Woman: "Everything happens for a reason."
Me (to myself): cough cough... Bullshit! (I couldn't think of a nice, non-aggressive way to say this so I took another bite of my dinner)
Butch (my atheist husband): "I don't believe that it does. Think about all the bad things that happen to good people."
At which point I can't remember what happened. I think someone changed the subject.
But I get this a lot. And to be honest, it probably wasn't that many years ago that I used to believe it myself.
If you're religious, which most people are, I understand your thinking that God and Satan basically guide you, tempt you and otherwise have a hand in your life. Ok. You have a personal god who is active in your life. You are a puppet.
But when a nonreligious person says it, then I start to wonder a bit more, and of course it makes me reflect on my progress from Christian to Spiritual to Skeptical Naturalist/Atheist.
Just because someone doesn't believe in gods, it does not follow that they automatically don't believe in anything supernatural. Even though I know this intellectually (and went through that spiritual/new age phase myself after becoming an atheist), I still find it jarring.
My question to you, though is, Why? Why do think that there is an invisible force acting in your life?
