As an aetheist, agnostic and freethinker I used to think things that happened to me personally were because they were meant to happen. Now I'm not so sure I was supposed to get cancer.

The reality is that the universe “allows” every wonderful and absolutely horrific thing you can imagine to take place. Humans for some reason allow horrible things to happen to themselves and perpetuate horrible things onto each other. It has nothing to do with a god or a devil and everything to do with a flaw in thinking and an insane way of living based on the idea of a separate “self’ To divide what is actually a whole system is what creates conflict . There simply is no separate you, there is only relationship. I recommend meditation for dissolving the silly notion of the grand self.

Everything happens for a reason, and that reason is cause and effect. Everything happens because of a prior cause. Nature has no grand plan. That's just a superstition that people try to comfort themselves with.

Well if you think about it logically everything does happen for a reason. Not because if some unseen force but by actions taken/not taken by people in most cases. Our failure to act our failure to care or involve ourselves with the needs if ithers so that is the reason things happen.

This saying annoys the hell out of me. I have acquaintances who are not really religious who say this.

It is really translatable as "this is not my problem".

Technically it is correct, there is always a cause. It just becomes an excuse not to take action and to not give a damn.

Everything happens for a reason is a cop out of many proportions. Lack of knowledge, fear, blind acceptance, etc. And also used for the capture of the weak minded of those in highly distraught situations. The statement is a tool.

I agree with you completely. I have a sister-in-law who told me that she lost her book and she prayed to saint (fill in the blank) and she found it.
I asked her why Her god can send out old St.Bul--hit for her book but he can't help starving and tortured children.

Yeah, they tell me the same thing. I guess when a child is stricken with cancer or a child gets sexually abused and that abuse leave a mark on their life, such as hem having a severe mental illness, that happens for a reason, too. The nerve some of these people have. Just a desperate way to hold onto their delusions and empty promises.

I have asked someone using this argument "what would be the reason for me calmly punching them in the nose?"
After discussing it they were decided that whatever reason they assigned to the event it probably wasn't gods will!

It's nonsense. Ask them to walk down a children's cancer ward and explain their reason for that happening. Not to mention 2 year olds getting raped. Oh, I don't respect anyone who believes that "god works in mysterious ways".

Hi, Ruetres! Nice to see a fellow Cornhusker on the board.

Some religious people have used the "everything happens for a reason" cop out to avoid taking responsibility for their own behavior from as far back as I can remember.

It's infinitely easier to say, everything happens for a reason (Translated: I don't give a shit) than it is to make the effort to ensure that the playing field is level so that success or failure amongst able bodied and minded individuals is based upon individual effort and drive rather than trickery and smoke and mirrors.

“Everything happens for a reason.” Whenever someone says that to me, it pisses me off. What reason? Is there one reason that everything happens, or are there different reasons for every different thing that happens? Who or what makes these reasons? I may be just a little more sensitive than usual to that statement right now because my 37 year old friend just passed away 10 days ago after a three year fight with cancer. And if there was a reason this beautiful person had to die so young, I’d like to know what it is. I’d like to know how anything was made better by her suffering, or her death. As to the statement that “suffering builds character”, does anyone on here believe that?

I see no reason to believe that.

It’s nonsense.

Some things happen for a reason...like a person is a total dumbass.

I was raised as a christian and very active in the church growing up until age 14 when I was given the choice. After that it was strictly xmas and easter.
When my 12 year old daughter was hit by a truck, in a coma and then died, I received all the platitudes. I didn't want to hear it. At that moment I was done with god and all the bullshit.

What a great question. People say this a lot!
You really put it in perspective & I commend you for asking that person. It sounds like a load of crap privileged people would say, not thinking of others.

I'm surprised you didn't get that nebulous favorite"It's God's will".

Yes, everything happens for a reason, but not in the way religious nut jobs believe.

Things happen and we assign a reason to them. If we can't explain or understand it, then "everything happens for a reason" explains the unexplainable. Kind of like "What ever!"

It's one of those platitudes I hate hearing. Like "she's in a better place now" when someone dies.

Everything does happen for a reason, but the reasons may not be good, for example the reasons why children starve may be because of a combination of apathy and greed. Of course one must face the reality that the reasons are man made and not god given, for that to happen, god would obviously first have to exist, and since he doesn't......

Some time ago I had a conversation which revealed that the church goer that I was talking to thought that Jews were Christians. He reasoned that,
"Jesus was a Jew wasn't he?"
I'm quite amazed at how little the religious seem to know about their own religions and so often can't answer simple challenges. Could it be that the stock answer of
"God moves in mysterious ways".
was starting to wear thin in the mind of your acquaintance. One hopes so.

Everything does happen for a reason, but that is not what they mean. The reason children die from starvation are to do with geopolitics, not because it is some god's will, which is what people usually mean when they say that. When someone close to you dies, or you fail to get the job you want, those things also happens for various reasons, just not the reason that that platitude has in mind.

Bullshit.