Is there any place for God in the modern world?

(This might be a bit long, so if it's too long, just move it to the coffee house, or somewhere else that is suitable)Is God losing his powers?Imagine you live in 100BC. Thanks to God, the sun rises and the moon sets. Thanks to God, the rain clouds gather and water your fields. Lightning, a wonder of God, lights up the fields. As day becomes night, a fireball cracks over head. God on his chariot of fire races over the skies above you, and you get a glimpse into heaven itself. Then, just as you could not have been any more privileged on this day, he makes the sun disappear and the day turns to night! Truly that would be a remarkable day!Of course, in this day and age, we know that day and night is just because we revolve around a sun. We know what causes rain and we know that lightning bolts aren’t being sent down by Gods. We would see the same fireball race over head and think ”Wow, a meteor!’, as well as be aware that we just witnessed an eclipse on the same day. An amazing coincidence, but nothing in our day and age we would attribute to God.In the days where very little was understood about the world around us, God was everywhere, and was the cause of everything. Didn’t know how birds stay in the air? God. Didn’t know why in the middle of the day, everything went dark? God. Everything that could not be explained, it was God, God, God.These days though, very few of Gods mysteries are actually left. Where as nearly every daily ”oddity’ would be attributed to God, these days our understanding of the world around us has advanced to the point where suddenly, God disappears.Was God really in charge of the events seen by the 100BC man, or was it his lack of understanding about the world around him that made him assume that the only possible explanation could be a God? At this point in society, why do we not still attribute a bird flying to God? We were convinced then that God was the reason, but when we found out enough about science, God seems to disappear.In this day and age, what is left for God to do?The two biggest unsolved questions would probably be how the universe was created (Pre big-bang theory I mean), and what happens after we die. And not surprisingly, the two biggest things we cannot explain in this day and age . Its God. Just like the eclipse and chariot of fire, we attribute our lack of knowledge to a higher power.Now as for myself, I have always believed that everything was created by God. I know that Jesus was a myth, and think that only what Paul wrote about a spiritual Jesus and God was accurate (wether he was write or not is another question), but I have always figured there HAS to be God to create the universe, because nothing else makes any sense. All the complexities of the universe just seem so advanced, it can’t be by fluke. But, then I think back to that man at 100BC, and think just how little he really knew, and how in a thousand years, we will look back at this day and realise just how little we knew. My belief personally is that attributing anything to God, if history has taught us anything, is a cop out.
I’ve been thinking that ever since the dawn of man, we have always fallen back on this crux of God to put any fears of the unknown at ease. Anything we cannot explain is God, but when we figure that mystery out, well . God is just in charge of everything BUT that.So, what’s the point of all this blabbering? Well I would like to hear from those who believe in God how they feel about God today as apposed to 2000 years ago. As we slowly figure this world around us out, are we slowly pushing God out of the picture? If we figured out how everything in the universe started from nothing tomorrow, and it was as solid as proof we exist on a round planet and revolve around a sun, what does that leave for poor God? The only area he might have left is the afterlife. So I'm wondering:Is God losing his power?
Is there any place for God in the modern world?
If we know God is here because of what he does, is he seemingly doing a lot less that he used to?

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

You would have to ask God, but I doubt it. Yes, now not only can we see what he has done, we can start to understand it better. Since matter can niether be created or destroyed, then will may never now how He did it, or why. But we are only scratching the surface, and we are relatively just as ignorant as a person from 100BC. I am not sure what you mean by that. Everything is the same as it always was, except we understand it a little better.In what way is He doing a lot less?

What you're talking about is the God of the Gaps argument. If people stop attributing gaps in human knowledge to the supernatural, then God, angels, spirits etc. aren't going to lose any more power than they already have over the ages.The examples you give of gaps aren't that great: whether there was a time before time and whether there's life after death are questions which are probably unanswerable. On the other hand, a lot of believers attribute human consciousness to God or a soul, even though we're pretty close to satisfactorily explaining it with methodological naturalism.I think that God can have a place in the modern world if people keep their faith unfalsifiable. Some Christians here do that: there's no evidence I could find which would prove that Jar's God doesn't exist, whereas there's plenty of evidence which proves that the creationist conception of God is wrong.

It depends upon your personal definition of who God is. Did He create us long before we imagined Him? Or...is He a product of our imaginations??? (Poor God! ) Perhaps a better question is this: Is there any place for God in the modern mind and heart? Not in my life! God is sooo patient with me! He is so in control that I am the one who needs to have less to do! Say what? Is there a spiritual God and a spiritual Jesus in your belief? What about a spiritual Holy Spirit?
Without Jesus, whom I regard as Gods character made flesh, it is not easy for me to comprehend God without feeling as if though I myself am imagining/creating Him! (a common mistake!...)
A couple of more thoughts to chew on:

If humanity did not exist any longer due to some cosmic accident, would God still exist?

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If God were losing His power, who would be gaining power? Could it be us intelligent humans on our little dustspeck among the Cosmos? They say that knowledge is power, you know!

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This message has been edited by Phat, 03-24-2006 08:23 AM

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Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. Even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained; and even in the best of all hearts, there remains a small corner of evil. --Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

As mentioned above what you describe is the God of the Gaps problem, and as you noted, those that assign unknowns to Acts of God keep finding the gaps closing.But many of us view science quite differently. We simply see science as the explanation of How GOD did it.There's still a place for GOD, even for Jesus and the Christian God, and for most, Christianity and the wonders of science mesh nicely.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You mention that we can now see what he has done, and start to understand it better. What have we discovered yet that we can attribute to God? Can we point at anything yet and say 'God is controlling that'? Do we still attribute the flight of birds to God, or do we attribute it to aerodynamics (and keep in mind I am not talking about the creation of aerodynamics, but our concept of how it works)? 100BC man would have, but we don’t. God was there with 100BC man, but now he doesn’t seem to be with us. Everything isn't the same as it always was though. The 100BC man spent every day watching God play with the world, be it through lightning or an eclipse because of his LACK of understanding about the world around him. He saw God because he lacked the understanding of why an eclipse happens. Now that we don't attribute those things to God anymore because we understand our world a little better, God seems to get pushed out of the picture. 100BC man saw God throw bolts to the ground and God push the Moon in front of the Sun. Now we see lighting and an eclipse.Going by our changed perspective of the world around us, God does indeed seem to be doing a lot less. What does God actually do in this day and age?

Previously my belief was that God or a God like being created the universe with the Big Bang, and has been hands of ever since. I believed that perhaps Paul was actually speaking to this spiritual God and his son Jesus, but not as a man of flesh on the earth. Lately though I’ve started wondering why we keep attributing everything we don’t know to God. Just like everything 100BC man didn’t know he attributed to God, we still seem to do the same thing today. Hence, I figured there HAS to be a better explanation for how everything started, possibly without a God. I’m still 50/50 on that though, because without having any clue at all as to how everything came to be pre-big-bang, I would be just as closed minded to say God did not create the universe than to say he did. I’m open to any theory! Interesting question. We should then wonder I suppose, if we ever meet life on another planet, will they be christen too? Are we the only ones to have ”met’ God? If we all die tomorrow, does the concept die with us? (Assuming I understood the question correctly) That’s once concept I find fascinating. If we found another planet with a race of people who are in the technology era of 100BC man and started speaking to each other through a small plastic brick, made music through another small plastic brick, and then jumped in a rocket and flew away, surely we would be gods ourselves. As we slowly seem to push God out of the picture as we figure out how our world works, are we taking his place by being the new creators?

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God is sooo patient with me! He is so in control that I am the one who needs to have less to do!

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God is in complete control of your life, Phat?Are you sure about that?

This God of the Gaps idea is silly. God IS behind everything that happens. Yes, He set up the universe to function by laws, and because His laws are rational and knowable we now can predict how much of nature will behave, but not perfectly, and they are HIS laws after all So He can easily change the direction of many events, without causing a miracle too. Certainly there is a limit to how predictable the weather is or ever will be. A hurricane can change course at the last minute, or any other weather pattern. God is no less in charge of all the phenomena whose behavior we now understand than He was when we didn't understand it. Although it would be a miracle if He prevented an eclipse or caused one to occur outside His laws, we nevertheless can understand a predictable eclipse in terms of the laws of the motions of the heavenly bodies HE set in place. He's behind all of it one way or another, no matter how much we think we know.ABE: The God of the Gaps was a God nobody really knew, not the God of the Bible who gave rational predictable laws. The God of the Gaps was the God fallen nature dreamed up, no longer able to know the true God. Through His merciful revelation to us in His word, however, humanity learned that His Nature operates by laws that can be understood -- because He is rational and His laws are orderly and predictable. So the God of the Gaps became the God of law and order and justice and mercy and we understand both Him and His universe better than primitive fallen man ever could.This message has been edited by Faith, 03-25-2006 10:58 AM

But isn't there a kind of philosophical difference between two different levels of specific control? Like, isn't there a difference between me creating a complex clock movement to drive the minute and hour hands reliably and without my intervention, and me simply sticking my hand behind the clock face and turning the hands with my fingers forever?

Sure there's a difference. God doesn't do miracles as He did during the time of His revelation to the Israelites, so we aren't likely to see the sun stand still or a body of water stand up and expose dry land beneath it, but I have no trouble believing that God intervenes in a million ways in the physical world where the the physical laws remain intact, and the law of probability would not be stressed in the slightest, in weather patterns certainly, in every kind of accidental occurrence. Sometimes I think of this as a spiritual law operating behind the physical world rather than God Himself intervening, and I'm not sure which is the more correct way to look at it. I may be committing a heresy to think this, I don't know.In any case, I think I did a better job of answering the God of the Gaps idea in my edit to the previous post. That's the God of the fallen nature, after humanity lost touch with Him and experienced spiritual death so could no longer understand why anything happened as it does.

Recalling history, boolean writes: Now boolean asks: Hey, give God a break. He worked so hard during those early years, that he deserves to be able to sit back and relax now in his retirement.

Right. It is so hard to do sleight of hand magic trickery when you are being closely watched. And these days there are lots of scientists watching. You have answered it very well here. In saying "in weather patterns certainly, in every kind of accidental occurrence" you have made it clear that your belief is in the God of the gaps.

I just have to comment that sometimes this sort of brassy nosethumbing at God gives me the chills. You claim to believe, don't you? How do you let yourself talk about God in such demeaning terms? Putting scientists above God. Really shakes me up sometimes.