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.

The "reason" is that we live in a random universe and shit happens.

The saying "everything happens for a reason" when used in a religious context is just another, "I don't know", "I don't understand" or even "God only knows" it's an escape route that the religious require to avoid critical thinking. When confronted and asked to face real issues, as you found out, in general either they shut down or start to spout apologetics, that once again when broken down are the same "I don't know". There are reasons why these things are happening, usually corruption and poor education are often the culprit.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 do not know whether everything happens for a reason, but there is always a reason to everything that happens. Even shit happens body discard undigested food. We just need to find the reason.

I agree, it is an apathetic thing to say and really cold hearted to say to someone who just lost a loved one.Nothing is certain in this world. The entire universe is conducted by organized chaos. cause and effect. If there were a god who plans out everything, then that god is an evil force and should not be admired, followed, or worshiped.

Karma lets Nature takes its course

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......

it's total bull. I believe in God. I was raised that way, I have no way to change that. But I more believe he's like a deadbeat dad. He's here, he made us, but he doesn't care enough to come by, let alone make a phone call. It's either he is all-powerful, but he's evil as hell, and likes making the world a worse place for no reason, or he has the power to create, but not to interfere with his creations. (I say "he" out of simplicity, I don't care about God's gender, if God has one) Either way, I don't see God as someone worth worshiping, let alone having trust in. It's up to us to make the world as good as we can. God is just an excuse to be complacent.

@Lisasea --- None of my buttons work. Adm. said it would be fixed today, that was a week ago. It's really frustrating. That's why I'm writing this as a comment instead of a reply. Post and comment is the only thing I can do.

Everything does happen for reasons, but they're not supernatural. We can explain why children are starving or why people get cancer. The answers are incredibly complex and run back all the way to the beginning of time, but they're there. Are those answers as satisfying as believing it's part of some omnipotent being's plan? I think so.

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.

I think you mean by that there’s a reason for everything means that everything has a purpose. I would agree that everything has a cause, but nothing has purpose outside human culture. You could argue that certain animal societies display purpose as well, but it only has meaning inside its own culture. A rock at the bottom of the Mariana Trench is just a rock.

I agree with most of the posts here. Everything happens for a reason = I don't know. It's a platitude intended to comfort but falls short.

A sociological outgrowth which evolved from the Enlightenment was the loss of the "sacred" within human existence. This expulsion of the transcendent morphed into a pathological atheistic humanism and collective political organization in the early 20th century that sought to replace our transcendent meaning in historical and human experience. The most identifiable offspring of this view of the immanent, material world as complete in itself, intelligible in itself, and lacking all need were Maoism 45m Nazism 25m and lenin14m Stalinism 30m. As spiritualities of the temporal they sought a revolution of the historical order (modernity) to affirm the meaningfulness of human existence by rejecting its transcendent source. This historical temporal immanentism has become so thoroughly entrenched that to question modernistic rationalism and atheism as a valid affirmation of the meaningfulness of human existence through the expulsion of its transcendent source is anathema. This "picture of the world" is no longer manifested primarily in Marxist doctrines of competing institutional views on materialism or dogmatic totalitarianism, but the powerful cultural undercurrent that remains including its rejection of the signs of the sacred in lieu of the secular has become the default domain of humanity. The loss of the transcendent results in a loss of the meaningfulness of human life, reflected alternatively in excessive consumption, despair and violence.

It's all about control, and I'm convinced that half the control freaks in the world don't even realize it.

ofcourse it all happens for a reason, good and bad are relative. People starving probably because food in habitat is scarce...its called natural balance, worse than that is over production of food in a habitat where the populayion burst out only in one species(Human) throwing off the balance.

Clearly, you win points for truth.

I just spent a day with one of those people and learned something new..."everything happens for a reason" is the new " it'sGod's plan." Apparently they think if they make it non-religious people will buy into it. I ask what the reason is that little kids are born into starvation in India and I'm told it's to teach the world a lesson. Nice! I actually had one woman tell me that those kids born into starvation CHOSE to be born that way in their previous life...my head was about to explode. My advice, keep those conversations to a minimum and read "The Righteous Mind" (Why good people differ about politics and religion) it will explain that it's not about facts, all about emotion and belonging to the group.

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

It is the religious "true believer's way to trying to cope with the fact that he or she cannot explain what is happening within the context of his bogus religion. It makes him squirm, so he has to say, "only God knows."