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I don't think I would say "everything happens for a reason" to someone who is suffering, but all the same for me and other people of faith it's a simple reality

I don't think I would say "everything happens for a reason" to someone who is suffering, but all the same for me and other people of faith it's a simple reality. But for people who disagree or struggle with the premise, it will offer no solace. They would probably feel like it dismisses and trivializes their suffering, and worse, they might attach other, unintended meanings. History attests to the terrible condition of the world, and the Bible is very clear about that from the earliest parts of Genesis. There is so much pain, as a constant through the vastness of history and before. Saying everything happens for a reason doesn't necessarily deny that. When applied properly, it acknowledges the cruelty and struggle to find meaning, but that the reality is as it stands. Someone who does not believe may very well reject the notion of meaning, and see only the path of improving the situation as the answer. In the end, both types have among them people of goodwill, and we must be charitable to each other. A sibling comment to yours mentions Candide, which takes "we live in the best of all possible worlds" very cynically. Voltaire disagreed with Leibniz's premises. But of course "best of all possible worlds" has lots of room for argument as to "best" means, and it certainly does not mean the best of all of _your_ possible worlds. As the joke goes, both the optimist and pessimist believe ours is the best possible.

tharkun__ 5y ago
Like you said, it can probably console people that believe in that sort of stuff and probably is meant like that but you gotta be careful with it if you ask me. I can easily be damaging. If you think about it, the bible and other books/religions were created in really hard and tough times and the belief that somehow in some way "it was meant to be and there's a reason behind this terrible thing happening" was helping them through it. This is all in times in which less was known about how the world around us works (and even nowadays we don't really know but our models are much much better - just think of how medicine knows about bacteria causing illnesses and such vs. the whole Yellow Bile, Black Bile, Phlegm and Blood thing - Hippocrates ~460BC-~370BC). A merchant in the 1300s coming home to find all of his family had died from the plague might find solace in thinking that all of this happened for a reason if he is a very devout believer in such things. I can't personally fathom how you'd find someone today that would see meaning in having a family member getting infected with Yersinia Pestis, nevermind die from it, but that's just me. So as you can see, personally I absolutely don't believe in the whole reason and other religious stuff but I can see and appreciate how religion can help stabilize society and keep the population under control in tough times, how it can be a moral compass etc. I don't personally need the rest of it all to know that I shouldn't just go about killing other people. And if something bad happens in the world then - from my relatively safe western vantage point - I can just see that the world is still an ugly place and that there are bad people that just do bad things or that are living in bad enough situations that make them do those things (hey, until we're in those situations ourselves, we don't really know what we'd actually do, best intentions not to or not!) and all I can do is to try as best as I can to avoid those people amd situations altogether. There's not much more to it and I don't need to imagine a devil or some other stuff to explain this somehow.
- brightball 5y ago
  That was really my point. In the Bible, you see God directly intervening in certain situations but you don’t see Him actively controlling everything. Moses even argues with Him at one point. There’s a couple of verses that people have strained to apply that meaning to it, but reading the entire Bible to put things in context you don’t see “everything” happening for a reason. You see some things. It’s one of the reasons that I try to make this point a lot. I don’t know how many people realize how much that phrase leads non-believers to demonize God by attaching every awful thing that happens to a reason, which then makes those things His doing. It’s simply not reflected in the text.
  - tharkun__ 5y ago
    Fair enough. I'm intrigued by the "non-believers to demonize God" though. As a thought experiment, replace God by any deity of any religion, such that you would also be a non-believer (I assume you are a believer in the Christian god), which should help with the objective distance. How about human sacrifices, say Vikings or Aztecs. What are your thoughts on human sacrifice? Would you go as far as to demonize the Aztec god(s) that required a human sacrifice?
    - themacguffinman 5y ago
      (I'm not the person you're replying to) A bit of a tangent: I don't know that much about the Aztec gods but AFAICT, the Vikings didn't really deny that their gods can be pretty terrible. There are a lot of Norse myths that basically describe a really dysfunctional and bitter family, but with superpowers. Betrayal, infidelity, pettiness, arrogance, and stupid mistakes are all reflected in stories about their gods. They might as well be demons but they weren't as bad as other things so you'd worship them all the same. Christianity in particular is significantly different in that their god is canonically benevolent while also being omnipotent. It's a pretty fundamental aspect of Christianity, I don't think I've heard any Christian that believes their god is actually kind of a dick. I would imagine that even though "why do bad things happen?" is a classic foundational challenge to Christianity, it's probably irrelevant to Vikings. Christianity isn't really comparable to old school faiths like Vikings/Aztecs.

tharkun__ 5y ago

Like you said, it can probably console people that believe in that sort of stuff and probably is meant like that but you gotta be careful with it if you ask me. I can easily be damaging. If you think about it, the bible and other books/religions were created in really hard and tough times and the belief that somehow in some way "it was meant to be and there's a reason behind this terrible thing happening" was helping them through it. This is all in times in which less was known about how the world around us works (and even nowadays we don't really know but our models are much much better - just think of how medicine knows about bacteria causing illnesses and such vs. the whole Yellow Bile, Black Bile, Phlegm and Blood thing - Hippocrates ~460BC-~370BC). A merchant in the 1300s coming home to find all of his family had died from the plague might find solace in thinking that all of this happened for a reason if he is a very devout believer in such things. I can't personally fathom how you'd find someone today that would see meaning in having a family member getting infected with Yersinia Pestis, nevermind die from it, but that's just me. So as you can see, personally I absolutely don't believe in the whole reason and other religious stuff but I can see and appreciate how religion can help stabilize society and keep the population under control in tough times, how it can be a moral compass etc. I don't personally need the rest of it all to know that I shouldn't just go about killing other people. And if something bad happens in the world then - from my relatively safe western vantage point - I can just see that the world is still an ugly place and that there are bad people that just do bad things or that are living in bad enough situations that make them do those things (hey, until we're in those situations ourselves, we don't really know what we'd actually do, best intentions not to or not!) and all I can do is to try as best as I can to avoid those people amd situations altogether. There's not much more to it and I don't need to imagine a devil or some other stuff to explain this somehow.

brightball 5y ago
That was really my point. In the Bible, you see God directly intervening in certain situations but you don’t see Him actively controlling everything. Moses even argues with Him at one point. There’s a couple of verses that people have strained to apply that meaning to it, but reading the entire Bible to put things in context you don’t see “everything” happening for a reason. You see some things. It’s one of the reasons that I try to make this point a lot. I don’t know how many people realize how much that phrase leads non-believers to demonize God by attaching every awful thing that happens to a reason, which then makes those things His doing. It’s simply not reflected in the text.
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  Fair enough. I'm intrigued by the "non-believers to demonize God" though. As a thought experiment, replace God by any deity of any religion, such that you would also be a non-believer (I assume you are a believer in the Christian god), which should help with the objective distance. How about human sacrifices, say Vikings or Aztecs. What are your thoughts on human sacrifice? Would you go as far as to demonize the Aztec god(s) that required a human sacrifice?
  - themacguffinman 5y ago
    (I'm not the person you're replying to) A bit of a tangent: I don't know that much about the Aztec gods but AFAICT, the Vikings didn't really deny that their gods can be pretty terrible. There are a lot of Norse myths that basically describe a really dysfunctional and bitter family, but with superpowers. Betrayal, infidelity, pettiness, arrogance, and stupid mistakes are all reflected in stories about their gods. They might as well be demons but they weren't as bad as other things so you'd worship them all the same. Christianity in particular is significantly different in that their god is canonically benevolent while also being omnipotent. It's a pretty fundamental aspect of Christianity, I don't think I've heard any Christian that believes their god is actually kind of a dick. I would imagine that even though "why do bad things happen?" is a classic foundational challenge to Christianity, it's probably irrelevant to Vikings. Christianity isn't really comparable to old school faiths like Vikings/Aztecs.