Do you believe that all things happen for a reason? good and bad?

Question

Do you believe that all things happen for a reason? good and bad?

Answer 1

there are lessons to be learned from experiencing both,my mother always used to say,always take the good from the bad,it just means if something bad happens to you try to find the lesson in it so that it doesn't happen again,works for me,other people believe in karma,if you do good then good things will happen to you.

Answer 2

When you think about it...it actually is an obvious answer. It's cause and affect, our actions result in another whether good or bad and it continues again and again...

So yeah, it does but that doesn't mean that it will end for our greater good. But it doesn't necessarily happen for a REASON. Just happens.

Answer 3

We can understand many things through reason, but even our reason cannot explain what reason is. I can see that there are good and bad things in the world with the help of my reason, but I cannot fully understand as what really my reason is, what my mind is and what I am. I can understand for instance that I am a person of such and such attributes, of this and this qualities and of a disposition, that I look like this or that, I like and dislike such and such things, I know where I live, with how I like to spend my time and how, but the question that what I really am always remain ultimate in my mind.

The question in fact is about my own being that I see is in the mind, and so is the subject of that question, myself, but the answer to this question I do not find anywhere. I can keep living, believing that I do exist, further strengthening my beliefs with the help of my faith, but when I come to question, when leave the security and comfort of my beliefs I find myself at lose, as I simply do not, and perhaps cannot, understand the full reality, or the reason, of my own being.

This argument suggests that there is reason beyond what we know in our mind to be as reason. If I for instance look around and start observing things I find some good reason certain things, but for many other, I simply do not see as why they have to happen, what is the need of them to happen, as why, for instance, should the innocent suffer, children die, lives get ruined, why is there must so much in the world that we could happily live without?

Then may be life after all is not for us to understand entirely, but also to accept faithfully; then may be we need to learn to lift ourselves from our dependency of reason, then may be instead of seeking certainties we also need to believe in wider possibilities, realities beyond reality. If we believed only through reason then we would be without our dreams and fantastic imagination, i.e. there is no reason for all things to pop up in our dreams and imagination.

When we see strange things happening in the world, we cannot believe our eyes or ears. We have great difficulty understanding, explaining or accepting many things in our lives, but we do not stop, we instead move on, and the power that enables us to do so is not the power of our reason alone but that of the reason of our faith and hope.

We might like to believe that all things happen for a reason, but we cannot complain that all the reasons of the world are for us to understand. We can enable ourselves to believe. It is within the capacity of our mind to have faith. The reason of faith might not directly explain to us as what everything is what is the reason for us, our life and the universe to be, but it does give interminable hope.

Answer 4

Yes I do I think that we are meant to learn something from everything that happens good and bad. I think its God's way of keeping us balanced so the world isn't overly good, and not all bad, but we have to keep learning and adapting.

Answer 5

No, nothing happens for any reason.

BUT, everything that happens leads to the next thing that happens. The Universe is a preconstructed Rube Goldberg machine. =)

Answer 6

As others have said, I believe in causality. All things happen because of something in the past. They do not happen in order to set up something in the future.

You were ill because you ate the salmon mousse. You were not ill in order that your boyfriend could learn a valuable lesson about compassion. The latter may be what happens as a result of your illness, but it's not the reason you were ill.

To believe that things are deliberately made to happen in order to bring about some future outcome would require a belief in an all-knowing God who involves Himself to an excruciatingly embarrassing level in the minutiae of our daily lives.

It also raises questions about why He would spend time e.g. making you early for work in order that you could miss a traffic jam, while simultaneously letting millions starve to death in Africa. To which the only answer is "well, He probably has a reason for that but we can't see it"... which all starts to sound very dodgy.

I don't believe you can learn much from your past experiences if you rationalise everything away by saying "God did it". Say you got dumped, you'd be better off working out what it was that made that happen in case there's anything you can learn from it which would help you in your next relationship, rather than telling yourself that God made the guy dump you because He has something better lined up for you.

Answer 7

Oh yes there is a reason for evertyhing good and bad, we are being tested for what who knows, for whatever death has for us when it comes to it.

Answer 8

No. Anyone that would say otherwise can you explain to me what reasons there for murder and rape?  

Answer 9

Not at all! many things happen by sheer coincidence.

Answer 10

No I believe a lot of things happen by chance, or due to things that are out of our control. We can control how we react to things. An example, would be an unfaithful and neglectful wife whose husband becomes sick. If she changes and takes care of him, it is because of the good part of her character or because he showed her love before. His illness did not happen so her good side would come out, even though that is what happened.

Answer 11

Coincidence is a term used to deny the fact that Fate exist.

Good or Bad are relevant terms, they are only used when your scale has a finite term.

We are here to learn something, events occur to help us gain those lessons that make us more human or more divine. Free will determines what we do with the fate that is dealt us.

Answer 12

this needs to answered with another question, Do you like yourself? all the things that happen in our life help create the person we are today. for example in my youth i fought in wars, stole, attempted suicide and collected myself a criminal record to name but a few two wives and two nervous breakdowns later i am the person i am. all the bad things and the good go to make up our whole we as people are more than the sum of our parts. look closely at yourself and you will find the same. just remember there is nobody better than what you are now, nobody worse either.

Answer 13

If the "reason" you are referring to is the event that caused another event to occur, yes. In other words, as long as "reason" can be classified as the cause in 'cause and effect', i believe everything happen for a "reason", but i tend to think "cause" is a better word.

And for your good and bad one, since such concept is purely subjective and will differ depending on the observer, i guess you can say that certain events are bound to be good and bad, as long as you cannot flip around your perspective and see it from another angle.  

Answer 14

yes everything does happen for a reason, it`s just the way of life.

Answer 15

Fate controls the challenges we face but we control how we react to them.

Answer 16

Yes I do... life has a path whether we know it or not. There is always something that is a reaction to occurrences in our life, without that reaction then we wouldn't be who we are today.  

Answer 17

There is a reason why things happens .

But not everything happens FOR a reason . **** happens , we all just gonna have to move on .

Answer 18

The random nature of things here on this rock, obviously modified from time to time by God, is clearly a true test in that one may not achieve 100% on it. Were it possible to ace the test, it would be unknown what more one was capable of. So it follows that all this madness, random or otherwise, serves the purpose of showing what we are made of. Doesn't it? Regards, Larry.

Answer 19

No. All things in society happen because people, either intentionally or unintentionally, cause them to happen.

Answer 20

Yes. The reason? It was destined to happen. We merely have the illusion of free will.

Answer 21

All things have causes... it is the cause that is good or bad the happening is the implementation.

Answer 22

Yes, unfortunately, nearly all things do happen for a reason. It is rarely a coincidence when something good or bad happens, it is what is supposed to be. None of us know what fate has in store for us, we just have to go with the flow and accept what happens...

Answer 23

No -  I think that good and bad things just happen and that we can give meaning/reason  to them by learning how to meet all these experiences.

rather than making up a story to explain it away.

I think if I were to pattern myself  into meanings other than learning; life could get a bit too dramatic and overwhelming for me.

Answer 24

Yes I do, if we never had anything bad to happen we couldnt learn by our mistakes.And when something good happens we call it luck.

Answer 25

Yes I do. They may not be our liking but they always have a reason for happening the way they do.

Answer 26

I believe that there are lessons to be learned from everything - good and bad.  So, if the reason or purpose for our life journey is to learn, then I would say yes - everything happens for a reason.  

To spend too much time worrying about the reason is futile, though - and you will get mired down in the wrong area.  Just focus on each occurence, and ask yourself what is to be learned....you life will be a much better journey - I promise!

Answer 27

in a sense, things happen because of a result of things that happened previously, everything is like that. but not all things happen for the future, they just help what happens in the future

Answer 28

Things happen for a reason, but each person would see it as a different reason.  Whereas the action is for what you think will help progress, others may see it as regress.

Answer 29

Nop. I think that the actions and decisons you make in your life have an impact on the outcome. So the reason why somathing may have  happened was due to the actions and decisions you made in the past :).  

Answer 30

yes i do i'm going through a tough time at the minute and i keep telling myself i will look back someday and know why i had to go through  it

Answer 31

Yes I do believe.  Also that the choices we make at the time then determines what comes later.