I asked the students in my "Job and the Arts" class to come up with at least three answers commonly given to the question "why do bad things happen to good people?" Some interesting responses emerged...
1. God does not control the good things or bad things that happen to people, god is not here to fix or make better, he simply brought everything here
2. All actions have reactions, the most horrible things to happen to people can domino into the most glorious wonderful things, any one moment or action is not a complete action, it continues onward forever
3. There is true randomness in the world, good things happen to bad people, bad things happen to good people, there is no reason only chaos.
1. Karma, but multidimensional: you could have done something in another life that justifies something bad happening to you in this one.
2. The purpose of life is to experience everything, the joy and the suffering. It’s all part of living life, no matter if you’re a good or a bad person.
3. God is a concept, not an entity. Things happen to people, there is no God at fault necessarily.
1. Setting some kind of cosmic example for others to view and avoid
2. There is no higher power in control of these occurrences, simply chance
3. A well rounded, thoughtful existence cannot be achieved in the absence of suffering combated by joy
1. Good and bad are subjective… with this label, one cuts short the meaning that could be derived from a circumstance. They are incomplete stories.
2. Entropy, good and bad things happen at random. This also explains so many other things.
3. People do bad things to good people because the doers are bad people. It is not as personal as something just happening to a good person.
4. A buddhist would say an answer to this question would take years and years to answer and it would not get you any closer to enlightenment.
5. God is human too, I mean he has a part of Jesus in him.
1. Cause and Effect
2. God likes to have fun sometimes
3. You get what you put out into the world
4. God picks Her favorites (holy people?)
5. Chance! Absolute chaos and luck
1. Coincidence
2. For lessons to be learned
3. There is no happiness without suffering
1. Manifestation but, like, in a bad way - sometimes we convince ourselves we’ve willed something into reality
2. Sometimes things just happen - chaos - nothing anyone can really do
3. Our perspective on suffering as punishment - often times people explain suffering as some kind of lesson or test
1. Nihilism (GOTT IST TOT)
2. Progress! (Techno Exceptionalism) (the spoils of manifest Destiny)
3. Biological Nature, Survival of the Fittest
4. Deep Time (Cosmic Awareness)
5. Good and Bad do not exist only laws/rules (the Social Contract)
1. Bad things happen to everyone we just put more emphasis on what happens to good people. Bad things already happened to bad people why do you think they are the way they are? It broke them.
2. What one might see as good another might see as bad
3. Probability and fate are real things that i believe affect everyone.
1. The world works as a series of coincidences
2. Mercury is in retrograde
3. There are no actual good people or bad things - everything lies on a “spectrum” and people’s experiences dictate how they see the world and where they’d place themselves and the things that happen to them on this spectrum
1. There is no such thing as an absolute “goodness”
2. Things happen for a reason. The bad thing might lead you to a good thing.
3. It’s a mistake to think that you are the only one who goes through bad things -> God is “just” so I guess he makes it happen to everyone
4. Because God doesn’t exist.
5. God might have a different perspective on what is good and what is bad
6. Because you relied too much on God... he is tired of you
