I love how whenever anything ever goes terribly wrong in someone's life, the comforting and reassuring words that get yapped by some person invariably posit that, "Everything happens for a reason." I'm sick of people saying this to me, mainly because they're the same yuppie assholes who believe in imaginary men in the sky, drive big SUV's, and like to smash people over their heads with tire irons because of whom they like to sleep with. It's a phrase used to blow smoke up people's asses in order to make them believe that there is some divine plan that requires this catastrophe to occur in order for another good thing to come of it.
Clearly, this is bullshit. Some people just have really, really bad luck, while some people have really, really good luck. Most people fall in the center, and have both good and bad luck, in around equal proportions, despite always remembering the bad luck over the good. All in all, we're really talking about luck-- not some divine plan.
But, let's say we are talking about some divine plan for a second. In scientific terms, we'll test the null hypothesis. Let's assume that everything does, in fact, have a reason, and that all the bad and good shit that happens to you, no matter how small or large, actually happens for a reason. After all, in order for the big things to happen, a series of small things have to happen as well, and for the small things to happen, constituent smaller parts also factor in. In fact, just going to sleep one microsecond earlier or later than a given time could, technically, either involve you in a car accident 12 hours later, or spare your life. So yes, everything happens for a reason, and the chi of the universe is in perfect harmony.
Enter the paradox. Prepare for mind melt....
(continued)
If everything happens for a reason, nothing happens without one. Therefore, we have a problem: nothing can happen without a reason, and as a result, everything has a reason. Thus, free will physically cannot exist, by law. Uh oh. Really throws a damper on the whole churchgoing thing. Why go to church if you're destined to either go or not go there anyway?
Even better, why pray when technically speaking, everything is going to happen exactly as it should whether you pray for it or not. Because everything has a reason, and nothing cannot have a reason for occurring, everything since the beginning of time has been irrevocably predetermined. That means all those prayers you sent to God asking for him to let you bone some hot chick are useless, because, whether you pray or not, you boning the hot chick will either happen or not happen independent of you praying. In either case, it's predetermined, and given that premise, it's useless to pray for something that's already destined to happen-- it'd be as stupid as praying for the sun to come up every day.
One of the founding tenets of most religions, including Christianity, is that everyone has free will to do whatever they want whenever they want. Of course, for those actions come consequences; but, therein lies the problem. If everything happens for a reason, there cannot be free will.
I mean, beating your wife is later justified to her by her friend saying, "well, everything happens for a reason-- after all, if he hadn't beaten you, you would have never met your new, wonderful husband, Jack." Well, if the beating happened for that reason, then technically speaking, it was inevitable. Effectively, one is forced to either sin or be on the receiving end of it, regardless of any action. The husband, because his wife was destined to meet Jack, had no choice--even if the thought he did--but to beat his wife senseless, simply so that she could pump out some babies with Jack a few years down the road.
Once sin is relegated to inevitability, the entire afterlife reward/punishment system becomes insanely cruel and unusual-- more so unusual than cruel. After all, one sins or doesn't sin because someone else before him predetermines it so that someone after him reaps a benefit or merely continues the chain of sin. Effectively, one is born to either sin or be sinned upon, so nothing that anyone does-- sinner or nonsinner-- can change anything.
So, in the interest of not blowing everyone's mind by reciting this in the future to a non-receptive, brainwashed mind, please: don't tell me everything happens for a reason. You're just being a dumbass.
Cheers.
