When people didn't understand volcanoes and earthquakes, they imagined the forges of the Gods to explain them. When people didn't understand lightning and thunder, they invented the bolts of Zeus and the hammer of Thor. When they didn't understand the disease process and the nature of infectious organisms, they invented all manner of evil spirits to explain sickness.
This could go on very nearly ad infinitum, but the pattern is clear. As our knowledge of the physical world increases, previously inexplicable physical phenomena generally turn out to have natural explanations, and the supernatural ones fall by the wayside.
We have obviously not learned all there is to know about the physical world. I suspect that we've barely scratched the surface. I suspect that what we have learned today will in a hundred years seem every bit as primitive as the science of a hundred years ago seems today. Very likely it will seem much more primitive: the rate of increase in knowledge has lately been closer to the exponential than to the linear.
Over and over again, physical phenomena that we could not explain have turned out to have material explanations. Over and over again, myths have fallen by the wayside as our knowledge base expands. Does it not make sense to assume that this consistent pattern will continue, and that as our knowledge base continues to expand, many things that we do not now know will become clear?
I see no reason to assume that though so many previously inexplicable things are now understood, and so many supernatural explanations have been replaced by natural ones, these inexplicable things, the ones we don't understand now, can only be explained by the presence of a deity.
Unless, of course, you really, really want to believe. |
