translation help please

[jtiureal]

Hi to everyone! 

 

I'm planning to have a tattoo in chinese characters. I just want to know if " 事出必有因 "is the best translation to " everything happens for a reason "? Or is there another translation? 

 

My father is a pure chinese but he got naturalised in our country since 1980's. Sadly I can no longer speak to him that's why I have to ask this here. I would like to have the tattoo in chinese so it would add more meaning on the tattoo. Thank you so much in advance. It would be a very big help!

[adbase]

Correct. I think your translation is very accurate.

[Demonic_Duck]

1. The translation is fine.

Translating things from one language to another doesn't "add meaning", even if the language being translated into is one that is special to you because of heritage or other reasons. I guess you could say it "adds personal significance", though.

"Everything happens for a reason" is what the philosopher Daniel Dennett calls a "deepity" - a saying that has two possible interpretations, one of which is true but trivial, and the other of which would be profound if true, but in fact is false, hence lending it a false sense of "deepness". In this case, the trivial/true interpretation is that everything in the universe happens because of cause and effect, and the profound/false interpretation is that there's some magical guiding force behind the universe which has a grand plan for all of us. Of course, if you're a theist you might not think the latter interpretation is false, and believe that the magical guiding force is God, but in that case there are better and less vague ways of expressing what you're trying to say (e.g. "everything happens by the will of God").

In light of #3, I strongly recommend you don't get this tattoo.

[Kamille]

and the profound/false interpretation is that there's some magical guiding force behind the universe which has a grand plan for all of us. Of course, if you're a theist you might not think the latter interpretation is false, and believe that the magical guiding force is God, but in that case there are better and less vague ways of expressing what you're trying to say (e.g. "everything happens by the will of God").

 

You can call it "vague" but not "false" and you actually gave the reason why yourself: God or whatever you want to call that "magical force" is not yet proven to exist or not.

I don't want us to get into a (sure to be boring) religious/philosophical conversation but my point is that your statement here is self-contradictory (it's all about logic and consistency, so). On the one hand you're being very clear-cut by saying that this saying is simply wrong and then on the other hand you're saying: "well it may actually be true in such and such case", and that is self-contradictory.

 

"Everything happens by the will of God" is only a more precise version of "Everything happens for a reason" (which is vague, you said it yourself). The thing is that you don't even have to believe in the Christian God to think that eveything happens for a reason: you may just believe in fate. That indeed makes you a believer, but not in a specific religion. Thus advising people to write "Everything happens by the will of God" instead is an extrapolation you don't have the right to do as long as you don't know their beliefs.

 

(But you are indeed very right about the fact that there are two interpretations for this saying, one trivial and the other deep and philosophical).

[Demonic_Duck]

On the underlying assumption that supernatural forces do not exist, it is false in the second sense. On the assumption that God exists, it's true in both senses, but vague, because you don't mention which sense is intended, and you don't give a name to your prime mover (and sure, you can argue that "God" itself is also a vague concept, but at least naming it gives people something to latch onto when they're trying to understand your philosophical musings).

 

You're right that if you believe there is some guiding supernatural force but don't identify it with God, the statement could also be true in both senses, but it'd still be vague. In that case, you should say "everything happens because of [fate/the ghosts of our ancestors/élan vital/computer programmers in a higher reality/the flying spaghetti monster/other (please specify)]".

 

At any rate, supernatural forces not existing is the null hypothesis in this case, so I started from there, and then added the caveat to clarify. It seems my clarification wasn't very clear, so I'm sorry about that.

[Kamille]

That's it. Just that our guest here is obviously a believer (I can't really imagine anyone wanting to get the first, trivial meaning, as a tattoo so let's just go for the hypothesis that they intended the second meaning). At the very least this person believes in fate. So our null hypothesis in this specific case should stay that fate might exist if it pleases him.

Having said that, it's a good thing to tell them that if they want to keep the sentence that vague, they might end up being laughed at by non-believers taking the sentence to it's trivial interpretation (and writing the sentence in a more precise fashion would definitely solve that problem).

[Demonic_Duck]

It's entirely a matter of choice what people want to get tattooed on their own bodies, but it's also a decision that's difficult and costly (sometimes impossible) to reverse.

 

In this case, I'd state the case more strongly than that non-believers might laugh at the statement - I'd say that the statement itself is so vague it's close to meaningless, not to mention very clichéd. Then again, maybe it's better not to get a strong statement of a distinct philosophical position indelibly inked on yourself either - people's opinions on these things tend to change over time...

[Demonic_Duck]

I'd say the closest philosophically neutral approximation to what is often meant by people who make this statement is something like the following: "no matter how bad things get, you can always take something positive/learn something useful from the experiences you've been through".

 

In light of that, I'd be interested to know if there are any 成语 or 典故 that illustrate this concept well. They might even make good tattoos...

[adbase]

 Really, you guys went too far away from the question... In fact, i don't think this sentience has such a deep meaning, because it even doesn't look like a written language. But indeed, in our regular life talking, it really has some special meaning. When telling something is "事出必有因"  , this thing is always a bad news. For example:

A："他的脸色很不好“

B："事出必有因"

 

In philosophical sentences, we have some more formal words to describe "every thing has a reason" like:

"万事皆有因果，善恶必有缘由"

[Demonic_Duck]

A："他的脸色很不好“

B："事出必有因"

OK, I assumed I understood this phrase and that it meant exactly the same as the English, but now I'm not so sure. 脸色不好 seems more like a 状态 than a 事, how does the phrase apply here?

[jtiureal]

Thank you so much for your answers and inputs guys. Demonic duck, that's a good idea, i'll try to look for some alternative statement about it. 

[Lu]

Just that our guest here is obviously a believer (I can't really imagine anyone wanting to get the first, trivial meaning, as a tattoo so let's just go for the hypothesis that they intended the second meaning).

But then a more precise statement would probably be a better choice. 'Everything happens because of fate' or 'the gods decide all' or something else that the OP believes in. Because I agree with Duck: the original statement is, or can easily become, trivial. (My existence has a reason! If I hadn't existed, who would be typing this reply? I never said it had to be a good reason.)

[Kamille]

Indeed.