God's purpose

Doesn't history show us that science has indeed removed God and Gods repeatedly from the equation? As science explains natural phenomenon from volcanic eruptions and eartquakes, the changing seasons and fertility to the development of species and the formation of galaxies have we not left a trail of gods by the wayside?As science has progressed the relevance and power of religion has diminished to the point that the only real questions left which religion can still lay any claim to at all are -1) How did the universe begin
2) How did life begin
3) What happens when we dieAND science is working on those too. This whole forum is testament to the resitance of religion to a scientific understanding of the last remaining questions to which religion can make any claim and the fear it has that science will trump religion on these issues as it has done on so many others.
"Gods purpose" has been a shrinking portfolio ever since scientific investigation was begun and as a consequence religion is, in the longer term, an endangered species.

I think you are misreading me by automatically assuming I am limiting my argument only to the same God you presumably advocate(?). All natural phenomenon have been attributed to various gods (e.g. the sun god, the god of the sea etc. etc. etc.) in the past and these have indeed been left by the wayside as our understanding has increased. More recently science has again impinged on religion in terms of explaing the motions of the "heavens", the creation of the universe and the origin of the species. There is a definite trend that as our understanding of the natural world (i.e. science) increases supernatural explanations involving god/gods are forced to retreat further and further back.
My argument is basically that there is no reason to think that this trend won't increase as our scientific understanding continues to progress in the last remaining areas of of the physical world that religion makes any claim to "explaining"Edited by Straggler, : Trivail spellings and stuff

Is it really possible to believe in Thor and his big hammer whilst at the same time attributing thunder and lightning to the build up of statically charged water droplets in the atmosphere??Possibly, but only by completely neutering Thor of all the qualities that make him recognisable as Thor and claiming that the weathermen of the world can somehow read his moodswings in advance (well sometimes!!). You may have trouble finding any devoted followers of Thor these days. Any Thorists that do exist are going to have a hard time recruiting. Not least because we now do have a verified explanation of the natural phenomenon in question that is a lot more reliable than attributing it to a supernatural being of any kind.My argument is that all gods throughout history have effectively been gods of the gaps and that this trend is likely to continue.
Even the recognition of this gap filling by religious bodies and the problem this poses them I do not think will halt the general downward trend in faith based acceptance of supernatural beings as science progresses. Maybe I'mjust being optimisticTo get back to the OP....If there is no physical role for God (i.e. if we had overwehelmingly verified theories for the creation of life and the existence of the universe - I'm not saying we have yet just what if..) then surely you agree that the draw of God to the masses would at least be reduced. No?

But that does not really answer the question. So God/gods having no physical role in the universe may not blunt your faith but would it not weaken the case regards religion (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism) in general? Is not the creator the main role attributed to whatever god by whatever faith?I take NWRs point regards comfort and consolation on board but is that really enough in the long term?Lets just say for example that a verified theory for abiogenesis were to be formulated/discovered/whatever. Likewise a verified physical theory of the absolute beginning of the universe (quantum fluctuations or whatever). In that situation whereby there are verified scientific mechanisms in place to explain these phenomenon...would your faith not be at all shaken??????As a non believer I must admit that the idea of faith in a God for which the universe literally has no physical role completely baffles me.......?

I agree in general. However is it not true that in the face of science even the strength of that support structure has weakened in general over time? True there are communities to whom faith in a particualr religion is a vital component but compared to say a few hundred years ago where whole nations were effectively ruled by the rule of faith (or at least those bodies that claimed to speak on Gods behalf) this is a relatively minor facet of modern culture in all but the most fundamentalist of nation states.

On what, if anything, do you base this absolute conviction?Hmmmmm getting very hypothetical now but.....
Following on from my last hypothetical question...Lets say that in the far flung future of science we get to the point whereby we can actually instigate abiogensis (i.e. life from non life). Lets also say we theoretically and practically understand the creation of space and time to the point that we can actually create "baby universes" in the lab..Hypothetical but not impossible!Would we not be in danger of becoming "God" to whatever we create? Or is the physical role completely unimportant in deciding what constitutes a god?
BTW This is not some sort of debating tactic I am genuinely interested in the thinking of a believer as to me the whole point of God seems to be creator and without bthat I just don't get the point of any of it?

Then we do disagree. Surely the role of religion is weaker now than it has ever been? The proportion of people who would call themselves agnostics or atheists is higher than at any time in history. Even proclaiming such ideas would have been blasphemously unacceptable until relatively recently. Even amongst those who would claim to be believers active worship of any sort is relatively rare and the official and actual power of the various religious bodies has diminished to levels inconceivable at the time of Galileo for example.
In what way do you think the influence of religion has increased since say the time of the crusades, the inquisition or any other point in history you care to mention?

Hmmm I was hoping for something a bit more specific regards the actual role of God as per my later questions (and the OP for that matter). This sort of thing is all very well but something simlar if not identical could be said by anyone of faith regards their particular brand of belief. Frankly none of this is any reason to have absolute conviction in your god above any other and none of this is directly relevant to the topic under discussion.Belief in the face of all evidence could be called delusion by someone less polite than myself......

Whether you accept that they are related or incidental do you not agree that at the same time scientific understanding has increased the power of religion has decreased?
Is this just coincidence in your opinion?
The point you make about mass culture - Is not mass culture the product of science (TV, internet, downloadable music etc.) and does this level of information provided by science not free us from the grip of localised faith based teachers/priests/shamen/whatever and substitute in it's place a "belief" in technology and therefore (indirectly) science?

I would still be interetsed in your thoughts on the hypothetical science and whether or not this would potentially make us "gods" in the eys of our "creations"Or if god is more than and even seperate to the role of creator.

Not really. If in my hypothetical scenario we understand the nature of space and time enough that we can create it via controlled quantume fluctuations or whatever then we literally can create space, time matter and all the rest of it. we are in effect God in any physical creation sense. that is kinda the point of my hypothetical question - To establish if God needs a physical role or not (and conversely to establish if that physical role defines what ba god is)Actually the very nature of your question implies that whatever created us also needs a creator otherwise where did they get their stuff from? Your logic presumably applies equally to our creator no? If not why not? (This is in danger of going badly off topic)

But I have seen no evidence to suggest that the Flying Spaghetti Monster does not exist......should I therefore believe in him/her/it?

How do you actually know that?Can we be absolutely certain that for example that our universe is not the creation of a technologically advanced species which already inhabits a universe with space and time???

Is there any area that science has adequately explained that is still widely attributed to any god?In that sense has science not effectively replaced religion?The only areas left to large scale religion as far as I can see are the three I listed earlier i.e. universe origin, life origin and after death. science has removed all else from the domain of religion.If you have any examples that contradict this what are they?

Well obviously I don't believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster either but you said And my point is that if you apply that reasoning there is no reason not to believe in all sorts of obvious and crazy nonsense.Given that there are many like you that believe with absolute certainty in various equally unprobable and unprovable gods many of which are mutually exclusive, the only rational resonse seems to be to accept none of these on faith and believe only that which there is sufficient evidence for.