Everything happens for a reason

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I'm not immune from this one. I've said it too.
Everything happens for a reason.
Ummm... no.
When you look closely at some of the horrible things in this world,
there can be no reason

What horrible things ?

I'll be the contrarian.

I do think everything happen for a reason but that reason is not to advance a grand moral narrative. Usually when people say everything happens for a reason they mean that an event brings somebody closer to a destiny, or teaches a moral lesson or something similar that makes it seem like we are all living in a work of fiction where every action must advance the plot.

Since you are a Narrator, you know a thing or two about advancing the plot, so you know what I mean.

But when people say this to me (as they often do when something bad happens personally, locally or globally) I like to take it literally.

When somebody dies in a car crash, the reason isn't to serve as a warning to those who drive recklessly. The reason is because their body was fatally damaged because their car hit something. We can learn from it but our lesson isn't the reason it happened.

Horrible things happen for reasons that have to do with human nature, physics, biology and bad luck. But none of those are what people mean when they say it happened for a reason. They always mean that the reason is so that something else can happen (advancing the plot) or as a moral lesson.

I am feeling so literal right now.

Cause and effect, intention, but no higher meaning.

Natural disasters, such as the 2004 tsunami which killed over 230,000 and displaced 1.7 million.

Horrific genocides in which millions have been slaughtered in the last century alone.

Attrocities such as the hundreds of millions of women who undergo genital mutilation, including 20% who undergo infibulation.

When we say, everything has a reason, we tend to think of the relatively easy ride we have in the west. e.g. A relationship breakup is seen as a step to the next, presumably to a better relationship. Often we say everything has a reason, as if each lesson in life is there for a reason. Yet that ignores the horrors of people who are slaughtered or enslaved or tortured, for no other reason than being born in the wrong place at the wrong time.


lol.. Sounds like how I take things often. Then I get waylaid over the literal meaning while the conversation has moved on.

The nonsense comment that always gets my eyes rolling "I was put in that situation so that I could ......" Which carries the inference of a sentient earth/universe/interventionist dog.

For some reason people refuse to accept the reality of coincidence. I think this a left over from the ancient idea that the earth is special. That a perfect universe revolved around the earth. So many people, have so much trouble coming to terms with the utter inconsequential place we hold as individuals and as a planet, on a universal scale.

For some reason, people don't want to accept the fact that disasters happen due to the confluence of natural causes and human stupidity ("Sure, a tornado blowed down our trailer, but we is gonna rebuild right thar in that very same spot").

If humans would not build their homes on flood plains, mountainsides, lava fields, and tectonic fault lines, there would be fewer deaths from natural disasters.

Thus, the only 'reason' that natural disasters happen to kill hundreds or thousands of people is their own decisions to put themselves in harm's way.

Otherwise, the universe doesn't give a rodent's rectum over who lives and who dies.

Humans have 'Quantum Minds', in the sense that they can MAKE THEIR REASONS for inspiration aka EMOTION, to get through another now, through imagination and creativity.

Emotions motivate human action for survival.

This is scientific fact.

To create emotions for survival, through imagination and creativity, IS TRUE Human BEING smArts, HeArt, and ART.

To live a life of material reductionism is imagination too.

WHATEVER WORKS FOR SURVIVAL IS KEY, NO MATTER WHAT THE TOOL MAY BE, PER POTENTIAL IMAGINATION AND CREATIVITY TO INSPIRE POSITIVE EMOTIONS TO MOTIVATE human being ACTION FOR SURVIVAL.

OR POOH POOH, THE DOCTOR COULDN'T fix ME, AND NOW I'M SCREWED.

Language is an abstract tool, as symbol, 'NORMaLLY' USED to associate human emotions WITH, PER THOSE abstract SYMBOLS OF LETTERS THAT MAKE words, paragraphs, pages, books, ETC.., to better motivate human social cooperation and overall survival, THROUGH ACTION AKA 'JUST DOIN' IT'.

To not use it like that PER EMOTIONAL REASON, is truly not using one's head to gain heArt, TRUE SmArts, AS ART, per ART, as a REAL emotion inspiring ACTION ADVANTAGE IN LIFE.

Meaning and Purpose in life are the major motivators OF LIFE, AS IS NOW.

The more a person holds sacred and meaningful, as purpose in life, the better chance there is for a so-called good life, and that is the way it has always been driven home, through history of humans, and even pre-historic history of humans with burial flowers.



'Earth, Wind, AND Fire', is an expert at this human science of emotional reason.....

And the REASONS REASONS WORK........

Are clear, TO MOST.....folks, at least....and most....

I don't think most people really think this way. Otherwise they would be cursing the sea for floods and volcanos for erupting, that's the king Cnut mindset, the guy who alllegedly set his throne on the beach and commanded the tide not to come in.

The majority of people DO think this way.

Modern science suggests that SOME autistic folks are among the small minority who do not.

And modern science per the so-called fields of psychology and social science suggest that it is reflective of a healthy human mind as a coping mechanism...

The concept of good and evil is perhaps the most common abstract human construct folks assign as Reason WHY..

And no, folks who do NOT attend church do it too...

It's common on some parts of this website for the folks who describe the folks who run Autism Speaks as EVIL....