s reality? > [@](#): > > Seems to me that you could allow others to find comfort in what you don’t - no loss to you. How am I preventing anyone form finding comfort in anything? I’m responding to a question on a message board. > [@](#): > > Bullshit escapism to you, life centering to others… what’s your beef? It’s sloppy thinking. It’s belief in a fairy tale. It is the antithesis of critical thought. It sets people up to swallow dogma unthinkingly. It is an excuse for not changing bad situations. I don’t like it. > [@](#): > > I am in no way religious, nor do I find a particular religious bent to the notion of “everything happens for a reason”. What I do find in that particular phrase is that for many it allows them to see the world in a way that helps them conduct their lives from day to day, to live through atrocities, to live through life’s minor trials, and to live a life that is worthy to them. What the fuck is wrong with that? It’s nonsense. It perpetuates ignorance. Teaching it to children is a form of child abuse. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/151 "2007-08-05T06:44:20Z")
[QUOTE=OslerKnew] I am in no way religious, nor do I find a particular religious bent to the notion of “everything happens for a reason”. What I do find in that particular phrase is that for many it allows them to see the world in a way that helps them conduct their lives from day to day, to live through atrocities, to live through life’s minor trials, and to live a life that is worthy to them. What the fuck is wrong with that? [/QUOTE] How can anyone not religious believe that everything happens for a reason? Who supplies the reason, and causes the things to happen, if not god? I realize that people who don’t think very deeply might find comfort in everything happening for a reason, and if it’s only trying to find something good, no problem. But how do you justify millions dying so you can be born, as in my example upthread. And that’s a good result. Only a monster god would cause so much pain. ---
**Author:** ![fessie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@fessie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fessie)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/152 "2007-08-05T15:18:00Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] It’s nonsense. It perpetuates ignorance. Teaching it to children is a form of child abuse. [/QUOTE] Do you believe that we have control over what happens to us, that our fate is in our hands? ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/153 "2007-08-05T15:20:32Z")
[QUOTE=fessie] Do you believe that we have control over what happens to us, that our fate is in our hands? [/QUOTE] I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe that there is some supernatural entity that is shaping events in our lives. Whether or no free will exists is an open question to me. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/154 "2007-08-05T15:47:43Z")
Does everything happen for a reason? I don’t know. Did any of the more than fifty people posting in this thread have a reason for bothering to express ourselves? Is there the delusion that anyone listens or cares? Is any of the more than a hundred-and-fifty posts anything beyond the product of a damned and hapless human subset? Twitching randomly? Striking accidental keys? Walking into the ambush of muggers whose self-esteem is so low that they will settle for turds instead of wallets? It’s dark. And the reason it’s dark is that scum has formed and blocks the light. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/155 "2007-08-05T15:56:32Z")
A really funny woman I worked with used to make fun of this idea by stating that, since the weight of the earth and everything on it is unchangeable, she would never go on a diet because whatever weight she lost someone else would have to gain. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/156 "2007-08-05T16:09:59Z")
[QUOTE=don’t ask] A really funny woman I worked with used to make fun of this idea by stating that, since the weight of the earth and everything on it is unchangeable, she would never go on a diet because whatever weight she lost someone else would have to gain. [/QUOTE] I get the joke, but is it really unchangeable? What about the Mars Rover, for example? How was that lost weight regained? ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/157 "2007-08-05T17:04:52Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] I get the joke, but is it really unchangeable? What about the Mars Rover, for example? How was that lost weight regained? [/QUOTE] And hell, we’ve launched much heavier stuff than that into space, never to return. We’re practically mailing our planet off in every direction, a few hundred pounds at a time. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/158 "2007-08-05T20:56:25Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] I’m sorry. Was that an answer? I asked what the baby did to get born that way, and you responded with something about how the baby will deal with it? Forget about dealing with it. How would free will be affected if \*every \*baby were to be born completely healthy? [/quote] No, the universe has certain principles. To violate those principles on a case by case basis would be to take away the ability for humanity to deal with the lot they have drawn, and to understand anything about reaping and sowing. Oh, I till the fields and God yields a healthy harvest, hooray! Oh I do crack and my baby turns out perfectly healthy, hooray! That eliminates reason right out of it, takes away any determinate effect from causality. > [@](#): > > You said this : > > \*What you are saying is that God should violate our free will in order to keep us from suffering. \* > > What is the link between free will and suffering? Are you suggesting that free will is impossible in a world without suffering? That is not at all obvious to me. What has suffering to do with whether I choose a chocolate milkshake over a vanilla one? Because you are talking about consumer choice not free will. Free will is an existential issue that has to do with having a choice as to how we deal with the circumstances dealt to us. Whether or not your high fructose drug is accented by one spice or another is of little relevance. I am reading a book called ‘Shantaram’ and there is a great line about freedom from a character who is describing being chained to a wall and being tortured. He talks about the freedom he felt when he realized that while he was being tortured he had the opportunity to hate his torturers or to forgive them, and that within those parameters he had a whole universe of opportunity as to how to deal with his situation. Your argument appears to me as a sort of hedonistic idolatry of suffering, as though suffering is the ultimate evil, when suffering is purely a state of the nervous system. It is the subjective application of how we react to that suffering that determines the ‘lesson’ and what ‘reason’ we choose to derive from that lesson. > [@](#): > > You also said this : > > - Human beings are not an omnipotent creator, and therefore do not have the ability to remove free will in violation of a covenant between creator and created.\* > > I made no such covenant. The covenant is a promise of the creator to you. Whether or not you fulfill your end of it is up to you. Your very existance depends upon the creator not up and changing the rules of reality so that your existance is impossible within the new paradigm. Free will being what it is, you are free to engage in the covenant or not as you see fit, but the promise to humanity remains. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/159 "2007-08-05T20:57:53Z")
[QUOTE=MILTBore] Wow. Hateful. I can’t believe anyone actually thinks like this. I wasn’t a crack baby, and I think my life has been just fine. Normal life has plenty of tragedy to deal with and learn from without throwing really excruciating and damaging stuff into the mix, especially when it makes people more dysfunctional and less emotionally and psychologically capable of dealing with these things. People living thousands of years ago lived lives of abject misery. Many people in the world do today compared to Americans. Are we to think that somehow life was better back then? Should we plunge America into famine so we can have all sorts of great things to deal with? Should we mourn if we succeed in eliminating African famine because it will have deprived ghouls like Mother Teresa their vicarious pleasure in “learning” and celebrating from the suffering of others, all the while resisting the idea that anything substantive should be done about it other than making sure that when those people cry out in pain, they cry out the exact magic words that her ideology requires? [/QUOTE] That’s mighty white of you. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2007, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028/160 "2007-08-05T21:08:28Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] So, I somehow damaged my kids from making sure they weren’t crack babies? That the crack babies would be worse off somehow being born whole? Do you think we should break the legs of runners at the beginning of a race to see if they can really persevere? [/quote] This is almost too stupid to respond to. But I’ll point out that I made no contingent statement that regarded being a crack baby as some sort of benefit. You reap what you sow. It’s unfortunate that the prior generation decided to fertilize the soil with crack before planting their seed, but there it is. > [@](#): > > Crack babies, growing up in the ghetto, would no doubt have plenty of other challenges, ones they might have a better shot at surmounting without being handicapped at birth. Your god is a monster. Yes, my God is a monster. He is the God of Grendel as well as Beowulf. > [@](#): > > BTW, you might think about the women in Africa who never cheat on their husbands, but get AIDS anyway since they have a Catholic duty to their husbands, and because they are not allowed condoms. They are not supposed to practice abstinence. It would be wonderful if their husbands did, but thanks to Catholic teachings they suffer through no fault of their own. Maybe they should divorce - whoops, can’t do that either. You are trying to personalize this so that I feel like somehow I am responsible for the state of African women. Like I have some moral responsibility to stop believing in God because God won’t come down and relieve the suffering of African women. However, lets go with reality here for a second. It’s a little known place where Catholicism does exist and has certain principles. One of those principles regards men cheating on their wives as being sinful. Read ‘I Corinthians Chapter 7’, Paul talks about that extensively. So, if people were actually following Catholicism, no those women wouldn’t be getting AIDS. The men don’t follow the rules of Catholicism, and what makes you think they’d follow the rules of condoms? They could just as easily not put a condom on because it doesn’t feel as good. That doesn’t make Catholicism evil, if anyone is evil it is the men who don’t love their wives enough not to put them at risk of a deadly disease. For me, I like to fuck. I like to fuck lots of women. I don’t like to use condoms because it doesn’t feel as good. I have a wife and a child. So you know what? I don’t fuck lots of women without condoms, because I don’t want to hurt my wife and deprive my daughter of a Mother and a Father. It’s so easy to blame the church but not the scumbag who is cheating on his wife isn’t it? Humanity shares the wages of sin, that’s just the way it goes. God may very well be a monster, that’s irrelevant, because there are plenty of teachings that tell us how to live a righteous life. It doesn’t matter which religion is doing the telling, because the most basic and fundamental moral teachings are there, and knowable. It’s unfortunate that people reap the seed from fallow soil, but that’s the way life is. That’s why we fight ignorance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-believe-everything-happens-for-a-reason/414028.md?page=9)