Do things happen for a reason?

[cliffy1]

Not true at all (and no more, or less credible an idea than an all supreme deity).
Good things happen to and for bad people and vice versa.

You are right, of course. What matters is what you personally believe. If you believe in god, then you will find all kinds of evidence for its existence to support your belief. If you believe in karma, you will find all kinds of evidence. Similarly, if you believe in the flying spaghetti monster....

People believe in all kinds of weird stuff. What makes one belief system better than another is strictly up to ones personal view. The only belief that is dangerous is believing you have the only true belief system. Much blood has been spilled by people who think that.

[steven lloyd]

The only belief that is dangerous is believing you have the only true belief system.

Indeed, and some people really end up making themselves look silly over that one.

[Graham Adder]

I don't believe for one nano-second in any one omnipotent free thinking entity being at the helm of our destiny.
I do not for one nano-second believe in god.

I do believe we are energetic beings.
We are a capacitor in a sense.
When we "die", I think our energy carries on into anything from the ground itself (or Mother Earth as many would label it) to another waking life, a birth or perhaps into the energy of a tree, a rolling stone or the wind itself.
We are all part of something more and bigger than just ourselves.
We are interconnected always and forever will be. The universe is expansive and energetic. We are a part of that universe.
Our life force will carry on and our energy will transform into other energetic beings or other forms of energy as an integral part of ...everything.

Things do happen for a reason...yes.
We are not privy to what reason that may be however as we are just humans...and that knowledge is beyond our capacity.

Mushrooms anyone?

ETA:
in regards to "believing"

We are humans. As such we have limitations to our mental capacity as well as limitations on it's functionality.
We need something more than ourselves or humanity to believe in as we are inherently arrogant enough that we cannot stand to not know the answers to all we wish to know.
Having a belief system gives us some place to dump all the crap we can't get our heads around.
It gives us someplace to go when we get scared of the boogey man.

[SmokeOnTheWater]

We are interconnected always and forever will be.

Excellent post !!
I enjoy this quote that someone posted before " When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe "
John Muir

[cliffy1]

I think you're getting arrogance and curiousity mixed up, either that or every explorer, researcher, and scientist in history must have been arrogant. For someone who believes we have limited mental capacity, you seem pretty closed-minded on your stance, and it's strange that you wouldn't believe for a nano-second that there could be an intelligence behind all we have yet you'll believe your energy might possess a rock when you die. To each their own I guess.

The arrogance comes in the thinking that if some super being created the universe, that it would care one way or the other, what you personally think, believe or do.

[kibbs]

The world has too many humans ,it is naturally reacting ,just wait it will get worse.Is that reason enough.

[quicksilver8]

I believe that we create our reality unconsciously as the observer of the quantum field while we are awake; and we consciously create our reality while we are asleep and/or in the afterlife state. Then we wake up or are reborn into the new experience.

We are always looking for balance and wisdom. We create 'bad' situations because we believe that we must balance out 'bad' things that we did in the past and learn from them, becoming wiser beings.

Sometimes we just create adversity as a spring board to learn from our experiences.

[kibbs]

Sometimes we just create adversity as a spring board to learn from our experiences.

We are ,our own god and make earth our heaven or our hell.Its all about the choices we make on the human journey.

[quicksilver8]

Sounds like we are on the same wave length Kibbs

[quicksilver8]

Btw Kibbs, watching the youtube video from the other topic post. Thanks.

[kibbs]

Sounds like we are on the same wave length Kibbs

yes i noticed we have things in common .feel free to pm if you wish to chat off topic

[Graham Adder]

I now no longer feel I have done more mushroom tea than anyone...
I've got some serious catching up to do to get that title back

[kibbs]

I've got some serious catching up to do to get that title back

see everything happens for a reason,dont shroom and drive

[Graham Adder]

shhhhhhhhh
I'm listening to the rainbow I made with dishsoap and a straw in the shower with a 1,000,000 c.p. lantern.
I think it's speaking Cree.