> > >Not that religion isn't important, but just that God's purpose, or I suppose the law of the universe(which I do not believe in, so I am with Stephen on that), is already working out.
> >
> > Um. Stephen has been saying constantly throughout this thread that he DOES believe in the "law of the universe" as opposed to divine purpose. You do realise that, right?
>
> Before people assign beliefs to me, could somebody tell me what the "law of the universe" is? To pre-emptively clarify my position an many matters philosophical: I am a materialist, which means I believe only in the existence of physical reality. Above and beyond that, I believe there is an objective reality that exists outside of our own sensory perceptions, though I grudgingly recognize that I can't prove this. I'm also a very strong empiricist, which means I only believe in things that can be empirically proven to be true. This is contradictory to my previous statement, so let me just say that while I can't be *sure* an objective reality outside of myself exists, I'm confident it does.
>
> I do not believe in any sort of god, fate, karma, soul, universal mind, spirits, or "energy" as defined by the "psychics" on talk shows. I don't know where the "law of the universe" falls into all of this, but I most certainly believe there are hard and fast physical laws that govern the interactions of all energy and matter in the universe -- this is sometimes called physics.

That was what I assumed Melanie meant by "law of the universe", although as soon as I posted I started wondering if I had understood her correctly. I'm now pretty sure I didn't.