Do you believe in 'everything happening for a reason'?

[Panadbois]

For example : I didn't get that job because a better one is around the corner. Or....
You were gazumped because a better house in a better location is waiting for you.

Any positive examples you cam share with me?

I don't think everything happens for a reason. Or else so much bad stuff wouldn't happen. If God/fate/the universe could put a better house/job/man 'just around the corner' for us, he/it could put a bag of rice just round the corner for someone dying of starvation.

I do think people can make something good out of situations where they didn't get what they wanted handed to them on a plate the first time they stretched out their hand.

You improve your CV, you start looking in more estate agents, you get out and date... you make your own 'next corner'. Or you sit and moan that nothing good ever happens to you.

No of course not.

There are loads of situations with no upside at all, you just end up doing the best you can.

Such platitudes are just plain idiocy, sometimes cloaked in religion, to make people feel better. No one is being rewarded, no one is being punished, no one is being singled out by God or the universe to learn hard lessons or experience cruel bereavement.

I know a family who have lost three children - twins born too prematurely to survive, and then a child who died of an undiagnosed heart condition.

I know a family whose only child was killed in a car accident.

What possible reason could there be for someone to experience such cruelty?

I prefer to believe that life is just a series of random events and terrible things happen daily, for no reason at all. We have to try to be happy, and keep muddling through.

Everything can't happen for a reason to everybody.

No, everything happens in a chaotic directionless muddle. It's up to us to make it amount to something.

I used to believe in "everything happens for a reason" when I was younger, but not any more.

There was no positive outcome from my dad getting cancer - he died in agony just less than two years later. There was no positive outcome from my mum getting cancer - she was remission for just four months before being told that a huge tumour had regrown on her liver, she died in mental agony one week later.

What was the positive outcome from Madeleine McCann's abduction or a child dying?

Sometimes something happens to us that we think, at the time, is the end of the world (like losing a house, divorce etc.) and then do find a lovely new partner or a much nicer home. But that is just luck I'm afraid - I do believe in luck (some people don't, insisting we all "make our own luck").

FWIW, the same things that made be lose my belief in everything happening for a reason also made be lose my faith in god.

But maybe I am just a bitter old hag .

Wouldn't it be nice though...! No, sadly 'stuff happens' just because it does. The world 'aint fair! (Stamps foot, pouts, holds breath for a bit).

And what's with the bike smiley? Its a bit random isn't it?

It's been said to me so many times recently, I was starting to hope it was true

Please don't think I'm belittling other peoples tragedies.

Denzel, I do agree with you, there are many things we can control and it's ridiculous to complain about problems if you have the means to change them.

But many more things are totally outside our control. We have to accept that there are no answers.

I have become so much happier since I realised this. Had two years of misery and desolation and became convinced someone upstairs didn't like me. Stopped believing in someone upstairs, bingo, life and my attitude to it improved. (Not quite the story for the evangelists).

It's the kind of thing that would be nice to believe, but doesn't really stand up to any scrutiny once you compare the trivial things people say it about with the actual serious things that people go through.

And, to be honest, I'd think God/fate/the universe was pretty bloody callous to put people through things just so he/it could turn around a month or a year or a decade later and give them something 'better". If a person behaved like that, you'd probably try to get an injunction...

OTOH the people who say it just tend to mean "I'm sorry to hear what you're going through and can't think of anything to say or do that will actually help, but I really hope it will be better soon."

Like 200 Nigerian girls being kidnapped- what good reason does god have for that?

No. The only thing which is kind of along those lines is that I'm adopted. My parents and I are closer than most people I know and it feels like maybe I just came on a bit of a longer journey to find them. It was a case of the most amazing thing happening to me for a not very happy reason.

But I would say that wasn't true, it was complete luck tbh (and it was very lucky) but I think we all drift through life where most things are chance. Children don't die for a reason, people aren't kidnapped for a reason and so on. These are horrible and saying it all happens for a reason is to try and not think that no, it doesn't, the world can be horrible and cruel and painful and that there won't often be a bright side.

No. I hate that saying.

The DC say it to me, because they know how much it winds me up.

All the people I know who say this have never had a real tragedy in their lives.

And don't even get me started on Karma.

No, not everything.
But some things are meant to be.

Yes to christians - "all things work together for good for those that love God.
No to non christians. Things happen randomly.

No, even from a Christian point of view, the bible says "time and unforseen occurence befall us all" (don't ask me where, can't remember, bit lapsed)

unless you're specifically talking about cause and effect (I spill a kettle. on my hand, I get burned) then no. I believe there is no set plan and we have a level of influence on the circumstances around us. I don't believe in predetermination.

No. What bollocks.

That I think was written about non christians, HerRoyalNotness. I think.
Ecclesiasties 9v11

Everything happens for a reason in the sense that we can create our own reasons in an attempt to make sense of the fact that actually everything just happens in an arbitrary random fashion.

Reality doesn't give a shit if I like it, so I just have to accept it.

Whooooosh! Panadbois....
I take it you are waiting for the 'this or something better'
Sometimes only hindsight will provide those positives. Can you look back in your own life and see where things didn't happen as you expected, and then something else better or more fitting did?
Love IB x

No, some happen that have no reason.

things happen*

thanks for the reference there kins preceding verses talk about all being the same, good vs the sinner, sacrificer vs the non-sacrificer. Would be surprised if it didn't apply to all incl Christians.

Back to the OP for instance saying, I didn't get the job, because a better one is around the corner. It's more comforting yourself, but unless you go the first job did it for awhile, and then quit and took the second job, how would you know one is better than the other?

I've been in this position recently, and my outlook is, better that I have a job, than none at all. The job I got is not better than anything I've had before, nor probably better than the one I missed out on. But I will never know, and it doesn't really matter.