Rcanfiel/TZ must state his qualifications on regular intervals. We might forget otherwise. I just don't understand how anyone can even question someone with such a "solid background". JB
The problem with theists is that they are too quick to attribute to God anythiong they cannot readily explain. As Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion, "God" exists in the gaps of knowledge. And rather than try to narrow those knowledge gaps, as honest scientists endeavor to do, a theist is perfectly content to remain ignorant and attribute the knowledge gap to God. That's why IDers fight evolutionists tooth and nail, in an effort to keep those gaps nice and wide.
Does science make belief in God obsolete? Ridiculous question. Has science found God or have fact that God doesn't exist? Well, since the answer is no, then science would not make belief in God obsolete. Has science changed human nature? No, in fact the scientific theory of evolution is founded on the unchanging principles of nature, of which human nature is a subset. Has the nature of the species changed? No, it has not. Has science changed the nature of species? Again, no it has not. So what has science done? Science has discovered things that already existed. Belief in God existed prior to any known science, and will exist as long as human being exist and follow their nature. Will human beings "evolve" out of their human nature? There is no evidence to support such a conclusion, as human nature is today what it has always been. The term "obsolete" is suggesting that something no longer has a function or a purpose. Since the scientists don't know if God exists or not, they cannot say what the real purpose of belief in God actually is, as it is logically possible that belief in God is a path to God, who exists. Belief in God may well serve the purpose of finding God, which may well be the goal of mankind. Without scientific knowledge of the non existence of God, without scientific knowledge of the lack of purpose in belief in God, any talk of obsolescence of belief in God is pure nonsense. Does science make belief in God obsolete? Ridiculous question, but that's what the mind does, it follows its nature to ask ridiculous questions...
Good writing! I understand what he's saying to a certain extent. For example, you have pacifistic Mennonite Christians and you have our Founding Fathers who believed that breaking free from England was their God-given mandate. I would argue that there are certain absolutes but no need to go into that here... But I can't fully agree with your last sentence: consider the difference, for example, between the morality of the early Hebrew Christians contrasted with the ruling Roman aristocracy around the time of Jesus. Here "supernatural mysticism" produced an entirely different result set of moral code and behavior. Another example: contrast the typical Hollywood, New Agey family values with the typical Bible Belt family values. Again, religion has clearly influenced and defined behaviors and ethics.
I don't specifically know what the moral values were in ancient times, and I am disinclined to accept the bible's account at face for obvious reasons. Whatever the case may be, we can all pick and choose our examples. Hollywood, as you describe it, certainly has its failings. However, it tends to be far more tolerant of different races and sexual orientation (which we are born into and do not choose) than the Bible Belt. Yesterday, I watched Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. They had clips of West Virginians who actually said they would not or did not vote for Obama because he's black. I can't find those videos on youtube, but I did come across this one, which is not quite as good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-q4MDQ0cDI Sorry, SSB, the Bible Belt does not have a monopoly on morality. Sometimes, it doesn't even have a slice.
I disagree that we can come to all these solid conclusions. Until the middle 90s (as I said), we thought we were rather knowledgeable about the universe. Then they discovered that they had underestimated it be a factor of about 25-fold. If the universe is indeed 11-dimensional and a multiverse, we have almost no clue what that entails and it is quite possible we will never grasp most of this. In fact, it was arguments over the expansion of the universe that mostly led to this. This is the theory du jour, until alternatives or better evidence changes our paradigm again. As to the Big Bang, we never witnessed it. We have never seen another singularity like it. We only have fragmentary evidence that has been pieced together, such as the COBE mission which mapped cosmic microwave background radiation seemingly dating to about 300,000 years after the BB. And they measure the time events following the BB down to the trillionths of a second, but it is still based on modelling something unobserved and poorly understood. For all we know, 50-200 years from now, it may be drastically altered, once we hopefully can get beyond our excessively limited 3-D existence. As an example: for decades, nutritional supplements like caretenoids, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, etc. were "thought" by science to have powerful health effects on the human body. But much of the recent studies seems to indicate many or most of these in supplement form have little to no value to us, and some even shorten lifespans. The current thinking is that nutrients should be gotten from appropriate fruits, veggies, and other foods, if these is any hope for health benefits. Science is not a finished work, and little of what we have discovered can be declared as a done deal. It is powerful, but it is still in the toddler phase.
Back to the original question: science makes a PERSONAL god obsolete, but not necessarily an IMPERSONAL god. That which used to be attributed to God--meterological and astronomical phenomena, disease, and such--now can be explained in naturalistic, rather than in supernaturalistic, terms.
Frankly, I don't see how "God" is relevant in any serious discussion about science. There is the known and the as yet unknown. Period. Shrouding the unknown in a mystical force of any kind does nothing to advance our understanding of the world, and universe, we live in.
This is ANOTHER reason why science is a tool, and not an answer as to God. And it certainly does not make a personal or impersonal God obsolete. It only quantifies some of the things we see around us, with varying degrees of success. Published yesterday: Physicists have come up with a way to explain how information could escape from a black hole, an idea that's been debated since the 1970s. But the new proposal leaves the long-held concept of a space-time continuum in tatters. http://www.livescience.com/space/scienceastronomy/080514-black-holes.html In other words, every now and then, someone blows a hole in the science paradigm. And they think they can come to conclusions on God? They cannot even count on many of the conclusions they already thought they had.