Under the auspices of the Templeton Foundation, Michael Schermer edits (and contributes to) a series of interesting essays that attempt to answer the following question: "Does science make the belief in God obsolete?"
The responses are mostly interesting, and span a range of possibilities from "No" to "Yes". As you might suspect, there is indeed a range between "No" and "Yes" and you should read the essays for the many interesting approaches to that question (it only takes about 20 minutes). Nearly universal in all the responses is the death of the traditional western "Sky God" -- that is the big daddy in the sky, intervening in our lives, creating the world in seven days. He (or she) may have outlived Neitzsche, but does not seem to have made as far as the 21st century.
Once dispelling with the Moses-talking heavenly throne guy, the essays all fall into one of a few patterns:
- Yes, science makes the concept of "God" obsolete. Get over it.
- No, science does not make "God" obsolete, but it does make religion obsolete. God / spirit / beauty / meaning still exists as always, but does not interfere with nature (mostly).
- Mumbo jumbo about ET and quantum mechanics (the former being interesting, and the latter just displaying the writer's lack of understanding of quantum mechanics. Not that I know better but at least I can spot BS as well as I can write a run-on sentence in a parenthetical remark).
- Long, jargon-filled, incomprehensible drivel from the Archbishop of Vienna. Seriously -- this must have been machine-translated from ancient Greek. It's horrible.
In the end, there is a lot of common agreement between the "No" answers and the "Yes" ones, which perhaps suggests something about the editor rather than just about the current state of thinking.
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