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Because it's canned nonsense which is recognized as traditional in our society which suffers a surfeit of self help bromides. It is the sort of thing which gets said in a situation where nothing you can say is going to be much help. What end would the truth serve? "Well, I've come here to remind you that you have lost your homes and life is going to be pretty miserable and uncertain for a time, and even after you get settled again, it will never be the same, that was your whole history which went up in flames. You may feel depressed and hopeless right now, well, who can blame you? Most people won't care, it's just one more calamity which happened to someone else."
I would liken it to being around someone who has just lost a relative or close friend. There is nothing clever or wise to say which is going to be any help, so we fall back on cliches.
Several years ago I was seeing a counselor while going through a rough patch. Near the end of one session, she suggested that everything happened for a reason, and I should consider the possible benefits, or positive options that were opening up for me.
I told her that I was an atheist, I did not believe in a guided reason for human experience. To her credit, she did acknowledge my point and said that many people felt encouraged by the thought that there was a spiritual guiding force.
That is one reason why people spout this nonsense. Because others want them too.
It's just that believing in something, not because it's valid or true but because it serves some extraneous purpose, shows an astonishing lack of integrity. Belief should be based on rational evidence.
Russell (from the essay "How to Read and Understand History"):
p. 79: In regard to mundane affairs, the capacity to assimilate what is unpleasant is a condition of success, and for this reason, if for no other, it is a mistake to wrap oneself around with comfortable fairytales.
**
p. 102: But the pursuit of truth, when it is profound and genuine, requires also a kind of humility which has some affinity to submission to the will of God. The universe is what it is, not what I choose that it should be. If it is indifferent to human desires, as it seems to be; if human life is a passing episode, hardly noticeable in the vastness of cosmic processes; if there is no superhuman purpose, and no hope of ultimate salvation, it is better to know and acknowledge this truth than to endeavor, in futile self-assertion, to order the universe to be what we find comfortable.
Towards facts, submission is the only rational attitude, but in the realm of ideals there is nothing to which to submit. The universe is neither hostile nor friendly; it neither favors our ideals nor refutes them. Our individual life is brief, and perhaps the whole life of mankind will be brief if measured in astronomical scale. But that is no reason for not living it as seems best to us. The things that seem to us good are none the less good for not being eternal, and we should not ask of the universe an external approval of our own ethical standards.
That bit illustrates why he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Whether you agree with the sentiment or not, if you don't find the language beautiful, you have no feeling for language and should go get a job selling appliances at Sears or something like that.
That is damned beautiful language. And its author is a very eminent atheist, perhaps the most eminent; if you don't know about his work, you should.
That bit illustrates why he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Whether you agree with the sentiment or not, if you don't find the language beautiful, you have no feeling for language and should go get a job selling appliances at Sears or something like that.
That is damned beautiful language. And its author is a very eminent atheist, perhaps the most eminent; if you don't know about his work, you should.
That's really bad career advice as the Sears stores are closing. I think a person would be better off getting a job as a front desk clerk at a Holiday Inn as everyone has, or will, stay there once.
Seriously though, can you not see how this post of yours is condescending?
Last edited by L8Gr8Apost8; 12-16-2018 at 07:16 PM..
Reason: oops advice not advise..stupid, stupid, stupid...hey stop hitting yourself L8
I think many of you are missing a point: The person may simply be trying to parse an experience and glean worth from it in hindsight. Who among us does not? It doesn't necessarily mean they attribute the experience itself to the machinations of a god-thing.
I think many of you are missing a point: The person may simply be trying to parse an experience and glean worth from it in hindsight. Who among us does not? It doesn't necessarily mean they attribute the experience itself to the machinations of a god-thing.
You're right. I do it and I'm an atheist. I've shook my fist at the universe many times saying "well played".
That's really bad career advice as the Sears stores are closing. I think a person would be better off getting a job as a front desk clerk at a Holiday Inn as everyone has, or will, stay there once.
Seriously though, can you not see how this post of yours is condescending?
OK. I'll admit I had to look that word up, but no. That has nothing to do with it.
Get it together, dude, the time line is off. My comment about diacritical marks occurred after your initial criticism, accusing me of being condescending. Sheesh.
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We must always pick out the essential point of a post.
