Do things happen for a reason?

[polymath257]

Because a wingnut shot him inna head.

Yup, his reason was he was a wingnut disconnected from reality.

When a Mom and a Pop cuddle...

Surely somebody has explained the birds and the bees to you? Apparently not.

Because you get to bury the beefy bayonet in the fragrant woman's cave. Do you somehow think that in that "oh god" moment of orgasm that the parents decide exactly all of the potential childs life? That is absurd.

I have two of my own. I intentionally have always encouraged them to be their own person.

He was elected. Don't you know how democracy works? 

Because you chose to do so. Are you claiming you had no choice in the matter?

Yep. This next level BS will definitely ruin your life.

Because YOU were born. If your imaginary brother had been born, you would not exist.

Daft question

That is not our fault.

Here is the deal. Next month, my eldest will be an adult. At that point, he will be appointed executor of my will. Would that be different if he was a she? Nope. That is based on ability, not gender.

You can barnstorm all you like about how things could be different.

But you would be better served by dealing with how things are.

1. I didn't blame you for anything 
2. I'm not disconnected from reality, I accept the way things are. I just like to ponder about the why they are the way they are. Theres nothing wrong with that. wth is the point of philosophy??

I think it is a mistake to think there is a single 'reason' that explains everything that happens. And, often the 'reason' things happen the way they do is a mishmash of a variety of factors that conspire to produce that one event. Often, even small differences initially would have made things greatly different.

Why do I exist? Because my mother hand father loved each other SOOOOO much....but why that one particular sperm? We could go into the differences of motility, and fluid flow, and position of the egg, etc, But that is the *only* type of answer to that question. Asking for a cosmic reason is assuming a type of answer that simply doesn't exist.

Another problem is that we often want 'reasons' that make us significant factors, when, usually, we are not. The difference between that one sperm and another was probably a matter of a second at most. Nothing that anyone could do consciously would have had an effect that could determine that outcome. A slight motion and a different person would have resulted.

So, ultimately, the reason things are the way they are is because the laws of physics are the way they are, that the world was the way it was, and the probabilities came out the way they did. No other answer is an actual answer.

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It sounds to me like you ARE asking if we believe in a master plan (ie - God's plan) then, and the answer, our being atheists, would be NO.

Also I'm a determinist who does not believe in free will (although I believe people must be TREATED by society/friends/family/the law etc as though we DO have free will) and those are the issues you're getting toward.

I'm stupid but I'm not THAT stupid. This is an atheist forum, I'm aware of that. I really am try to lean away from God's plan in this thread. I want to know how you guys rationalize without it. 
How do you mean, we don't have free will?

There are laws of physics and chemistry. Put two chemicals together of the appropriate types and they will react. Matter does that sort of thing.

You are expecting grand, cosmic explanation, when there are usually only local, trivial, almost random reasons.

We 'rationalize' it because we know we are part of the universe and the universe has many interconnected interacting parts. No deity required: just the motion of matter.