Of course I think that everything happens ‘for a reason’… just that the ‘reason’ is at a much lower level than most people think.
But then I believe in a deterministic universe!
People often need to know “why?” It’s the first question learned and first to drive parents batty. This is just more of the same thing. Telling myself “I’ve learned from this experience” sets me free from an endless cycle of “but why did he do that?”. Telling myself “Shit happens” prevents me from continuously wondering why the “world is just so unfair.”
The world is unfair, but it also just is.
My wife has been looking for a job for several months now and each interview she doesn’t get makes her more depressed. I hate to see her like that and often I will say, “Don’t worry about that job, everything happens for a reason.” Now I don’t mean it was that the fates or anything, but simply that whatever particular job she missed out on is not the be all end all. Life will simply take her and us down a different path and that path will have great things assoiated with it that we might have missed out on otherwise. In many ways it is shorthand for simply not dwelling on what might have been and instead considering what’s to come. I don’t know think she truly believes it, but she wants to believe it and it makes her feel better, which is all right with me.
I think most people who say this are well-meaning and are just trying to be optimistic and self-affirming but it’s a sentiment which not only has major logical problems (especially if one wishes to reconcile this belief with a belief in free will), but is also naively callous and blinkered. What was the reason for the Holocaust? What was the reason for the massacres in Rwanda? What is the reason for childhood leukemia? For harlequin babies (don’t look it up if you’re sqeamish)? For all the RO atrocities against children we see in the Pit so often? For natural disasters and diseases? What in Christ’s sweet name is the reason for Rob Schneider movies?
I don’t think that people appreciate how insulting that particular little refrain can sound to people who have had REALLY shitty things happen to them for which no ultimate “reason” could conceivably justify. The OP is right, it’s a superficially reassuring little platitude which most people who say it never bother to really examine.
Forget genocide. Forget Phelps. THAT just made me lose my faith in God. I hope you’re happy, Diogenes! :mad:
I agree. Is this the trump card you bring out when missionaries come to your door, Dio? If so, you’re horribly cruel. 
Things just happen, but we notice them for a reason. Say Joe is a real asshole and everybody notices. Then one day a tree falls on his car or something and everybody notices and attributes it to karma or something. If they didn’t know Joe, they’d just think a tree fell on some guy’s car without the attribution, but since he was an asshole, it’s karma. Happened for a reason.
OK, Joe is a swell guy, volunteers at the homeless shelter, holds the door for little old ladies, blah blah. Tree falls on his car. Oh what a shame. There must be a reason for something so bad to happen to good ol’ Joe. Nope, if you didn’t know him, he’s just a guy with a tree on his car. Same as asshole Joe.
Shit happens. Why we mangle up some reason is just the way our mind works.
He just puts in his ear plugs, turns on Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, and waits for them to light themselves on fire when they realize that they’ve been misguided all this time.
Yeah, well there’s a reason for that! 
How about this: The next time someone says “Oh well, everything happens for a reason!” I’ll smack them on the head and say: “The reason that happened was to get you to stop saying stupid things.”
So you think it’s acceptable for someone to believe that their family was killed in order to make them a stronger person? The best thing I can say about that idea is that it’s selfish and callous. The Book of Job elaborates on this idea in great detail, and is one of the main reasons I rejected Christianity at a young age (now I consider myself an atheist, but that’s another story).
I think if holding that belief helps that person go on another day, rather than slitting their wrists or wallowing in bed, miserable, not living life- than yes, it may be selfish, it may even be callous, but it isn’t necessarily wrong or bad.
Like I’ve repeatedly said, we all have our own ways of coping. As long as no one else is directly being hurt by that belief, there is no harm in us each telling ourselves whatever we need to hear. Maybe it’s delusional, but so what? If it gets you out of bed in the morning and pushes you into living a happy life, what’s so wrong with that?
I believe that we live in a cause-and-effect universe (Heisenberg be damned!), in which entities (matter or energy) act on other entities with predictable results.
But that’s not what people mean, when they say everything happens for a reason. What they mean is that every occurrence has a *purpose, *which assumes the intervention of some sort of intelligence. Many people are comforted by this particular fairy tale, and to them, their comfort is more important than anything resembling reason. This is no different from the ancient people who believed there was a different God for every aspect of life. It’s a shame people’s mentality hasn’t evolved much since then.
People cling to this idea of “purpose” because they think the only alternative is random chaos. No, the alternative is cause-and-effect, which is neither random nor chaotic nor purposeful.
The whole concept of ‘faith’ exists only in retrospect. The ‘everything happens for a reason’ phrase is almost always used post-event and therefore is of value only to those who have an acute desire to ‘feel good’ even if the event was unfavorable in any way.
Why couldn’t you be just as optimistic by finding a good side effect from everty evil instead of thinking the evil happened in order to make you stronger? Let’s say the evil happened to lots of people, not just you. Would you feel good about people being hurt or dying in order to make you stronger? I doubt it. On the hand, you can learn something from a tragedy without feeling guilt.
I started a GD thread on this very issue a while ago. I have a friend whose parents met in a concentration camp, where his father’s first wife and children were killed. I think it would immoral of him to feel that that Holocaust happened in order for him to have been born. (He does not feel this, by the way.)
I did my thread in the context of God causing things to happen, which is the only way the concept of everything happening for a reason makes sense. If God caused the Holocaust for my friend to be born, then God is a monster.
I swear I previewed. Missed the dit window too.
That should be ‘fate’.
Sorry.
The problem is that when you use the term “everything” you have assigned a universal value. Unless you mean “Everything that happens to me happens for a reason,” which is a different thing entirely, and quite a bit self-centered, frankly.
Well, Voyager, if I were your friend’s parents, I would never for one second be happy that the Holocaust happened, but I would be thankful that in the midst of something so horrible, something beautiful was able to come of it. That probably makes little to no sense, but that’s how I’d see it. I’m more of a glass half full sorta gal.
And I think that everything that happens on this earth is here for us to learn from- good and bad to both me and to everyone else. It’s not selfish, because I’m not the center of the universe and everything isn’t happening for my own betterment. Rather, I think that whether or not we believe it is gods, God, or nothing controlling what’s happening, every intelligent person looks around them and learns a little something from what they see. Of course, all of this is in the context of the human consciousness, as that’s certainly all I can go off of.
I can’t speak for everyone (clearly), but only myself. And when I learn about the atrocities of the Holocaust or any genocide or something just as good as those things are bad, it changes me. Even just a little, I am forever changed by that knowledge and how I live my life will be altered, no matter how slightly the change may be.
But like I’ve said, that’s just me. What works for me may not work for you or the next guy and that’s fine. We each have to find our own way to deal with the world.
Goddamnit, I sound like such a fucking new age hippy.
Just hold tightly onto that crystal, sister. 
Universal value to me. The universe in my mind. I suppose that is self-centered, but I don’t know how I could possibly view my consciousness from your perspective, particularly since you don’t live my life and I don’t live yours.
But just because that is how I believe it to be, does not for one minute mean that I am suggesting that it is necessarily true (I may be totally wrong) or the right thing for everyone. We all have our own paths up the mountain and all that jazz.
To be clear, what you are saying is that you believe that everything that happens to you happens for a reason, right? Respectfully, I submit that that is not what the OP is asking about. For someone to say that everything happens for a reason, but only to her, and maybe that’s not even the case, is a far cry from “Everything happens for a reason.” It is qualified beyond meaningful use.