GOD OF THE GAPS

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As Ebon Muse so eloquently put it, 

"Where the Bible tells us God once shaped worlds out of the void and parted great seas with the power of his word, today his most impressive acts seem to be shaping sticky buns into the likenesses of saints and conferring vaguely-defined warm feelings on his believers' hearts when they attend church." 

This is what atheists call the "God of the gaps." Whatever gap there is in our understanding of the world, that's what God is responsible for. Wherever the empty spaces are in our coloring book, that's what gets filled in with the blue crayon called God.

When you look at the history of religion, you see that the perceived power of God himself, among believers themselves, has been diminishing. As our understanding of the natural, physical world has increased and our ability to test theories and claims has improved, the realm of “God's” miracles has consistently shifted, away from the phenomena that are now understood as physical cause and effect.

Examples: We stopped needing God to explain floods, but we still needed him to explain sickness and health. Then we didn't need him to explain sickness and health any more...but we still needed him to explain consciousness. Now we're beginning to get a grip on consciousness, so we'll soon need God to explain...what, exactly?

The blue crayon is worn down to a nub; and it's never proven to be the right color. Over and over again, throughout history, we have had to go to great trouble to scrape the blue crayon out of people's minds and replace it with the right color. Given this pattern, doesn't it seem that we should stop reaching for the blue crayon every time we see an empty space in the coloring book?