You know I used to think the same thing. The last 9 years tell me that:

1. I ended a 10 year relationship that turned abusive
2. I had a car accident which broke my back.
3. I was diagnosed with aml-acute myloid leukemia-10% survival rate
4. I had a blood clot in my lungs and heart failure

I'ive been a survivor 5 years now. Joined Agnostic.com Made many friends. Health is good. Traveling again. Life is good.

I'm a random chance girl. The universe itself is full of random chance.

That being said, there are some things that happen "for a reason," but not for a purpose. People are careless and stupid, texting while driving for example. A neighbor I knew my whole life was killed in a car accident at 14. The reason was because the driver was an angry, abused 15 yo boy who was going way too fast on a curvy street. But I don't believe there was a purpose for her death.

Life can be full of shitty moments. It's why I appreciate the good ones so much. Giving up is not an option because there are always more good moments waiting.

Still, doing things that help us grow as a person are purposeful. Making our lives better or making us better is a valid purpose. No reason not to take pride in the efforts you made to put your life on a more positive path. I don't think atheism is antithetical to that perspective.

There is an old proverb out there, I forget by whom, that says Great Change is Preceded by Great Chaos. As others here have said, this doesn't mean it was "for a reason" - far from it. But the chaos brings a change in perspective - which some have decided means it was "for a reason." Embrace change, embrace chaos - it's the only life we have. I think most of us have survived our own dumpster fires. This community has helped me sort through a lot of shite.

They don't

Things just happen. Period. How you deal with it...now, that’s another thing.

We are an adaptive and resourceful species. We are good at making the best out of circumstances presented to us. In this way we give reason to things that happen in our lives. It is then easy to attribute this reason to some pre-destined plan, but doing that is a fallacy.

What is wrong with that? You don't have to believe in God to believe that somethings do happen for a reason. Even chaos theory allows for the possibility of order, and the idea that nothing is truly random. If you are seeking a reason then how's this one? Because you manned up and faced your difficult decision, what seemed to be negative turned out positive and YOU are the reason. YOU are the master of your own destiny, YOU made your own choice, YOU ARE THE REASON. Of course there is the possibility that I am crazy and full of shit. Or there's the logic that even a blind squirrel finds a nut and everything turned out good just by random luck. So You decide the answer that makes you feel best.

Well in this universe things do have causes: it’s simply part of casuality. So the phrase “everything happens for a reason” is a tautology: yes it’s true but it doesn’t really get us anywhere useful. In life we must go through tough times and this is what the religious often call tests from a god because suffering must have a purpose otherwise it is just... well insufferable evil or at least that is how it feels right? No pain, no gain; however, it’s likely the case is just one of adaptation. To quote Jurassic Park “life finds a way”. So my take on “things happen for a reason” is “yes they do, but I highly doubt there is some grand reason why people get cancer or go through tough times: it is just life happening and we happen to be quite suited to adapting to it”. It’s a bit like the whole pond in the pothole situation if you’re familiar with that (basically it’s an analogy of the fine-tuning argument) which goes something like this:

A pond may ponder one day about its place in the universe and say “wow I must have been created by some benevolent being! Just look how perfectly this pothole is for me! Anyone who denies this must be blind as this is self-evident!” Of course you and I know that there were natural forces at work that form some kind of hole and the nature of a liquid is such it adapts to the shape of its container.

In a similar matter it may seem like trials are put into our life to promote our growth, but it’s far more likely that random trials pop for reasons somewhat beyond our control and we simply adapt because... well... what other choice do we have if we wish to continue to exist?

I believe there is a cause and effect to everything, but not "by design" as that "everything happens for a reason" phrase implies.

They do. It's physics.

If so, you did it yourself, since we are co-creators of our own universe-making our own reality.

What you believe, or fear, comes to you, since your focus on it brings it to you.

“Consciousness is fundamental and matter is derived from consciousness." – Max Planck, theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics

If things happen for a reason that implies there is something behind why they happened, some action, effort, force, or design. So an apple falls to the ground for a reason - gravity. I think there are likely forces in nature that we aren't aware of yet, and whether there are some that dictate why things happen they way they do in our lives is not out of the range of possibility.

Cause - effect, action - reaction, but no master designer playing chess with my life. I make choices. They have consequences.

There does exist cause and effect for events, however, the universe is chaos.

Beware the absurd nature of existence and your minds urge to assign meaning to it.
Things happen for reasons, just not the ones many like to think.

Stuff just happens. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. It just happens.

I am obliged to agree with the comment from @LadyAlyxandrea

"It was meant to happen"; "Everything happens for a reason."; "It's all part of God's plan"; "It is written"; "It was just fate". All these and similar reflect the human brain, our propensity to see patterns, no matter what, and to explain everything in terms of predetermined cause and effect. God - universe - plan - my little bit in it. Some substitute God with universe, or cosmic thingamy, or whatever so as to feel non religious. We can all do this in our troubled moments, shuffling through our mental mind maps that we've created from experience, to make the absurdity of life seem explainable.

This just goes to show that while all A-theist are non-believers in any god(s), we can believe any and every thing else.

I think that the human brain is evolved to look for patterns. This likely made it easier for our ancestors to forage successfully. I think this pattern-finding tendency makes it easy to interpret random events as a divine plan. But when you examine other events in your life, I'm sure you can find examples where everything went nuts and it would have been much better if those events never happened. Just my 2 cents.

It is us that attach meaning to things that happen to us. There's no "meaning" outside human existence, at lest none that's relevant to us. When people feel overwhelmed by certain events happening in their lives that are totally out of their control they may feel the need to attribute this to some external "powers". It's probably just a coping mechanism that some people have been learning to default to.

Things happen for a reason in the cause and effect sense of the word reason. When it comes to overarching themes in life like fate I believe things happen and then we ascribe them some reason in retrospect to put them in context and move past them. If we’re lucky we learn a lesson in this process. There are still major events in my life that I can find no reason for, no benefit to anyone, no lesson to be learned, just tragic.

Only if you count blind, random chance as a reason. Nobody is out there doing stuff to us to teach us some lesson.

Hmmm.... kinda like getting lost in the desert then finding a leather bag full of gold coins. Then meeting up with some campers. Getting a lift back to your truck. And so on...

You were very lucky. And, you made it positive. That is all. Nothing else.

It probably just happened.