Until just a couple of hundred years ago, most people thought that a god or gods controlled everything. Why..?

Question

was there lightning and thunder? Why did the sun, moon, and stars apparently go around the Earth? Why did someone get sick and die? Why did anything happen? Well, obviously, God did it. If a person doesn’t know how something works or why something happened, they can say, “God did it.” This is known as the “god of the gaps,” or the “argument from ignorance,” and it is at the heart of the conflict between science and religion. Science looks for natural causes, while religion looks for supernatural causes. Science is steadily winning, because as we understand more and more about the universe, the gap where God might function grows smaller and smaller. Every time we learn more, God has less room to operate.
When we learned what caused the sun to apparently move across the sky, there was no need for the Greek god Helios and his chariot. When we understood what caused lightning, there was no need for the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, or the Norse god Thor.

Answer 1

I think guys that look like YOU are HOT and make me moist ;)

Answer 2

Unlike you, I do not believe in a disjuncture between science and the mythology of religion. The fact is, as we learn more, be it in the fields of string theory or quantum mechanics, the more we question the fundamental underpinnings of the universe. How it came to be and why it functions the way that it does. As an example...

Once the atom was split, Einstein said that if he were to live his life over again, he would study para-psychology rather than physics and mathematics. And why did he make such a statement? Because he expected that a split atom would produce two halves of the same thing. Two halves of one atom. Instead, the split atom created two entirely different entities. Two "new" things. From this he came to realize that we could split the atom into infinity and never come to an end. And along the same lines...

We are discovering that this so called mythology of the past is being proven by science. An example of that would be the work of Hubble. His most famous discovery being that the Universe is expanding. This was first brought to our attention by the Vedic Seers. They explained it in the mythological story of Vishnu dreaming the world. Consequently, what I am finding so fascinating about the science of our modern world is how it is playing into what was described in mythology. The two can coexist if we all can get past our personal belief system biases.

Answer 3

Not even science will say it is winning. Just like it isn't a correct to say that most people thought that gods controlled everything. Your statements aren't entirely correct. Science tells us how the sun moves across the sky, but doesn't explain why. Science has always explained how things work, but never why things work. God has always had as much room as he needed to operate. When you take God out of the picture, you invariably become nothing more than an animal. Do you wish to be treated like an animal? I don't think so. Think about it. Take care.

Answer 4

Throughtout history you will find that the religions and sects changed insync with discoveries and knowledge. Before we know how the ocean worked, the sun, the earth, we made up Gods to explain the unknow. Then, god got less and less personal and responsible for things and became responsible in an indirect way. The fact is that we just don't have many questions that can't be explained by science or logic anymore. God has sort of lost his place in the world. Even the universe is coming to be explained by means of natural forces rather than supernatual. What was fact back then is foolish to us now. The same will apply in another thousand years. Well might know more than we ever imagined. Hopefully we will someday grow up and not even believe in him anymore.

Answer 5

"When we understood what caused lightning,"

Really. I was not aware that scientists understood lightning. In fact it has only been about year that they can measure lightning.

he Great Mystery
In an electrical storm, the storm clouds are charged like giant capacitors in the sky. The upper portion of the cloud is positive and the lower portion is negative. How the cloud acquires this charge is still not agreed upon within the scientific community,

Answer 6

In my understanding of God, the more science reveals, the more amazing God seems. It would take a Real God to design all this. Science is the study and discovery of what he has done. I suspect there will be discovering going on for a good long time yet.

Answer 7

Mojo you are SO the man. There goes your own version of a secret message to your previous atheist friends. I see it:
"Science is proving things only based on assumption and can't truly prove anything in the past with their dating methods. All scientific facts that attempt to disprove God are solely man's best GUESS and nothing else. Man has gotten others to agree with him and they present it as a theory, but uninformed people just take it as fact and run with it. All the greek gods and others like it were mere figments of the imagination as there is absolutely only ONE True God."

You are doing great Mojo!
http://planttel.net/~meharris1/mikescorner.html

Answer 8

They still do believe in some way or another, but God is the only living God of creation, and the only one who can bring you eternal life. Before that, the Egyptians used to believe in statues and idols. Things that they could see to pray to. Not in an invisible God. This is the reason the word of God had to be made flesh in Jesus. So that people could actually see Him. They still refuse to believe.

Answer 9

There are a large number of Christian scientists who fully embrace scientific discovery, you are misguided and uninformed if you believe to have faith comes at the cost of intelligence. Usually the stereotypical comments are made by poorly educated, sheltered people. any comments

Answer 10

Human nature. People like making up answers when there is something they can't explain. That's why when Christians and others try to convince me their god exists, one of the first questions they ask is, "If God doesn't exist, who made everything?". They think their made up answer, "God", is better than having no answer. It isn't really. It adds nothing.

Answer 11

but god still controlls everything. why don't we all fly off the earth as it spins, why does lightning strike that tree and not this one, why did you post this here instead of writing to atheist monthly, why am i not using capitals and question marks.