# "everything happens for a reason"... Actually, maybe it does? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 30, 2012, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449 "2012-04-30T21:43:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/21 "2012-05-01T03:01:56Z")
> [@living\_in\_hell](#): > > I know a lot of people think this is bologna Nitpick: Lunch meat is “bologna.” Nonsense is “baloney.” ---
**Author:** ![living\_in\_hell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@living\_in\_hell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/living_in_hell)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/22 "2012-05-01T03:02:16Z")
Posting here tonight reminded me (yet again) of how much anger and intolerance there is out there…and that I don’t have to react to it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/23 "2012-05-01T14:34:40Z")
> [@living\_in\_hell](#): > > Posting here tonight reminded me (yet again) of how much anger and intolerance there is out there…and that I don’t have to react to it. 🙂 We’re not angry. We’re just intolerant of nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![living\_in\_hell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@living\_in\_hell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/living_in_hell)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/24 "2012-05-01T15:34:45Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > We’re not angry. We’re just intolerant of nonsense. I wasn’t talking about this thread. 😉 Now, about that nonsense and cheese sandwich… ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2012, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/25 "2012-05-01T15:51:56Z")
> [@living\_in\_hell](#): > > ETA: maybe what I was trying to say is that, it’s more about what we do with what happens to us… That’s very true, but also not really what the thread title says. Different issue, really. > [@](#): > > and so if someone suddenly has some health scare and it “forces” them into a position where they can reassess and then make some different choices, maybe that seeing this having happened for that reason (correlation not causation) is not so bad? I’d say it’s not so bad, but it’s not accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/26 "2012-05-02T15:28:53Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I have it great now, better than ever really. I have a great job, great kids, and old friends value the fact that I am still around thanks to their emotional investments in prayer vigils. Why do I picture this as coming from the epilogue of House? ---
**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:** [May 2, 2012, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/27 "2012-05-02T22:04:23Z")
My mother died not at a young age but long before my father. There was absolutely nothing good about that. She would have loved to see her second grandchild, been thrilled at what her first grandchild did, and my father would have been a hell of a lot happier over the next 25 years. As for me, I’ve been very lucky. No deaths, no major illnesses, no job losses, no seeing our bank account shrink, no divorces. I don’t know what I would have learned from any of these disasters happening, but I’m quite happy not learning those lessons. If someone wants to use this as a way of dealing with pain, I’m fine with it, but it still isn’t true. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/28 "2012-05-03T16:52:57Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > My mother died not at a young age but long before my father. There was absolutely nothing good about that. She would have loved to see her second grandchild, been thrilled at what her first grandchild did, and my father would have been a hell of a lot happier over the next 25 years. > As for me, I’ve been very lucky. No deaths, no major illnesses, no job losses, no seeing our bank account shrink, no divorces. I don’t know what I would have learned from any of these disasters happening, but I’m quite happy not learning those lessons. > If someone wants to use this as a way of dealing with pain, I’m fine with it, but it still isn’t true. I was just going to say something similar. My mom died too early, just as she was getting ready to start on some exciting new things that she’d never had the chance to do before. Nothing good came of it. Absolutely nothing at all. There was a cause, but no “reason.” ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/29 "2012-05-03T17:24:53Z")
Not everthing happens for a reason, but there is a potential lesson or opportunity in a great many things if we just look hard enough. And it may not be that when god closes a door he opens a window, but when the door is closed, a wise person looks for the open windows that are already there. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/30 "2012-05-03T19:56:18Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Not everthing happens for a reason, but there is a potential lesson or opportunity in a great many things if we just look hard enough. And it may not be that when god closes a door he opens a window, but when the door is closed, a wise person looks for the open windows that are already there. There are as many lessons to learn from things going well as things going badly. If ones actions contributed to a problem, then there is indeed a lesson, but if it was totally random (a piano falling from a window or something) there are no lessons. In fact, what you’d “learn” would just lead to paralysis. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/31 "2012-05-03T20:02:12Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > There are as many lessons to learn from things going well as things going badly. If ones actions contributed to a problem, then there is indeed a lesson, but if it was totally random (a piano falling from a window or something) there are no lessons. In fact, what you’d “learn” would just lead to paralysis. Well, there are piano lessons. 😉 I didn’t say that there is a lesson from each and every conceivable event. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/32 "2012-05-03T21:22:52Z")
You know, if “everything happens for a reason” can be stretched to include “The reason that horrible thing happened was to teach you that life is meaningless and random and there’s nothing you can do about the horrible things that happen to you for no reason”, well, that’s kind of fucked up. If I thought God intentionally killed my unborn child just to teach me some kind of fucked up lesson about randomness, I’d be pretty pissed. Luckily, I don’t believe in God, or a purpose to the universe. I have no idea why that baby died, but there was no higher purpose to it. She just died. The fact that there was no reason is very comforting. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We come from nothing, and we’re going back to nothing, and so everything that happens to us means nothing. Is that bleak? No, because the meaninglessness of the universe, or of human life, is also meaningless. It doesn’t matter that our lives don’t ultimately matter. It would only be horrible if our lives meant something, but they don’t, so it isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![living\_in\_hell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@living\_in\_hell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/living_in_hell)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/33 "2012-05-03T22:10:52Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > That’s very true, but also not really what the thread title says. Different issue, really. > I’d say it’s not so bad, but it’s not accurate. Ok, think that I was working through my thought process in that title and this thread. Don’t worry, since then I made a thread just for my random thoughts. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2012, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/34 "2012-05-03T23:46:21Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > . . . Is that bleak? No, because the meaninglessness of the universe, or of human life, is also meaningless. It doesn’t matter that our lives don’t ultimately matter. It would only be horrible if our lives meant something, but they don’t, so it isn’t. This is one of the quirks of humanism. It means we get to decide our own “meaning” for life. But it also means that no two people are going to agree on exactly what that meaning should be. It has, thus, a tendency toward diversity, and some people find that threatening. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/35 "2012-05-04T16:52:04Z")
Humans are simply very, very good at finding patterns. We are so good that we find them even when they aren’t there. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/36 "2012-05-05T01:00:34Z")
No, I swear, that cloud did, in fact, look EXACTLY like a big human face! (Scared the bewhatsus out of me!) (I also once saw a cloud shaped like a gigantic phallus. Coincidence? Impossible!) ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449/37 "2012-05-05T15:52:19Z")
Everything happens for a reason. But not necessarily for a good reason. Random chance counts as a reason. There’s nothing that happens that’s so bad that someone somewhere doesn’t gain some sort of benefit from it (insight, financial improvement, experience.) But any positive effects are often grossly outweighed by the overall loss. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everything-happens-for-a-reason-actually-maybe-it-does/620449.md?page=1)