I agree that many things happen for a reason. If I bang my head against a wall for an hour, I’ll get a bruise.
Cause—banging head on wall
Effect—bruise on head
These two things are causally related, can be proven related, and not many would deny it.
What humans tend to do is assign meaning to things that cannot be proven, as a way of finding sense and patterns in a world where events often happen accidentally or randomly.
If I go on a hike and get lost, then find an animal species that no one knew about, some would say that finding the animal was the reason I got lost in a kind of backward causality. Or when a tragedy happens, and something good happens after, someone inevitably will say that everything happens for a reason. I never hear anyone say that when a tragedy causes more bad things to happen. For instance, a child dies of cancer, and the dad gives up drinking and the wild life he had, and now is dedicated to helping others. People say, “That’s the reason the child died,” to comfort the other humans. But what if the mom of that child commits suicide? People don’t say, “Well, everything has a reason,” because that’s no comfort at all.
Humans want to find reasons for everything, but the universe is huge and random, and accidents happen here without reason. And I respectfully disagree that each person is here for a reason. If each person is here for a reason, we can’t leave out the horrible people. Hitler, Ted Bundy, pedophiles, etc.—they’re all here for a reason? It just doesn’t add up to me.
I agree that we should help each other, but there are throngs and crowds of people who don’t ever do that.