Do you believe that "Everything happens for a reason"?

[MarathonMike]

It's all about the mysterious ways of God. God has a plan and we are not to question it. It's a consolation to those who can't bear to live in a pointless universe ruled by nothing more than entropy.

Even people 300+ years ago were smarter than you.


Pascal's wager is an argument in philosophy presented by the seventeenth-century French philosopher, mathematician and physicist, Blaise Pascal (1623–1662).[1] It posits that humans bet with their lives that God either exists or does not.

Pascal argues that a rational person should live as though God exists and seek to believe in God. If God does not actually exist, such a person will have only a finite loss (some pleasures, luxury, etc.), whereas if God does exist, he stands to receive infinite gains (as represented by eternity in Heaven) and avoid infinite losses (eternity in Hell).[2]

Pascal's Wager was based on the idea of the Christian God, though similar arguments have occurred in other religious traditions. The original wager was set out in Pascal's posthumously published Pensées ("Thoughts"), an assembly of previously unpublished notes.[3]

Historically, Pascal's wager was groundbreaking because it charted new territory in probability theory,[4] marked the first formal use of decision theory, existentialism, pragmatism and voluntarism.[5]

God's plan looks exactly like random chaos. There is nothing orderly or preordained about this existence until a human makes it that way. The problem of why bad things happen to good people can never have a satisfactory answer to someone who has just watched a loved one die a horrible death. After what God did to my mother he does not deserve my belief, much less my worship. If I see him someday he's got some serious explaining to do about this screwed up world.

That was one of the fundamental reasons I couldn't accept my parents devout views on Christianity, God's plan and such. I'd ask "Why do little kids get cancer?" And I'd hear "God works in mysterious ways".

 

[Ava]

Of course, everything happens for a reason. It could be one of a thousand reasons. If I slip and fall, I was being careless. If I drop my fork, some reason made me do that. If I cause a typo posting it could be because my kitty jumped up on the keyboard because she felt like it. If I get a DUI, it is because I was drinking while intoxicated. ( never ) There is a reason for everything if you look for it. I never have associated anything that has happened to me in my life to anything ethereal. Cause and effect, only.

 

[Unkotare]

Of course, everything happens for a reason. It could be one of a thousand reasons. If I slip and fall, I was being careless. If I drop my fork, some reason made me do that. If I cause a typo posting it could be because my kitty jumped up on the keyboard because she felt like it. If I get a DUI, it is because I was drinking while intoxicated. ( never ) There is a reason for everything if you look for it. I never have associated anything that has happened to me in my life to anything ethereal. Cause and effect, only.

Are you the Frenchman from Matrix?

 

[Erinwltr]

This phrase is thrown around so often, it is easy to just let it slide by without giving it much thought. But if you really believe that everything happens for a reason, then what do you think it means? I have always assumed it is closely tied the Christian belief that "God has a plan for you". But maybe I'm wrong, could it mean something else?

I personally don't believe that everything happens for a reason. I think life is a rolling wave of endless possibilities and you're riding it on a flimsy board and wobbly legs trying your best to not to wipe out.

"But if you really believe that everything happens for a reason, then what do you think it means?"

If you believe it, then that is what it means.
Really.
Dude.

Does it mean things happen specifically to you for a reason, or in the larger sense of things in the world happening for a reason.

Didn't know you were capable of this kind of conversation.
"Does it mean things happen specifically to you for a reason" That part of you question assumes a deity. Good luck answering that.

"in the world happening for a reason" That part of your question assumes an engaged person that controls his destiny, accepting a communal goal.

Best I can do. So go yuck it up, mikey.