No, no, no, no, no.
There is no “reason” for any occurrence, ever. There is no “purpose” in life. Anyone who looks for one has some serious cognitive dissonance going on. Good things are a result of your worship of your deity, yet everything bad is either the devil or some “master plan”? Stupid shit, get over yourself.
I subscribe to the school of “It’s not your fault, it’s your turn” and “shit happens.”
And I have a daughter that was born limp blue and not breathing, is on the autism spectrum and has not been able to be unsupervised for nearly 8 years. I personally would appreciate it if you don’t imply that is part of some “plan”. Thanks in advance.
Oh yes. Only men are bad readers. No chips on our shoulders.
When people say, “everything happens for a reason,” they don’t usually mean that every event has a cause. They mean that everything serves some greater purpose. This is why so many people fall back on this belief in response to tragedy - it allows them to feel that some good must have come from their misfortune, even if they don’t know what it is.
I expect that most dopers don’t believe this. I don’t - not even a little bit.
Well I kinda do believe this even being an atheist, but I look at it more like if you are happy now think of how much worse things could have been.
A lot of people tell me like think of how your life could have turned out had you just applied yourself or done this or that or…
But I am pretty happy right now and pretty satisfied with my accomplishments for the most part, who knows what could have been or if it would have been worse.
I think that everything that happens has a reason. If it affects us deeply enough we try to learn a lesson from it.
It’s an useful saying. When you hear it, you know a great deal more about the person who is saying it.
But these things all DO have a reason. It’s not a fair reason, but being a victim of someone else’s poor choices is a reason. Besides the weather, virtually everything can be explained by someone(s) doing X, or not doing Y.
I think that everything has a rational explanation, but to me, that’s different to a reason.
Whilst the OP might say “acting as if things happen for a reason can be very useful,” I’m inclined to say, '“you can’t changed what happened, but maybe you can make a change to your or someone else’s future.”
So in the earlier example of the tragic drowning of the toddler, the parents could perhaps get involved in local planning laws for pool fencing, speak at parent evenings to warn other parents of the dangers of leaving toddlers unattended. In Jamie’s example, he’s chosen to become something of a crusader for correct use of disabled parking spots, access to gym equipment, and perhaps other stuff he hasn’t discussed here on the board.
thanks, I appreciate the thoughtful post!
this is what I mean, not using such a belief (or whatever) to blame a victim fo give false comfort to someone in their misfortune (it’s all part of a plan!) but taking the attitude that there is something to be learned…and learning it.
in general, *I think life has the meaning we create, actively.
*
I tweeted this once, and got a few retweets:
I think that everything that happens to you has a traceable origin, but nothing has any kind of ultimate purpose.
No; there’s always a constant input of pure randomness into the human-scale world from small scale quantum effects.
I would have to see some really convincing evidence before I’d start accepting that brain-melting concept.
The expression “everything happens for a reason” means more than just the universe is deterministic. It’s saying (or at least the usual interpretation), is that an event that seems terrible or pointless will at some later date turn out to have been a vital step in some greater good.
At the practical level of how events seem to humans…it’s not true. Lots of things in hindsight just look like terrible or pointless events, or are far more cloud than silver lining.
At the higher, philosophical level…it gets complicated by how we define “good”, and whether good needs to be for everyone or just for the greater good of the species / universe / whatever. I’d still say for most reasonable definitions it’s not true.
A simple example; an atom in your body decays (a quantum mechanical process), emitting a particle. The particle impacts some DNA in just the wrong place, causing a mutation that leads to a cancer that kills you. That’s a quantum mechanical process affecting you in a pretty profound way.
On a more common level, quantum mechanical processes are literally everywhere, impinging on everything. And the world is full of phenomena that are examples of “deterministic chaos”, which is very good at turning small perturbations into large effects. The “butterfly effect” as it’s known. And the human body and brain specifically are full of such chaotic processes, and of biological machinery that operates on a small enough scale that quantum effects matter. Some quantum process nudges an electron, it nudges some more, that makes a neuron fire a moment earlier than it would have, and up the chain the changes go.
If the OP is talking about causality, then yes, things have reasons. Or more accurately, actions tend to have results.
If the OP is talking about things happening for a reason because of fate or as part of a greater design, then no.
People often look at serendipitous events in their life and assume they were “meant to be”. If Steve didn’t go to Boston College, he wouldn’t have been roomates with Jim who became his best friend and he wouldn’t have married Jim’s sister Jill. It may seem like fate or something perfectly aligned their lives. But in reality, Steve would probably roomed with some other guy, made some other best friend and married some other girl if he went to Colgate instead. Or not and he would have been perfectly happy as a lifelong bachelor. Nothing is pre-ordained or meant to be. People make choices that change the course of their lives in good and bad ways and one path isn’t any more or less valid than the next.
Also the child was going to grow up to be the next Hitler.
Yes, exactly. It’s not that everything has a reason, but that everything has a lesson. “But… cancer!” OK, not everything. But a significant number of things, and you should be paying attention to those things. “But… dead babies!!!” Not all of life is cancer and dead babies. Plenty of good things happen, and they’re worth paying attention to, enjoying, and learning from. “But… there’s no god, and no plan!!!111eleventy.”
It would suck to think that everything is random and that life is happening to you, rather than you happening to life. That’s victim mentality. That’s living at effect. How much better would it be to be at cause in your own life? To be the rudder of your own ship? To imbue events in your life with the meaning that serves you and those around you?
This starts with the idea that whoever or whatever is in front of you is your teacher.
The problem with “everything happens for a reason” is that it’s generally a phrase that’s uttered by clueless but well-meaning people who’ve put exactly zero thought into what they’re saying and what it means. But that’s the problem with horrific things; people generally don’t know how to respond to someone else’s pain. I appreciate the thought, I appreciate what they’re *trying *to say, but I loathe loathe loathe the saying itself.
Now, going through some horrible experience (or even a not-so-horrible one, I suppose) and taking what lessons you can from it? That idea I can get behind. But to be so awful as to suggest it to someone else? That’ll take someone far more clueless than I.
Well, that sort of “everything happens for a reason” belief is akin to solipsism: “Everything happens for a reason” means that everything that happens has been arranged for my benefit. It’s all about me.
Which is not the same thing as saying “What can I learn from this?” or “How can I benefit from this,” which is what I think you were really intending, and which may well be good and healthy. But that’s you reacting to the world, not the world arranging itself for you. It’s not the reason things happen. The reason the vet was cranky was almost certainly something that had nothing to do with you: he had a headache, or his previous patient was mean to him, or something like that.
Is there cause and effect? Yes.
Is there a Grand Plan? No.