I have a hard time believing everything happens for a reason. I mean I think sometimes yes, there is a bigger "picture" to things but I can honestly say I have been thru some things and not walked away with anything learned.

I absolutely fully believe that everything happens for a reason.

im also a believer in everything happens for a reason

I generally don't believe in things that can't be sensed by one of the five senses. I find when we can't come up with an explanation we like, we attribute things to some alternate magical force, but that doesn't mean there isn't an explanation. Often that overtakes so much that even when there is a reasonable explanation, we attribute things to some alternate force. I find that to be a bit self-centered; I don't think the universe cares that much about us. If I can't disprove something that also can't be proved, I accept I may not know everything but I'm not going to make up some magical answer. But if there's a reasonable answer that conforms to our existing knowledge, I go with that.

I think everythign happens for a reason as well.
What happened, is what's meant to be.

I believe things happen for a reason, and that everything will work out in the end. It's kind of a mantra of mine... it helps me to not worry so much about the future or what's going to happen if _______. I just take a deep breath and remind myself, it will all end up just fine, so quit fretting!

I think that things to happen for a reason, either because they're self-inflicted or it's simply meant to be, and I also believe that things will always work out in the end. "It'll work out in the end" has gotten me through a lot.

No, everything just happens. We are the ones to assign reason to it because it makes us feel better.

Yes, it may not be clear at the time but there is a reason behind each and every event in your life.

I think there's a difference between everything happening for a reason and everything being some kind of learning experience. No, I don't think that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes, things just happen. And I've said this before, I never will be one of those people that tells someone going through a hard time that because I think those kind of people are crappy. A good friend will just listen, not throw in their two cents and tell them that God has a plan for them or that everything happens for a reason. Not the time.

I think everything being a learning experience is a matter of attitude. It's a good coping mechanism. And one thing I say AFTER someone goes through a bad time (not during), is that every time I've gone through some storms in life, I learned more about who my real friends are, because it takes extremes for people to show their true colors.

I absolutely hate that saying "things happen for a reason." It's a desperate attempt to give meaning to our meaningless lives.

I agree with popgoestheworld and javsmav 100%. sh*t happens. Some people need to assign a greater meaning to events to get by in life, and that's fine. But I don't think that there's a reason for everything.

I despise the notion that everything happens for a reason. No, things happen. Thats all. Things happen every day, and we react and deal accordingly. I actually find more comfort out of this notion than any over romanticized, silly, naive belief that events just fall into place at the divine whim of some unseen all-knowing power that somehow wants magical wonderful things to happen to us even though we are wretched human beings at our core. I find that believing things go as they were meant to, feeds into a belief that something or someone is out to "get" you when things start to go bad, and overall encourages the belief that your destiny is out of your hands, when it isnt. I'd rather live by "Sh!t happens".

Everything deff happens for a reason!

yeah I too believe that everything happens for a reason. =)

Everything happens for a reason. I do not agree that making that statement means that I'm just trying to make myself feel better about whatever happens. Aren't you all doing the same thing by saying 'sh!t happens'? That can also be seen as a mechanism for making yourself feel better by just brushing it aside. Shows carelessness, NOT being carefree. Sue me for believing in a higher power and believing that in the end, everything will be fine. Sometimes things work out in such a way that when you look back on previous events, you see why things played out the way they did. It's like a 'DUH' moment. Think about it.

IF you believe this then you all should read "The Tao of Psychology -Synchronicity and the Self" by Jean Bolen it is one of my absolute favorite books and it talks about this kind of stuff - definitely inspiring and comforting. Also another good one to read about "things that are meant to be" is Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I love this stuff!

I've had this discussion before, and heard it discussed before. Most times, including here, the undertone seems to be a question of belief in a "higher power"/God v. nonbelief. I don't think everything happens for a reason, but I do believe in God (or whatever label you choose). I believe in free will and it's difficult for me to reconcile the concept of free will with the idea that everything happens for a reason. If everything happens for a reason, I feel like I have less control over the path of my own life.

So, you want to FEEL like you're in control of your own life? I guess that's what it's all about: control. We may never know what life is really about until we die, which is ironic in itself. Now, an atheist, for example, wouldn't believe that.

I believe that everything does happen for a reason. God puts people in your life so that you can learn from them, and things happen so that you will develop into the person he intended you to be. Bad things happen so that we can appreciate when good things do. People come in and out of your life when you have learned from them what was intended, and people die when they have accomplished what God made them for. Of course, we cannot truly ever know this for sure, until we die, but think about your life, and the person you have become, do you honestly think that that was all truly random?

Hm... I definitely feel that everything happens for a reason but it's hard for me to reconcile that with the fact that I don't believe in God or destiny. I do believe in a sense that you learn from everything, if you approach it that way, but I don't believe things happen TO TEACH YOU A LESSON. I believe things happen because the equilibrium is out of whack.

Indielove - pairing this with religious beliefs is just going to make it even more confusing. You can believe in a higher power and still think that some things don't have a concrete explanation behind it. And like kakers said, free will is a concept as well. Also, there's not a conflict between being optimistic - believing things will end well and be alright - and not thinking that everything has a rhyme and reason. Realism doesn't necessarily have to be gloomy.

So, believing that everything happens for a reason isn't real? Is that what you're trying to convey? Say what you want about religious beliefs not having anything to do with the topic at hand but in actuality, they do go hand-in-hand.

I'm not saying that we don't have free will, I believe that it's only to a certain extent. Or maybe we just THINK we have free will because we want to feel like we are in control of our lives. That's a point I brought up in a previous post. Funny how we can 'control' our own lives/destinies yet we cannot control DEATH? Or what happens in the afterlife(if we do in fact have one, which most atheists do not believe and also, I have said this before)?

I very much believe this.

Even though you don't always know what that reason is until much later...

No, things just happen and that's the end of it.

What I believe is that--things happen for a reason......however, this is not essentially what most people deemed to be. There are 2 factors why things happen----one is bourne out from our choices---the choices that we make. If we choose to do what is right, the outcome happens. Another thing is , circumstances happen because God (I'm a Christian) gives you a "trial or test" on how you strongly hold on to faith and trust Him or whether or not do you believe His word.

Most oftentimes, we don't really know the reason. That's the most important thing---we don't need to know. We need to find them out where we went wrong or if we don't know where we were wrong, we have a choice to rely on man or rely on God. God doesn't give the answers right away. We just need to know that we need to get strength from Him. We don't need to get out of the problem all the time, but to go through it.

i can only speak for myself when i say that i believe 100% in the fact that all the hardships that i've been thru and all the mistakes i've made happened for a good reason. i also would like to note that i have a very strong belief in God and i do believe they go hand in hand. at times i'd be bitter and question y and i would be so hurt, but looking back now, i am greatful for growing and learning from those experiences.

i absolutely believe that things happen for a reason. i went through a bad time in my life the past 4 months, but as of about 3 weeks ago, everything has been on an upswing. i know that i wouldn't have been able to get my life together so quickly and so well had it not been for the troubles i endured previously

i believe 100% that everything happens for a reason. let me give you an example: three weeks ago a friend of a friend and i hung out for the first time. we ended up really hitting it off and he and i have been flirting in texts and calling each other for the past two weeks. he kept inviting me over, and i kept making plans with him, but for some reason it never worked out and it seemed like no matter how hard i tried, we couldn't ever get together.
i found out a few days ago that he just got back together with his old girlfriend that he was with for about 4 years.
if he and i had gotten involved, i would've been crushed if and when he had gotten back together with her.
i think that's the reason our plans never worked out... it just wasn't meant to be!

I TOTALLY agree with that. Its like my day to day mantra. Whenever anything happens that is bad, I always assure myself that it happened for a reason. It helps bring me peace.

No, things don't happen for a reason. I see nothing wrong with making the best of any situation, and realizing the good in any situation, but our universe is probably not deterministic and if it is in any way I don't think that has anything to do with things happening for a "reason", other than physical phenomena occurring on a deterministic level. Unfortch I just don't think the point of the universe is for human life, no matter how ego-centric we tend to be. It's more exciting this way anyway.

People pair religious undertones and things happening for a reason because when we go to church, we are told that. Church being the protestant, mainstream Christian church that so many Americans attend. I mean, all the "God's plan" stuff doesn't sound familiar to any Christians on here? Or are we that seriously into picking and choosing our religious beliefs, or has that just really gone out of style since the last time I attended church?

Pretty soon it's going to be easy for even an atheist like me to be religious or spiritual since I probably wouldn't have to believe any of the stuff they tell me at church..."ohh but I'm a spiritual Christian and I do yoga...it's all about being spiritual, none of that doctrinal garbage!"

I always say things happen for a reason, it also makes you feel a lot better when things go wrong...

I believe in both. They're not mutually exclusive. Life can be motivated by all those factors.

The outcome is determined by the individual.

For some reason, this maxim has always bugged me.

While I'm not a fan of this concept of some alternate force governing our lives (as stated above), what I find extremely insulting is the concept you sometimes hear of "[insert higher power] only gives us what we can handle." So does that mean that the higher power was wrong when people commit suicide? Because clearly those people couldn't handle it.

Another one that gets me is when someone survives some major tragedy and says something like "[insert higher power] must have been looking out for me." If that's true, then you wouldn't have gotten into the accident in the first place. But even worse, so does that mean the higher power is giving the middle finger to those that didn't survive? Extremely insulting (though I know that's not what people mean when they say it).

"So, believing that everything happens for a reason isn't real? Is that what you're trying to convey? Say what you want about religious beliefs not having anything to do with the topic at hand but in actuality, they do go hand-in-hand."

Indielove - Beliefs can't be disproven, that's why they're faith, so no I'm not saying it isn't real. I'm not saying it's impossible for everything to happen for a reason, I just don't think that's the way it is. And in my belief system, there's nothing to tell me otherwise that I've found, so no I don't have to take them hand-in-hand.

You don't think that's the way it is and I BELIEVE otherwise so, let's just leave it at that, eh?

"But even worse, so does that mean the higher power is giving the middle finger to those that didn't survive? Extremely insulting (though I know that's not what people mean when they say it)."

No, those who didn't survive...their time was up, obviously. Those who survive, it wasn't meant for them to die then. It's as 'simple' as that. No one's going to say "Hey, I survived because GOD loves me and hated the people who died. He obviously favored me more. My life has much more purpose than theirs ever had." Come on, get real.

I'M A BELIEVER IN THINGS HAPPENING FOR A REASON...

For me, it's not so much believing things happen for a reason, it's more "whatever is meant to be will be." I guess it's the same kind of deal, but more that you will eventually get where you need to be, even if things don't go the way you originally thought.

No, I don't think there is some grand logic for everything that happens. In total agreement with remedios. Life is chaos, we don't know what will happen, and sometimes terrible things happen and there isn't some "good reason" for it. It is just terrible. You can't tell me there was a good reason for something like 9/11. People look for the good reasons later.

That being said, I do my best to have a positive outlook and believe nothing terrible will happen to me, because it's just the best way to live my life.

i wish they did...

I think they do, truly.