Why do bad things happen to good people?

Because life isn’t some kind of meritocracy where you earn points and are rewarded accordingly.

Because good people have enough sense to see the good things in the bad and grow from it.

bad things don’t “happen for a reason”, like some scripted morality play, or for the gods to be amused at how humans deal with adversity. Sometimes they just happen (tornadoes, hurricanes) sometimes it’s by mistake or beyond control (your country is at war, a drunk driver hits you).

And some times the best people are those who have experienced bad things brought on by others (abused children, family members that suffer from illnesses)and devote themselves to it not happening to others.

The fact is that bad things happen to good people and bad people, and mediocre people. As @lillycoyote alludes, no one gets a free pass. And when you think someone has, you’ll never really know their truth, will you?

Good and bad are human constructs. The physical world makes no such distinctions. Stuff that happens, happens. If you get cancer, you get cancer. The cancer cells don’t care if you are Mother Theresa or Ted Bundy. The hurricane doesn’t try to hit only bad people. It just blows and hits whatever it hits.

Car accidents or any other accident, for that matter, are just that: accidents. They have nothing to do with the moral value of any person. They just happen. Sometimes they happen to bad people. Sometimes they happen to good people. Sometimes they happen to ordinary people. But if you look at a distribution of bad things, you’ll find they happen equally to everyone.

Moral value is a human concept, and people often forget that we are a part of the world, not masters of it. We do not have dominion over the planet, no matter what a religion might say. Humans aren’t above it all. The world outside us does not have a concept of morality or good and bad. The world simply is. And we are part of it, playing our own little social games because they help us survive and because we enjoy the social drama.

Bad things in general happen as a result of a spanner in the cosmic works a while back. It is unlikely that they’re happening to you for any particular reason.

I have always liked the saying of instead of asking “Why me?”, ask…“Why NOT me?”

Squirrels, humans, butterflies or Tuna fish,none of us get out of here alive and unscathed. lol

Stuff just happens. I noticed you put “Christianity” in your topics so I will give you a Christian answer. (I would not do that unsolicited.)
Being good does not “earn” you anything. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
A Christian is not good so good things will happen, a Christian is good as a response to Gods grace, not to earn it.
He never promised that your life would be perfect or trouble free, only that he would walk beside you, help you carry the burden, and give you the tools you need to come out of each situation stronger.

Because no one, not one of us is truly completely good.

Alas, since there is good and bad in all of us, we will suffer through both the good and bad experiences together.

In order to achieve perfection, which should be ones goal of this life,
is about having both work for you..

So if you supposedly abstain from evil, and go about to condemn it in another…
You are minding evil instead of Good.and perfection is impossible.

But if you believe no evil has ever befallen you are heading unto perfection.

Check this out.

Neither “good” nor “bad” are absolute terms. From a Christian perspective, your rewards are not in this world. If you believe that everything that happens to you is directly caused by God, then the things that you are handed by God are handed to you for a reason, and as a test of your faith.

@BarnacleBill If that is the case, then what is the rationale behind good things happening to bad people?

When Bad Things Happen To Good People

^^ Written twenty years ago and with a slightly different view. Not “why” but “when.”

@gailcalled I have never read it, but I know several people who really found a lot of comfort from reading the book.