'Everything happens for a reason' is a terrible philosophy, amirite?

"Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes that reason is that you are stupid and make bad decisions."

by Savings_Active_5674 1 year ago

"Everything happens for a reason" is a great way to reframe bad things that happen, and to focus on looking for the good from a situation instead of fixating on the bad.

by Money_Department 1 year ago

Everything does happen for a reason. It's called causality. Just because the religious are ignorant to reality doesn't change that everything happening now is a consequence of what happens before. Temporal autocorrelation. Nothing is independent.

by Pearlie09 1 year ago

teach you a lesson A lesson about what? cause Logic is fun. Engage your brain.

by Pearlie09 1 year ago

.. but everything does happen for a reason. A tree fell down during a storm. The reason it fell down is because the wind blew it over and the root system wasn't strong enough to keep it in the ground. A car accident paralyzed someone. The reason that happened is because the driver of the other car was drunk and ran a red light. Everything does happen for a reason. Just stupid people like to assign that reason to a higher being for future rewards for current suffering.

by Gustskiles 1 year ago

The problem is that most of the time, they're using it in the context that you described in your last sentence. Sure, a lot of cancer patients may feel they've been called for a higher purpose, but a lot of others will see that sentiment as reductive.

by Wide-Wasabi-8705 1 year ago

The reason it fell down is because the wind blew it over and the root system wasn't strong enough to keep it in the ground. That would be "everything happens because of a reason" and not for, for implies a futuristic purpose for the tree falling down.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Except in quantum physics where true randomness (A kind of random that was not cause by anything) exist.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Hey, so if I treat you like crap you have no excuse. Its for a reason and all that

by Anonymous 1 year ago

There is a chance that it is not deterministic but probabilistic. It doesn't mean when you do something good, something good MUST happen to you. That "Everything happens for a reason" philosophy could means, if you are happy, you have 60% more chance to be successful in your career. If you smoke, you have 90% more chance to get cancer. That is cause and effect with a probability approach.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

It also supports the Just World Fallacy, which is used to justify a lot of bad things by a lot of people who don't want to fix society.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

There's a difference in common language between "reason" and "cause and effect."

by Savings_Active_5674 1 year ago

I like to look at it that everything happens for a reason not because of some invisible force orchestrating events and life based on its will. But rather based on a series of domino effects that occur from the actions and decisions of others and nature. That, is the true meaning of the phrase imo.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Everything happens for a reason could be used as yet another reminder that not everything is within our control

by CurrentBowler 1 year ago

I usually say, you have to learn from bad things that happen, otherwise they are just bad things that happen. It's a better way of framing the true intent of this idea.

by Anonymous 1 year ago

Especially when the truth is that it's actually random and chaotic.

by Anonymous 1 year ago