Misconceptions ? "Everything happens for a reason?

O really ??

Why ?

Why Not ?

Everything happening for a reason does not imply that the reason is beneficial, fortuitous or positive for us.

Every event being pre-determined includes the event where I look, notice a truck is coming and choose to wait before walking out.

Everything does happen for a reason. Most of the time that reason is that people are stupid and make really bad decisions.

I love both your answers but ..i still dont know why or why not i dont make judgement over good or bad just trying to figure out the Why of this statement

Everything happens for a reason

tzb wrote: Everything happening for a reason does not imply that the reason is beneficial, fortuitous or positive for us.

Every event being pre-determined includes the event where I look, notice a truck is coming and choose to wait before walking out.

TZB said it pretty well. I would only add, it all depends on one’s perspective. People seem to have this idea that everything is for their benefit or on purpose as to how it affects them. I hate to let everyone in on the secret, but the world doesn’t revolve around you. You are just a small piece of a much, much greater whole.

I have never been fond of the term predetermined. The way I look at it, the Force is nonlinear and time is of no relevance to it. Imagine if you will, the Force exists in all times at the same time. So all that has transpired and will transpire is knowledge that makes up the will of the Force. So it is not so much that what will happen is predetermined but, the Force knew of what will happen. If you describe the Force as possessing a singular intelligence.

Wescli Wardest wrote: TZB said it pretty well. I would only add, it all depends on one’s perspective. People seem to have this idea that everything is for their benefit or on purpose as to how it affects them. I hate to let everyone in on the secret, but the world doesn’t revolve around you. You are just a small piece of a much, much greater whole.

The usual usage of "everything happens for a reason" is fundamentally linked to that mode of thought - "don't worry about this subjectively bad thing you're going through, it will all work out for you".

Children die, people get murdered, hospitals get bombed. Plenty of bad stuff happens and for the people it happens to, it wasn't for any subjectively good reason. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't make the best of the things which do happen to us.

Even a Jedi belief in balance implies that although the universal whole "evens out", that implies a lot of suffering in a lot of lives, for no reason that individual will benefit from during that life.

In my opinion what to make of the phrase depends on - unsurprisingly - what is meant by it. If we mean to say that there is a thought somewhere at the root of everything that happens, I'd be very curious to see how anybody could possibly know any such thing. If this means that every effect has an identifiable cause, then that is as well something logicians have yet to prove using what ever colloquial meaning is typically used for cause, effect, and having, respectively. Nuclear physics would beg to differ with a statement like that, too.
But of course one might also take apart what it is we mean by "everything". Does that mean literally every event as a subset of a probability space? Does it only mean things that can happen, or perhaps only those that already did?
And in the same breath, what does happening mean? Are we talking about actions people take or just occurrences, instances of events from the aforementioned probability space?

So in the end, if someone says they do think that everything happens for a reason - or indeed if they say they do not - what have you learned about them from that statement? I say they would need to explain what they mean when they say it before I can take anything away from that conversation. Likewise, a simple yes or no, be it with or without explaining why, may just be that little bit too simple for a question phrased in a way that can be used to mean so many different things.

The falter in the argument is simply the word "Everything".

Proteus wrote: The falter in the argument is simply the word "Everything".

I can live with that , indeed

Things happen for a reason maybe if so , but not "everything" ?

When you mention "reason", two separate things are included in that word:

1. Cause and consequence.

2. A hidden "will" or "meaning".

Cause and consequence is objective. You put your hand into fire, your hand burns.

A hidden "will" or "meaning" is subjective. You choose to see meaning or assign value/judgement to an event.