“Everything happens for a reason...”
If you agree:
By “everything” do you mean literally everything or do you have a narrower category of things in mind? People usually seem to mean “things that happen to people...”
What sort of reason or reasons do you have in mind?
Are there exceptions? If so, how do you account for them?
Do you reject or question the idea of randomness? If so, with regard to all events? Human events? Some human events but not others?
If you disagree:
Explain why you disagree. Examples:
Is it the implication that everything may happen for a purpose that you reject?
Is your position that things happen not for a single reason or kind of reason but for many different reasons?
Is it the concept of causality that you question or reject?
Thanks... to Darcy at Spiritual Blog Reviews and to Marilyn Strong & Jerry Wennstrom at In the Hands of Alchemy for linking to my book, Original Faith.
By “everything” do you mean literally everything or do you have a narrower category of things in mind? People usually seem to mean “things that happen to people...”
What sort of reason or reasons do you have in mind?
Are there exceptions? If so, how do you account for them?
Do you reject or question the idea of randomness? If so, with regard to all events? Human events? Some human events but not others?
If you disagree:
Explain why you disagree. Examples:
Is it the implication that everything may happen for a purpose that you reject?
Is your position that things happen not for a single reason or kind of reason but for many different reasons?
Is it the concept of causality that you question or reject?
Thanks... to Darcy at Spiritual Blog Reviews and to Marilyn Strong & Jerry Wennstrom at In the Hands of Alchemy for linking to my book, Original Faith.
Posted by Paul at 6:11 PM Permalink
33 Comments:
2. Different things happen for different reasons, because they were supposed to happen, but we have Free Will to choose how we act upon these predisposed things.
3. Not that I am aware of.
4. No, n/a, n/a, n/a.
I certainly reject the notion that everything happens for a purpose; it is usually a useful construct by religions (= politicians) to explain chance, stupidity and malice. "What? Your child has cancer? Well, it must be God's way of testing your faith." Pigs.
At a crude level, everything happens for a reason - the car crashed because the brakes failed; the brakes failed because they weren't serviced correctly; they weren't serviced correctly because the serviceman was tired; etc; etc; etc. But your question implies an intent behind the reason. Everything has a causal explanation. Being hit by lightning can be explained technically by a physicist but there doesn't have to be a directive force behind the reason. There is no answer to the universal human lament of "why?".
That is not to say that every experience can't be valuable and be learned from.
By adopting the view that "Everything happens for a reason" I see my life as ordered and not chaotic, and have a purpose for living beyond the neo-Darwinian struggle for evolutionary survival.
Thirty-six years ago, something happened in my life that changed its direction radically. It seemed to happen for a reason. But my view of that reason and the causality surrounding it,has changed completely.
So I don't take my own views too seriously. But it is perfectly plain that people need reasons, otherwise they'd be unable to construct coherent narratives of their own lives, or anything else.
At least for me, this belief - that the inexplicable must indeed have some deeper and hidden purpose - is a psychological necessity. I must believe this, or I would go insane for the lack of order. To be a functional part of this "culture" we build, I must sense the order - if all it is is chaos disguised with explanations, then all the purpose I am convinced lies within me and everything else is ultimately non-existent and therefore pointless.
Even if that is true, I don't want to believe it. If I did believe it, I would have nothing to believe in. Ergo, a psychological necessity.
I respect your explanations for what happens in your life, and in no way should try to impose my ideas on you.
OO: Do you see free will as entirely free? I'm thinking of how some predispositions are internal rather than external.
LEE: I agree with the sense in which you disagree. That sort of heavy-handed (heavy-headed?) purpose doesn't work for me either.
VINCENT: I haven't constructed a narrative for my own life, and so to me, that has an optional feel to it.
It seems to me that ideas in the area of religion and spirituality either resonate with someone or they don't. First, because we're by no means identical in what we experience and how we view it/feel about it. Second, because many and probably most individuals don't stay in the same place with these matters for a lifetime.
TIMJAMZ: Does every detail of life need to have a deeper and inexpicable purpose or would it suffice for events on the whole to have one?
LIARA: I agree...
Seriously, thanks. I appreciate that.
How shallow is that? Ha ha.
PAULINE: Meaning that in reality things neither happen for a reason nor without a reason, in which case I think you've become a Zen Buddhist...
Or that you think trying to draw conclusions about stuff like this is generally futile, in which case I'm generally inclined to agree.
But I do think that one sometimes recognizes falsehoods via reasoning about such matters - see Lee's comment, for example.
so what i have reasoned before, about things happening for a reason, i now just let things happen without getting too overly anxious. the word is 'overly'. ;)
I think "everything happens for a reason" is simply 20-20 hindsight. It's necessary for our sanity that we be able to shape meaning as we go along, particularly from tragic or difficult circumstances. We make connections, emphasize certain details, shape the overall narrative.
In my own life I have a strong need to create logical order, to create 'a meaning narrative.' I've heard it said that our brains are "order-making machines" - perhaps religion is a part of that, a coping mechanism as it were, a way of filling in the gaps when logic fails. What I find most annoying is that its most often used in place of logic, as a short-cut to eliminate any reason/need to think.
Used this way, it is positively anti-evolutionary.
BAD ALICE: "I think 'everything happens for a reason' is simply 20-20 hindsight. It's necessary for our sanity that we be able to shape meaning as we go along, particularly from tragic or difficult circumstances."
That strikes me as an important point. I'd just add that to find meaning in adverse circumstances doesn't necessarily require believing that everything happens for a reason.
HAYDEN: I worded the post in a neutral way, but Lee's comment comes closest to my own position – and I’d want to add what I take from Pauline's comment as a caveat.
Whatever one's position, I think it's pretty clear that when people say "everything happens for a reason" they mean things that happen to people.
Say somebody throws up a handful of confetti. A single piece gets stuck behind this individual's eyeglasses when all the rest land on the ground or the person's clothing.
Chances are about zero that the person would think, "God must have had a special plan for this piece of confetti..." He or she would just figure it happened to land behind his/her glasses and brush it away without a thought.
Maybe it would be good to distinguish "meaning" from "meaningfulness." Things can have meaning without necessarily being meaningful in the sense of validating or corroborating human values. Religion/spirituality addresses meaningfulness.
But by whom?
But I do think things happen for cuasal reasons - a sort of partial detrminism, I guess.
What sort of reason or reasons do you have in mind?
Well if we assume everything is just like that and nothing,well then i don't have any value nor everything around...
Do you reject or question the idea of randomness?
Things happen for a reason,what may seem random,will have a reason behind it :D
FIREBIRD: Don’t blame me…
CRYSTAL: You point to a part of this issue that’s beyond me – the whole cause and effect thing that we recognize in day to day events and that science also recognizes. However – and it’s been years since I kept up, as best I could, with contemporary science – I believe that science recognizes randomness as well as cause and effect in something called “the indeterminacy principle.” (Help… is there a scientist in the house? Where did “N2” go?) In other words, they see randomness, at least at the level of particle physics, as something real and not just something that, if we understood cause and effect better, would go away.
VISHESH: I’d need clarification for “Well if we assume everything is just like that and nothing, well then i don't have any value nor everything around...” Wait, I think I get it... you mean that if everything doesn't happen for a reason there can be no point to life?
Everything or literally every thing? Would it suffice if there were a reason or purpose to life as a whole, or must every detail of life in the universe have a reason or purpose and not be random?
Like when you reach for a paperclip and get a bent one and have to toss it out - does that have to have a special and purposive reason for happening or could it just be a random event or one with no special purpose beyond a glitch in the paper clip making machine?
“Things happen for a reason, what may seem random will have a reason behind it.” By “reason” do you mean a cause and effect reason according to the laws of physics or do you mean a purpose? If cause and effect, see my reply to Crystal – although you’d be far better off consulting a physicist…!
Btw, what if randomness is meaningful? I remember hearing or reading that epileptics have brain waves that are far more highly ordered - less random - than people without epilepsy, and that this is involved with their seizures. I've forgotten the other examples, but there were many, all illustrating the idea that randomness isn't just a destructive force but at least as much a constructive one.
I go with the thought that we can do as we please, be it good or bad, and no hand MAKES us do anything. I also know that this flies in the face of strict biblical scholars, particularly of Judaism. (...and He made Phaorah's heart hard...) but, simply said, if we are at the hand of being moved to this or that, then our God is playing house with us.
I never liked playing house. (Well, except with Tina, back in the third grade. It was one of those quick 'affairs' you see. I'll show you mine if you show me yours sort of a deal....)
But then, she would want me to sit and pretend to drink tea from empty cups, eat finger sandwiches off empty platters, that sort of stuff.... "Girls!"
('Course, I would, today...)
In any case, we don't need to be led around for the CREATOR to know what's going to happen. It's already written? No, more to who in their right mind thinks they have any effect over the journey we're all on...
Like that.
Don't get me wrong, though. You read of the end according to Matthew and the description sounds vaguely like the Sun enlarging, and that is the scientific forecast, too. Enlarge till it actually encompasses the Earth, too? Is that how it's going to go?
'Spose that would be fire and brimstone enough for folks?
I agree, for the believer and onlooker of life I'm...
i myself have seen my life, my father's life(who was a communist and athiest till his death, but believed in serving mankind with no expectation of any returns..and he had a good life) my mother's life (a very liberal, but ardent believer in Hinduism herself) and many other lives shaping in manners that were not formed out of there free will but directed by some unknown force, which I like to call God...
I chose mother's way, because I believed I lacked the strengh which my father displayed in many situations...and yet his life was not in the way he wanted..
and then I started looking at nature (I am an engineer, and an all time student of physics) i believe in the fact 'everything happens for a reason' more and more...
Any study of science and philosophy is only a 'research' to me and we get to know more and more of what we cannot see or perceive each time the research is remodelled...and yet it isn't complete....
as regards, reasons-- i find myself handicapped terribly to understand 'the reason' behind..one who know the larger picture will have a reason for all...we just understand or perceive the so called 'our own reasons' with out limited capabilities perhaps, and they could be wrong. We once believed the earth to be flat, until further 'research' taught us it is spherical...there's is no end to man's reasoning, it just depends on his mental faculties and resources to study..but 'the real reason' to me seem something beyond our ability...
if the above is what i believe, do I worry of randomness...i just accept it as part of the larger reality...
Paul, actually these are my thoughts on the aspect..i'm not sure if it answers to your queries..framework for studying religion is new to me, though i find it interesting...
i just believe in the spirit that guides me...my mind fails to analyse when it comes to belief. and that doesn't bother me...for I love the divine peace(love, too perhaps) I get when I surrender myself in prayers...
Hope you are doing good..:-)
just seen you comment at Socio-Pol blog....thanks, will get back in a day's time.
Wishes!
prayers
devika
DEVIKA: Sounds like you're saying that life is too big, too much, to be able to think you have the reasons for things figured out. Seems that way to me too.
You said it so short, so well :-)
Wishes!
devika
I do believe certain things happen for a reason. To me, the universe is a compassionate place, offering my soul every opportunity it needs to evolve.
More and more, I experience Life to be perfect, even in seemingly imperfect situations.
Thank you for making me look at my beliefs again.
"More and more, I experience Life to be perfect, even in seemingly imperfect situations."
It can be experienced that way, and with much truth. But the world's a big, untidy place. It's easy to overgeneralize from our personal experience of life to seeing Life itself as being just like that.
But while Life includes our limited personal experiences of it, and it's good to remain mindful of that, it's also far broader.
The human experience of what it's like to live on this earth can vary immensely. Difficulties and suffering are not evenly distributed.
Yet, I'm convinced that "the 'size' of human suffering is absolutely relative." and that "Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answers to its problems and to fulfill the tasks that it constantly sets for each individual."(Victor Frankl)
In the past 10 years, coming from a place where I wanted the pain to end and was willing to make it happen, Iiving this way, I have watched my life become intrinsically meaningful. Each moment, I choose to take the responsibility to consiously give meaning to my life, instead of expecting my life to be meaningful.
I know for sure that no matter how great one's suffering, one always has the potential within to achieve spiritual greatness.
At the time, I argued vociferously against what seemed a cavalier attitude toward the importance of life but the longer I live and the more I experience, I can see what the man meant. There is cause and effect and then there is assigning meaning to both. If "God" is everything, then its presence is in everything. If there is no "God," then things just are what they are. Either way, we get to choose what we believe about life. Those beliefs come from somewhere. Are we born with them (is there a God gene?) or are we taught them? And if they're taught, do we ever question their validity? Beliefs vary widely and most of us cling to our own as the "right" ones. Is the belief that everything happens for a reason a taught belief or an inherent one? How do we know for sure?
In response to my previous comment you said, "...you think trying to draw conclusions about stuff like this is generally futile." I do but the discussion you've stirred is interesting. One ought to stretch one's mind with questions like yours.
What’s been far more interesting to me – beyond interesting… is to have found myself many years ago ceasing to ask “What’s the set-up?” as I call it in my book. Instead of trying to work out my beliefs about The Scheme of Things I just focus on matters that all of us can experience. Meaning can consist of direct experiential knowledge – it doesn’t have to be metaphysics or theology.
Seems to me your professor made an interesting observation and that indeed we’re more meaning-makers than meaning discoverers. Of course, his statement itself represents an application of meaning to life and death. And while it’s an interesting and important realization, it strikes me as less than the proverbial “words to live by” – not something you can put at the center of your life and act upon. I guess you could say that in the end I’m a pragmatist, which you wouldn’t be likely to get from this blog but would from my book.
Hint hint, lol. Frankly you’re one of several bloggers whom I personally wish would read Original Faith because I think you’d be pleasantly surprised – nothing like what you probably expect – and that it wouldn’t be quite like anything you’ve ever read. Also, in your case, nature and what we can learn from it is a theme that pervades the book and there’s one entire chapter on that specific topic. I like to think of you reading it overlooking your lake...
It is meaning full :) So when randomness becomes meaning full,then meaning is given to every thing,random or not.Besides i can't really take the idea of random.I mean to my eyes,everything is transient except me,for i see the changes within and know what truly is the reminder-the truth.
" By “reason” do you mean a cause and effect reason according to the laws of physics or do you mean a purpose?"
Well we are here in one phase..the negation shall also be true,but without contradictions...
Is it basically Hindu? Vishesh? Vishesh-Hindu? Unfortunately, although I went to a divinity school that's highly regarded, the program - at least back then - hardly touched on eastern religions. Hope they've corrected that.
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