I think causes and reasons are different things. Causes don't require consciousness. The cause of my car not starting was a dead battery. A reason is something that requires mental activity and intention. The reason Bill killed Bob was because he was jealous.
So I think it's possible to believe everything is caused without believing that everything happens for a reason.

Nor did I. But if everything happens for a reason, this must mean we have no control over what we do. We can't choose to stand up or sit down, it will have been chosen for us already. Therefor we have no free will.

I'll have to think about this statement for awhile. Can't quite wrap my head around it yet.

Maybe some are weak enough where they need coping mechanisms. Why not just leave it at that? It happened and it's undesirable. That's life. Move on.

Same could be said about psychologists and psychiatrists.

That is called FAITH.

I could have sworn I heard a tree fall in a forest somewhere . . .

YES IT DOES. I allways wondered why I bought a Benz and joined a site and posted there for four years., until I met a friend in need. I was able to help him get on the right track. He is doing fine now. :)

I can agree with that.

How would we know if everything happened for a reason? Can we describe what a universe would be like in which everything did happen for a reason as compared to a universe in which everything didn't happen for a reason?

Doesn't matter if there's a woman around to hear it, you're still wrong.

You'll have to trust me on that.

I don't think we can.

I think we could describe the exact same universe twice. The first time we describe it we could say in this universe everything happens for a reason. Then we could re-describe the exact same universe and say in this universe things happen randomly.

On the outside appearance there would be no way to tell universe 1 from universe 2. Only if you had some sort of 'inside knowledge' (for lack of a better term besides divine knowledge) would you know in which universe did things happen for a reason and in which things happened randomly.

In both examples everything happens exactly the same. Because of that there is no way of telling if things happen for a reason in this universe or not.

Man, I like that. Nice job!

For any system to be provable from a scientific point of view the observer has to be able to stand outside of the system she is studying. This is to prevent observer biases or influences. Thus, to prove the existence of reality the observer must stand outside of it. But that is not possible (or if it is possible, only one "person" has ever returned from it).

Would there be any probability at all in a universe in which everything happened for a reason? Probability relies on the idea of chance. Could there be such a thing as a chance in a universe following reason? (reminds me of the film, The Music of Chance)

yes/no/nes/yo!
 

All I can say is: string theory explains this. :)
And why some people who like Benzes also like Citorens.:D

Dialing Kuan ...

IIRC, randomness is unprovable. In every case of assumed randomness the only denial of the proposition is through exhaustive testing until a pattern is revealed. But lack of pattern may mean that the phenomenon is random or it may just mean the n+1 case needs to be tested. There are algorithms that it can be proven would take more time than entropy has allotted to the universe in order to test every possible pattern in order to prove randomness. An aleph-1 problem in Cantor's notation, IIRC.

So we must take the case of randomness vs nonrandomness on faith, as we must the provability of reality.

The rest is arithmetic.