Balderdash comes to mind.

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.

Of course everything happens for a reason, god just is never the reason.

Like how the fuck do they know that?

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

It just makes me want to headbutt people in the face at this point. Every conversation I've had isn't worth it. Maybe in a sense they're trying to comfort themselves. Not you. I'm already asking "why..." So if you don't actually know the reason stop suggesting there is one.

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.

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.

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.

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

It's just a fall back on the puddle argument. Oh look, I'm a puddle of water, and this hole is the perfect size for me to be a puddle exactly like this....must have been designed. People survive and move on, or they die. Shit doesn't work out, at first but did later, it isn't b/c some imaginary friend deemed it, it's b/c you got off you ass and went to plan b, c, d, ....etc. It's all relative to your point of view on how you interpret events.

Your interlocutor confuses intention with causality. everything has a cause. that's not the same as having a reason. if you do not believe in a supreme being, then you do not believe the causality is the result of intention, and you do not believe in the possibility of such an intention at any rate. and even if everything DID happen for a reason, how would that justify everything that happened? i am surprised she couldn't answer you, though. i would've thought she'd fall back on the tired old cop-out "god works in mysterious ways." the while universe works in ways that are still, to us, largely mysterious, and whether or not we ever understand it all, or even most of it, the universe will chug along. it doesn't demand our belief, our faith, our understanding, our deliberate ignorance or any other thing. it isn't as sentient entity and it doesn't need to be prayed too, nor does it demand acceptance, so if we can change bits of it for (what we consider to be) the better, we're not betraying some sacred "reason." ask that confused person: "if everything happens for a reason, then we have brains and hands and willpower for a reason. with these tools we can change things for the better. we have this ability for a reason. you are defying your god's will by lazily ignoring his gifts." (sometimes you have to address folks from within their chosen reality, regardless of how well you know it's fantasy.)

g

I have gotten the "Gawd has a better plan for them" in regards to the death of children. To which I counter if Gawds plan is to destroy families, then he is a sick, sorry, son of a bitch who doesn't deserve any worship!

I always tend to correct them and say, "You can find meaning in and give purpose to everything."

I agree with you especially on the horrors that go one daily throughout the world and right here at home. School shootings, cancer, deportation, rape, and the list goes on. What is the reason for that? It always sounds like a programmed social nicety like "have a nice day" when there is no thought to communication with others.

Yup. The average agnostic/atheist has a higher IQ than religious people, or even Conservative ones. Link-Survey: Racists And Conservatives Have A Low IQ. Surprise, Surprise! [wp.me]

Choices give us humans on earth endless opportunities!! Only thing is some choices you make cannot be undone and they change you forever!!

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.

everything happens simply because it does,maybe we will know why,maybe not,but its a rule of life that shit happens,the tricky part for most folk,is dealing with it...

It is oure bull shit. That is the reason religious people give to justify allowing bad things to happen. They convince themselves these people deserve what happens to them because they are not Christians or they perceive them to be not good Christians. The religious always find a way to justify things like that.

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.

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.

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."

I look at any situation as having a cause and if we can identify the cause we can prevent suffering from the same cause by understanding it and changing it. The "everything happens for a reason" excuse is a catchall phrase for "I don't know and I am not going to help fix it." In any situation we try to find or make a reason because that is how most people cope with events that are in and out of our control, "if we can find a reason for it then we can accept it with less effort". So, I feel like "everything happens for a reason." is a total shrug off of any responsibility or effort to change what we are capable of changing.

if 'everything happens for a reason' is equated to 'cause/effect', okay....if everybody on the planet was fed and lived a full and long life...well, none of us would live very long...the population explosion would destroy us all...suffering is a natural state as is joy....survive one so you can have the other...but this does not mean don't help people...because I guarantee no matter how many people you try to help, death will find a way...