From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org]
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2002 3:14 PM
To: alt.atheism.moderated
Subject: Re: The psychology of Atheism


Jim Humphries <jim@nospamma.humph65.fsworld.co.uk> wrote 

> "John Secker" wrote
>
> >the concept of "the highest level laws" is a theistic one,
> >and  makes no sense in scientific terms
> >
> This is really quite absurd.  I have already explained to
> you that the term just means 'most basic scientific
> laws'. Nothing theistic about the concept

Jim is correct. It's pretty much the same concept as
"fundamental law of physics", which I defined recently
in the Design Argument thread:

 Physics: the study of matter and energy.
 Law: a regularity (or description thereof) believed never to be
 violated in its relevant domain.
 Fundamental: here, unable to be derived deterministically or
 probabilistically from any other more-fundamental regularity.

Jim's example of quantum theory is a good one. Another example
might be the law that the speed of light is a finite constant 
for any observer in an intertial reference frame, regardless 
of the relative motion of the light source.

--
brian@holtz.org
http://humanknowledge.net