God of the gaps on multiple levels

[Wertbag]

One thing I’ve recently realised is that the need to force a god into the gaps in our knowledge occurs at two separate levels.  First there is the human knowledge level. We don’t know where lightning, pregnancy, seasons, tides or disease comes from, therefore some unseen superpower must be making it happen.  With our knowledge expanding we see this retreating to ever more challenging questions such as where life or the universe comes from.  The second level is at the individuals understanding.  People walking into an ancient cathedral will be struck by the grandeur and with no understanding of how humans could have achieved something so grand, they give praise to a god.

That surgeon studied and practiced for 20 years, to carry out a 12-hour surgery, to remove a brain tumour and save your life?  It is too immense for a mere mortal to have done; his hands must have been guided by His noodly appendages.

If you watch a documentary on the building of a cathedral and see the plans written up, the land flattened, the stone quarried, the calculations required for the supports and the dome.  The decades of hard work, the skill of the stone masons, the individual artists working on the paintings and sculptures.  You get a very real world understanding of the effort that goes into such a project.  Now when you walk into such a building your wonderment is directed towards the immense effort to achieve such a spectacular sight.  You can marvel at how tight the stonework is, how smooth the marble floors are, how back breaking the painting of the ceiling must have been.  It brings it all back down to earth.

I was sitting here looking at my keyboard.  A relatively simple part of the computer system but consider it from a raw material standpoint.  Some dinosaur dies and is buried, millions of years of immense pressure converts its biological material into oil.  We extract that oil and refine it, extracting the compounds that can be made into raw plastics.  Through chemical processes we colour, shape and texture that plastic into the form we require.  That’s step 1 and its simply amazing.

I guess it’s a different perspective.  When I look at a masterwork painting, I think “Wow, how did they create such a beautiful thing?  What processes, techniques and skill was required?” but that same painting to a religious person would be written off at an almost surface level as “god did that”. 

I think if you can understand what we are capable of you are less likely to give the praise to the wrong being.

[LogicalFallacy]

An interesting observation. However I have one minor disagreement with the dinosaur to oil portion. While its true that it was once thought oil came from dinosaurs that is no longer the case.

 

It's now thought that it's largely plant and animal matter even older than dinosaurs that formed oil.

 

https://www.thoughtco.com/oil-comes-from-dinosaurs-fact-or-fiction-3980636

 

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/18/oil-where-did-it-come-from/

 

(PS I recently only discovered this myself after thinking the same dino to oil thought)

[Geezer]

However oil is made it would seem that the process continues to create more oil. Just think about how much gasoline is consumed around the world in one day,  and then think about how long we have been extracting oil from the ground. Now add in all the other things we use oil for.  Mankind has consumed a gargantuan amount of oil since we figured out all the things it can be used for...or maybe God just keeps on making more oil for us. 

 

And only God knows how much oil the Devil uses to keep the fires of Hell burning.

[midniterider]

6 hours ago, Geezer said:

However oil is made it would seem that the process continues to create more oil. Just think about how much gasoline is consumed around the world in one day,  and then think about how long we have been extracting oil from the ground. Now add in all the other things we use oil for.  Mankind has consumed a gargantuan amount of oil since we figured out all the things it can be used for...or maybe God just keeps on making more oil for us. 

 

And only God knows how much oil the Devil uses to keep the fires of Hell burning.

 

Noooooo, sciencedidit. haha

[midniterider]

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