Shit Happens

The phrase "shit happens" could, on certain days, describe my philosophy of life. "Shit happens" in many ways is the polar opposite of "everything happens for a reason". If you really look at it objectively, i.e. without any preconceived theology or philosophy, finding a pattern of cause for the many things that happen to us all each day is futile. Those of us who attribute everything to an omnipotent god or to "the universe" or even to karma are looking for patterns that aren't really there. People pray, but are not dissuaded from their belief in prayer when it doesn't produce the expected results; people look to karma, but as often as not, karma doesn't seem to provide the balance that we might expect, everything supposedly happens for a reason, but what is that reason and who is doing the reasoning?

Genetics, determined not only by Mendel's Law, but random mutations and unexpected combinations, as well as  natural and man-made  influences, makes the "decision" whether or not a child will be afflicted by a disease or disability, or die young, not any "sin" by the parents and certainly not some unknown plan by a deity or cosmic law of balance. We get sick not because some spirit is trying us, but because our bodies wear out and because we do not have immunity to every organism or malady out there. Folks get run over by cars or caught in natural disasters through any number of random factors, not because of some design.

Bad things happen, not because some god is mad at you, or because that god has some unknown purpose that you are unaware of, but because...of nothing. So if you lose your arm in a freak snowplow accident, don't blame your god and don't rationalize that your one-arm-ed-ness is the result of a greater, but just that shit happens.