The God of the Gaps
You cannot define god in terms of that which we cannot explain or do not yet understand. This has been done historically since the beginning of man, and consequently of religion. If this continues, our definition of god will become smaller and smaller as we begin to understand more of the natural world. Consequently, our definition of god, and therefore god itself, will become a less convincing and less necessary concept.
It is unwise to hold onto the last threads of religious beliefs that have not yet been proven false by science, as there are countless examples of stories — like how the universe was created — that have simply been proven false in every religious text. None of them guessed correctly, it would appear.
This is not to say that there is no basis in which to believe in a god; it is simply to say that the evidence for god should not be based on a lack of scientific understanding. Before meteorology humans relied on religion to explain phenomenons like thunder storms and floods.
Why is lightning striking down from the heavens, you ask? Well the gods must be angry, of course.
While it may sound silly today, it was very real for countless civilizations — probably for hundreds of thousands of years. Today one might argue that consciousness and free will can only be explained by god, and that science will never fully explain these phenomena. But what if one day it did? No doubt the goal post would just get moved again. There is and will always be some domain of knowledge not yet explained by science, as new scientific discoveries often pose new questions when resolving existing ones.
As we continue to improve our understanding of the natural world the need for supernatural explanations and entities become less necessary. If your god exists to make sense of that which you cannot understand — what you believe to be supernatural phenomena — then your god’s significance is at best a decreasing function of time.
Each generation will establish new scientific theories that contradict the stories given in religious texts, as those stories were written before we were aware of how the universe began and how life evolved in it. Evidence of these stories being written by humans thousands of years ago, as opposed to omniscient and omnipotent creators, no doubt.
