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I got into a discussion a few days ago with a religious person who had said, "everything happens for a reason." I then asked this person how they can explain the fact that hundreds of thousands of kids die from starvation every year in poor places in the world like Yemen and Somalia. I asked what the reason was that children die from famine if everything happens for a reason. They could not answer me. Living in different places in the world and seeing first hand how 'belief' causes apathy in people has really molded my thinking. What are your thoughts on the notion of 'everything happens for a reason?'

Ruetres 5 Dec 23
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9

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.

Found out my father's two sisters both had leukemia-one in her 70s and the other aunt at 90. Then on my mother's side my uncle got leukemia at 90 and is still alive. Late in life to say the least.

I've heard cancer could be caused by a vitamin deficiency. Have you looked into that?

Not blood cancers. Any medical people here @TWShield?

My Mom had breast cancer at 40 and again in her mid eighties. She again contacted cancer at 94 and died of it after her 95th birthday. Most of her life was cancer free. My Dad died of leukemia at 67. Because of genetics I get myself tested once a year but believe firmly that shit just happens.

I think science gets better and better about explaining why we get sick or get certain diseases. I would much rather trust science than believe everything happens because some God has already determined so. Stay strong.

Didn't think blood cancers were vitamin deficiences. Thanks @twshield

I learned pretty early in life most things happened to me because of the consequences of my actions, that included my cancer, my action, being drafted into the Army, going to Vietnam, and being exposed to Agent Orange. Now that was something I had control over, I could have stayed in school and kept my student deferment. By the time I graduated there was the draft lottery, and my number was so high I would not have been drafted.

However, there are many unexplained reasons for cancer, but "god" has nothing to do with them, however I do believe there are many environmental causes for cancer, we haven't figured them out and why some folks with the same exposure have no ill effects, genetics? ANd while we are there, it really makes mad that "23 and me" and genetic testing companies are not allowed to tell you of your predisposition to various cancers and other illnesses so you can protect yourself... Conspiracy theory time, if you could protect yourself the drug companies might not make as much money. On the other hand you might opt for more frequent screening, so is it the insurance companies? Please keep the government away from my body, male or female! .

And many things happen by chance, if Elvis hadn't died I would never have met the love of my life... That's a bit of a funny story for another time,

I also realized that my wife going to work for the railroad would cause her demise, why, because of her history of pushing the envelope and injuring herself... There is no picture in any of her high school yearbooks where she is not in a cast or on crutches caused by injuries playing high school sports to the max.

3

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.

Oh absolutely. The reasons are human failure, greed, ignorance, selfishness etc... but not some divine order from some invisible God like religious people claim.

Then it needs re-phrased: Everything happens for a reason because of action or inaction

0

If anything happens for a reason, that reason is Physics.

physics is a word that most people don't even know what it means and the processes that operate under very defined rules. I advise people to read a good books on the subject and understand what they are reading.

This takes a lot of work and most people are not willing to do that.

2

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

😟

2

“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?

Shade Level 5 Aug 18, 2018

I don't believe suffering builds character.

@sellinger
Maybe I should reword that haha. Suffering may build character, but not necessarily the good kind!

0

Karma lets Nature takes its course

"Karma" is just another word for a supernatural being/effect - it just means noone is really responsible for their actions, but someone/something else decides what happens to you. Not something I could ever believe in.

@Agnostic1 I know the whole Karma principal or whatever that s*** is

0

I think everything happens for a reason also, just has nothing to do with religion, god, church, etc. We are the captain of our ship, responsible for everything that occurs in our life, creators of our own reality. Our mind is the creative force that drives the body, we are not separate from that force. The idea is learn the lesson and accept the gift, pay particular attention when the shit happens. Just my take on it.

Would you say that to a starving child?

@BeckyDavis yep

0

I have always wondered why evolution made us the way we are. We may be getting too smart for our own good. We are the only animal on earth that can manipulate things for our own benefit or to do great harm to this earth. Now we are starting to threaten our own survival and the survival of many other species. Human beings need to learn how to limit our population to a reasonable number so there is room for other species to live we just can't keep taking more and more.

dc65 Level 7 Dec 26, 2017

Governments and organizations & religions never acknowledge that birth control would end most of the suffering. It's maddening!

@BeckyDavis I agree with you,

3

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.

How painful that must have been!

The final straw for me was when my mother died from bone cancer.

4

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 couldn’t agree more.

0

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.

Of course you have a way to change your belief in god. It's called thinking.

1

In a way, I subscribe to this theory as well, but in a wholly different way. Things that people have control over...yes, I got that job because I worked very hard to get the qualifications. Yes, I was able to make that purchase because I sacrificed and saved. Yet, many of the good things in my life happened because I was fortunate enough to be born into the family I was born into, in the country I was born into, and that set me up for some success, and not everyone is that fortunate. Sometimes, the "reason" things happen are beyond your control. Sometimes, they are within your control and so whatever happens is because you brought about the reason. And still other times, SHIT JUST HAPPENS. "Life is as random as it is deliberate, as funny as it is tragic."

3

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.

Hello fellow cornhusker... oh I absolutely believe religion is completely made up of deflecting accountability... like when people say, “I’ll pray for you”... what does that even mean? Why not do something tangible and measurable instead.

2

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.

Dav87 Level 6 Dec 23, 2017

True.

0

Buying into myths and restating them as reasonable responses has nothing to do with the existence of God. Furthermore, the logically deduced conclusion of an intelligently designed universe only introduces the conceivability of a divine "matter facilitator". After the realization of some of the world's most brilliant minds - including many well known physicists - consider the profound, inexplicably complex nature of all symbiotic systems required to sustain even one organic life-form a justification for belief in a supremely intelligent, coordinating intellect. Famous scientist, Francis Crick (father of DNA and devout atheist) has the answer to resoundingly perplexing enigma: space aliens and ray-guns!

Well then the order and design. Since the universe is complex it follows that it is ordered and designed. I say it's a fundamental misunderstanding, at best one can assume intelligence is not required for natural forces. People assume that order can come from disorder without intelligent design, but it's an assumption based on observation not an observable fact.

1

When people say this, they usually do it as a form of consolation, to offer an assurance that the "reason" is some sort of nebulous better future. You're supposed to take comfort from the notion that "it is necessary to suffer now in order to prosper later."

I'm not at all convinced this is even remotely true. Sometimes things work out for the best. Sometimes, though, they just keep on being awful.

And technically, everything does happen for a reason. The reason sucks sometimes, though. Why are there starving children in Yemen and Somalia? Because local warlords monopolize the food supplies as a way of forcing the population to obey them. Also because global climate change has accelerated and exacerbated weather events inducing droughts, soil salinization, and erosion of arable farmland. And also because some nations have governments that have failed to manage economic conditions and infrastructure, resulting in massive shortages of food and other vital supplies.

Those are reasons. They aren't supernatural and they give zero hints that they are somehow necessary pre-conditions for something much better to happen in the future. If we want to change those reasons, we humans must act and change them ourselves.

Very well said.

2

Things don't happen for a reason. They happen because things are always happening. People who say "there is no such thing as coincidence" are wrong. I don't believe there is some invisible guiding hand dictating and choreographing events that will impact your life. You go where you go and get where you are usually as a result of choices. Even going nowhere is a choice. We are subject to the laws of coincidence in which we interact with other humans purely at random in many cases and we respond from there. Things happen because things happen. There is no divine intervention or unearthly force guiding the events of your life that were laid out in some grand plan somewhere in the great beyond.

When someone refers to "luck" as some invisible force that they are somehow or somehow not "blessed" with, and then wishes me "good luck", I tell them I don't believe in "luck". I do believe in statistical probability, hard work, the genetic hand each person was dealt, talent, the compassion or apathy of others, talent, etc... etc...

2

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".

Crazy crazy religious logic.

2

Like how the fuck do they know that?

They don't know, just repeating what they heard from the other robots in church

0

Something bad happens, you make the best of it, then something good happens & you make a correlation. Religious, "magical" thinking at its' best!

3

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.

2

I think its a lazy laymen term. "everything happens for a reason is a bull**** excuse. along with "its gods will"
at this point I have started assuming people that say these things are religious fanatics and I avoid them like the plague

Kodi Level 4 Jan 27, 2018
0

I don't know that's a good question. It also kind of raises the question if you do good and be a good person good things will happen to you (or will it)But the saying good guys finish last was made for a reason. Sometimes it seems like things happen for a reason but most of the time it seems like just luck of the draw smh

1

I believe that everything has a "cause" or "reason" that can be explained by science or social science. People may be starving while others are wasting or tossing food, so it's maybe borders or political barriers. The world population explosion is not helping either, thanks to some narrow minded approaches to birth control.

1

It is all " according to legend bollocks", no fact or logic, miracles blah blah, religion rules only applies to middle east culture, another way of crowd control, in this ageing planet how real it l can be to try the explain everything with man orientated/sexist book, how come some females of this world can go along with this beyond my belief.
If anybody was able to transform water to wine would you realy kill him? No way.
We share this planet with some unbeliavable people and they believe earth is flat, they even have society for it.

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