Everything Happens for a Reason

I hear this pretty often from theists when something tragic happens, like an unexpected death or a disfiguring accident, or even the loss of a job.  Anytime something bad happens, they soothe each other with vague excuses about their god's master plan.  It wasn't the bad economy that forced your employer to lay you off, it was god.  He's a good and merciful god and he knows what's best for you... and what's good for you isn't a paying job apparently.

I remember a few years ago when a little boy was decapitated in a car accident near my son's school - I can't tell you how many times I heard "Everything happens for a reason", and every time someone uttered it I cringed.  What they meant, of course, is that their god planned that little boy's violent death for some mysterious purpose that our feeble minds cannot know.  Somehow it makes them feel better to believe an invisible man in the sky is controlling all the bad things that happen. That comforts them.

The accident did happen for a reason:  the driver of the car the boy was in ran a red light at a most unfortunate moment.  It was an accident; a horrifying, dreadful accident.  Why would it be more bearable to believe an all-powerful entity deliberately pushed the car through the intersection in order to kill that boy?  What possible reason could said entity have for inflicting such a gruesome tragedy on an innocent child and his parents?  Whatever the reason believers of this nonsense claim, it isn't good enough for me.

It's much more comforting for me to know that accidents are just that: an unexpected, unintended event without deliberate cause.  Something that can be avoided with enough diligence.  I'm much more comfortable knowing there isn't some bi-polar deity with a warped sense of mercy planning to murder my children.  Amen!

Diseases, disorders, birth defects... all get the same response.  God did it, but he had a good reason.  Maybe it was a wager with the devil (Job), maybe his ego needs stroking (Abraham), who knows?  It makes believers feel good to think their god hands out all sorts of horrible afflictions on humanity.  I find the truth much more bearable.  That diabetes/cancer/Down's Syndrome isn't personal.  No one is purposely fucking with these people.  These are natural, sometimes random, always unfortunate, biological occurrences with no agenda.  

Body parts wear out, cells don't replicate properly, machines malfunction, companies go out of business - these are facts of life that don't require divine intervention or a purpose.  Things may happen for a reason, but the reason is always a natural course of events.