Hot Thought

No, I don't think that everything happens for a reason. Sometimes things happen and there is simply no reason or explanation for it. Sometimes unfortunately, things just happen that’s out of our control, like being at the wrong place at the wrong time. But almost always, things happen because of a choice or decision we made. When things happen in our lives that we don’t like, it’s a matter of attitude to use what happened to us as a learning experience. It's a good coping mechanism. All we can do is hope to have a second chance to correct our mistakes and make things right. 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’ve learned more about myself and I learned more about who my real friends are, because it sometimes takes extremes for people to show their true colors. Now most people who say everything happens for a reason, doesn’t want to take responsibility for the bad choices they made that has led or will lead to a bad outcome, an outcome that may, will or has changed their lives for the worse forever. Which is a bad coping mechanism, because it keeps people in denial for the bad choices they make and attribute it to a magical force that has their lives planned out. They believe they make no mistakes and have no regrets.

I think you need to look up what regret means, here let me help you. Regret is often felt when someone feels sadness, shame, embarrassment, depression, annoyance or guilt after committing an action or actions that the person later wishes that he or she had not done. A mistake more than often always leads to regret. If you have made mistakes then you have regrets.

What happened to those suffering in Haiti isn't just because the people where there and the earthquake happened. The people, or the government of the people, was completely unprepared for such disaster. The buildings were not to seismic code, no emergency training of personnel ever occurred, nothing was done to prevent a bad event from becoming tragic. You are right that the seismic zone that Haiti was in meant that the earthquake was going to happen. No one knew just when it will, but everyone knew that it will. It just happened to be now versus a month before, or 5 years later. What happened next had nothing to do with randomness. Any half-rate sociologist or military strategist would have been able to foretell with sufficient accuracy of what will happen to the people of Haiti once the ground stopped shaking.

I agree with you that the events that occur are usually chain effects of prior events. Unfortunately, the sheer complexity of all these effects, especially as they start to intersect each other, which in by itself affects those same events, makes it impossible for any human, or computer, to effectively be able to predict the future, or explain the past. That fact that we cannot explain the causal of, or accurately predict, events doesn't mean that the events are purely random. Pure randomness is a very rare thing in this universe, assuming that it even exists.

The events in our life happen because of what we do, what we do not do, and what others do. Those who are able to predict what action will bring what consequence tend to live more comfortable lives. Those who lack that ability tend to have lives that are filled with more-than-necessary hardships. However, in the end, we control our destiny's path, though maybe not our destiny itself.

To say that things happen for a reason is completely accurate, with the exception that the reason may not be beneficial to us, or originally had anything to do with us. It is not the events of our life that shape us or our life; it is our reaction to those events that shapes us and our life.

Eugene I would have to disagree with the idea that randomness is rare. As the author pointed out, quantum theory suggests that randomness is at the core of everything in the universe.

To suggest that the suffering in Haiti was predictable and the government was unprepared is a pretty great simplification. First, it wasn't just 7.1 on the Richter scale - an absolutely massive event that literally turns solid ground into liquid. If the same event happens in san andreaus there will be absolute hell to pay and plenty of suffering.

but more to my point - randomness is all around us. And terrible things happens all the time for what are - in practical terms - random events. A little girl falls off her bike into the path of a car, a DNA molecule mutates its code into instructions to create cancer, a meteor streaks out of the sky and destroys all life on a planet. In some theoretical, omniscient version of the universe there's a guy sitting at a computer saying "this guy is about to get cancer..." but in real life, these events are effectively random.

and so bad things happen all the time caused by what is more or less randomness.

By the way, good things happen all the time for the same reason, happy to say.

You'll probably never check back here at this date, but I'm sure if you did Eugene, you'd still agree with yourself, as I do.
A quantum theory suggestion that randomness is at the core of everything is off base. Even at the genetic level of mutation with randomness as a factor in evolution, does not mean that evolution is all chance. Randomness is one of the "reasons" to explain how evolution works, and reason explains how "accidents" work. And I think saying "everything happens for a reason" is a new religion, touches on the absurd in this universe "I" exist within regardless of whatever parallel one someone thinks they can walk in and out of at their leisure.

Once quantum physics has "chosen" an outcome, the laws of nature then apply and everything is then happening according to physics.
So i'm saying we dont know what will happen, due to quantum randomness, but surely the laws of physics will apply to everything? :-)

It is likely to rain when the skies are full of rain clouds, but people are not rewarded or punished in accordance with their deserts.

"Everything happens for a reason" - The saying is the first step to turning a negative into a positive.
With Failure comes the opportunity for greater self development and success in the future, with destruction comes the ability to rebuild, with broken relationships comes the chance to seek stronger relationships, with financial loss comes the motivation to make greater financial gain.
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At first glance I think the saying does infer that life and all its ups and downs are in the hands of the gods, however I think the real meaning of this saying is the total opposite, The future is in your hands, and its up to you to turn the negative into a positive, its upto you to find the reason, after all, everything happens for a reason.

Coincidently, I recently undertook the trip of a lifetime, a dream for me was to live in China and train martial arts with the shaolin for a year. After an eternity of saving and quitting my job of 5 years, I made it happen, however after just over a month of training I contracted MRSA, this was just 3 weeks ago, I have since been in and out of hospital in China and have now decided that I am in no state to train or reside in the mountains.
I am now sending this comment from a beach hut in Thailand where I am dosed up on antibiotics and hoping the infection will give up eventually......Did this happen for a reason..I may not be able to train with the Shaolin in China, but I perhaps have the opportunity to discover south east asia...who knows.

The below are taken from stevescottsite.com

Thomas Edison: Chances are you have heard of Edison in relation to overcoming failure before. He was a master of “trial and error”.
When asked about the many thousands of failures he had when trying to create the light-bulb he famously said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.“ But there is even more to it than that. As a child he was thought to be dumb and told that he would never be a success by many of his teachers, because his mind would often wander in class.
Good thing for us that the greatest inventor in history did not listen.
Elvis Presley: You do not need to be a Elvis fan to acknowledge the impact he has had on popular music. They don’t dub somebody the “King” of a form of music without a great amount of success.
But even for Elvis success came after failure. His first recordings went nowhere. After that he tried to join a vocal quartet and was told he, “couldn’t sing”. Finally, right before he became popular, he was told, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”
Michael Jordan: It is hard to imagine it, but the Jordan, who is arguably the greatest basketball player ever, was once cut from his high school team.
As Jordan puts it, “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Vincent van Gogh: Van Gogh paintings these days sell for incredible amounts of money. Four of his paintings have sold for more than 100 million dollars.
Yet, Van Gogh is a cautionary tale. In his life he was a failure.
He slowly began to build a “reputation” while he was alive, but he also had a ton of critics. He burned and destroyed many of his paintings out of frustration and was known to only sell ONE PAINTING.
He did not work to overcome his failure and killed himself. Soon after his death his work began to garner intense critical and financial success.
Stephen King: King was working as a teacher in rural Maine when he wrote his first novel, “Carrie”. King had some small success selling short stories previously, but nothing that anyone could create a “career” on. King submitted “Carrie” 30 times. King was rejected 30 times. Before his 31st attempt he threw the manuscript out. His wife rescued it from the round file and asked him to try one more time. The rest…is history.
Fred Astaire: During his first screen test an RKO executive noted that Astaire, “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Balding. Can dance a little.” Despite this initial rejection, Astaire persevered and ended up becoming one of the top actors, singers and dancers of his generation.
Abraham Lincoln: If Lincoln quit when the going got tough, the world might be a very different place. As a young man Lincoln entered military service in the Black Hawk war as a captain. Yet left as a private.
With very little formal education, Lincoln taught himself and became a lawyer and congressman.
His real rise to “national” prominence could also be viewed as a, “failure”. In 1858 Lincoln tried for a seat in the Illinois senate. This led to a series of hotly contested debates. (The Lincoln-Douglas debates). Lincoln lost the senate election, but really impressed a lot of the “right” people, even with his loss. Two years later he ran for president and won. Thankfully he did not let lack of formal education, initial failure or setbacks rattle him.
Albert Einstein: If asked to name a genius, most people would come up with the name Albert Einstein. Yet even for Einstein genius did not come easy. He had speech difficulties as a child and was once even thought to be mentally handicapped.
As a teen he rebelled against his schools reliance on rote learning and failed. He tried to test into Zurich Polytechnic, but failed again (although he did very well in the math and physics section…as you might expect). Einstein buckled down, received the requisite training and applied to Zurich Polytechnic again, and of course was accepted.
A few years later he had a PHD and was recognized as a leading theorist. A few years after that he had a Nobel prize for physics and began to be recognized as the genius of our modern era.

From a young, Christian perspective, I see things quite differently. If you were to ask me why I think horrible things happen in this world, I would probably explain that it's not God's will for those particular events to happen. God is all knowing, but he doesn't control us (free will) and doesn't control the obstacles "demons" place before us. I have a strong belief that God sees those things that are going to happen, mourns over them and decides to place good consequences or awakenings in result of that tragedy. Those who look for those consequences, or are the very subject to them, are usually the only ones that gain an understanding in the matter. Even if what I'm saying isn't true, though I know it is through personal proof of God's existence,at least I have eyes that can see good things seeping out of a crisis and allow reason to exist, instead of immediately dismissing that theres ever a reason at all.