Why do you think bad things happen to innocent people?

Bad things happen to everyone. There is no immunity regardless of how you are perceived or have lived your life.

except for me. i have bad things happen in my life because god hates me.

Who’s supposed to stop them?

And…if he doesn’t know, how should I?

~Because they are not trained to know when to duck. Its a just world hypothesis that people skim in psychology.

Seeing only good things happen to them… Its like keeping children in a bubble and then suddenly letting them out to get sick from the flu and scrapes.

Bad things happen to everyone, no question. Innocence is no barrier to accident, disease or sheer bad luck. That is no reason to be cynical. A much loved friend has a disabled child; and one day she said that, as a committed Christian, one day she would know why things happen, Since that conversation twenty years ago I have come around to her point of view. Shit happens and how you deal with it will help you learn what you are and what you have become.

@Gifted_With_Languages This really is impossible to answer. Much of what happens to us in life is random, and the best we can do is to stop and smell the pungent odor rising off a bed of marigolds on a hot summer day.

Innocent is a modern and common euphemism for stupid.
And bad things frequently happen to the stupid.
As it should. Stupid is the ultimate vice to a reasoning critter like Man.
Bad things justifiably will probably happen to the stupid before they happen to the not-stupid.
That is why stupidity is to be avoided.
That is why literacy and education are values.
It may also be why the government has so much invested in public education.
To insure that more people will be stupid.
Because, when bad things happen to people, they tend to turn to government.
Voila!
Job opportunity. With great perks and benefits.

There are no innocent people. “All fall short from god”, as some say.

Some people are just shit magnets, even their shadow tries to escape.

“I should be grateful if you could enlighten me with regard to this question. Thank you for your time and consideration.”

Because some folks try to be too fucking nice for their own good. God did it as a joke to rattle their world. Self righteous disingenuous bastards stacking comments with unnecessary platitudes like a fart joke ending with a turd in the pants of the one who tells it. Or maybe the Debil did it. Or maybe the Debil made me do it to you them. Who really gives a fuck? Just know one thing for sure. It’s going to happen again suckah. Now go wipe your ass.

What I think is, bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people, and that’s life. And by the way, good/bad/innocence/guilty are degrees, not absolutes.

Such is life. Pain and hardship does not discriminate any more than it does in nature. Good little baby sea turtles still get snatched up by seagulls and crabs. lol

When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner

“When Harold Kushner’s three-year-old son was diagnosed with a degenerative disease and that he would only live until his early teens, he was faced with one of life’s most difficult questions: Why, God? Years later, Rabbi Kushner wrote this straightforward, elegant contemplation of the doubts and fears that arise when tragedy strikes. Kushner shares his wisdom as a rabbi, a parent, a reader, and a human being. Often imitated but never superseded, When Bad Things Happen to Good People is a classic that offers clear thinking and consolation in times of sorrow.”

” Rabbi Kushner was able to reconcile a common Judeo-Christian view of God and causality with a perspective of life that holds a place for randomness and happenstance. Yes! Things happen in life that God has nothing to do with, and there is a way to find peace in accepting this.”

Both quotes from link listed above. Book published in 1981,

@gailcallled took the words right out of my mouth.

Those aren’t my words but quotes from two reviewers of the book.

I know. I just meant I was going to reference the book. Like I did on this Q, and I have on several others.

@Coloma “Good little baby sea turtles still get snatched up by seagulls and crabs.”

They only get the evil little baby sea turtles.

The good ones mature and end up as sea turtle soup.

@JLeslie: Have you since read the book? In your original citation you said that you had not.

No. Just friends have told me about it. Many of them found a lot of comfort from the book.

I’m religious when convenient to me, and there are several ways I reconcile this. Gandhi had a hard life, and it lead him to be an inspiration for generations. But I think the misery of others is supposed to spur us on to be better people and help them.

Good things and bad things happen to both good people and bad, (however you define them) because redacted. That is why, I hope I was clear enough ;-P

I read Kushner’s book for a course once, years and years ago. I found it unenlightening. But that may be because I don’t believe in god.

I think that the question “Why do bad things happen to good people?” is only an interesting one if one believes in god. If one doesn’t, the question is meaningless.

On a lighter note:

The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella;
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust hath the just’s umbrella.”

Attributed to Charles Bowen, Baron Bowen.

I have a friend that I’ve known for over 13 years who is hands down one of the best guys I’ve ever met, but anyone who knows him will agree with me 100% when I say that he has the worst fucking luck. Everytime things start to look up for him, another 3 shitty things will follow soon after.