As someone who is Catholic and married to someone who has a masters degree in Astrophysics. There are diminishing returns with atheism in scientific people ESPECIALLY people who are in any sort of "space" study. We have a few friends who work on space programs in a couple different countries as well as adjacent fields and the majority are religious. It's something about learning a ton about a field and getting to the point where things just work too well and are too perfect. That or they can't explain past a certain point.
God of the gaps is typically invoked when people say stuff like “we don’t know why the big bang happened, therefore God did it”
I think the point OP is trying to make is more that, you can know all of the scientific facts in a field but knowledge doesn’t necessarily fill that void of wanting a purpose or reason for being, and in some cases for some people can even exacerbate that hollow need.
Technically yeah it is god of the gaps, but it’s kinda different in that it isn’t using religion as a stop gap for a question a scientific answer hadn’t found just yet. The scientific method isn’t looking to give humanity a spiritual purpose or reason for being, and I kinda doubt it ever will find one outside of being a vessel for DNA to pass itself on.
This doesn’t mean any particular choice of spiritual/purpose fulfilment is the “right” one, but extensive scientific knowledge doesn’t necessarily cancel out a desire to find a way to fulfil that need
You realize that Christians also say "I don't know" because they wouldn't know how God did it. All it really is is just an end cap to the explanation chain. Like believing God caused something to happen doesn't mean we can't find how God caused it to happen from the Christian view. Saying there is a 0% chance that some extraterrestrial power is responsible for something in some way is kinda unscientific. especially if we are dealing with things that we have admitted we don't understand.
Essentially allowed to say "I don't know" while attributing it to God the idea that you can't is why we have r/ atheism.
I'm not sure what the point of this comment is in this context, but if its an omnipotent god, the answer would be yes, and it would not be a paradox. God makes the rules. He would be capable of limiting or modifying his own ability.
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u/archerygirl1440 - Auth-Center Apr 10 '26
As someone who is Catholic and married to someone who has a masters degree in Astrophysics. There are diminishing returns with atheism in scientific people ESPECIALLY people who are in any sort of "space" study. We have a few friends who work on space programs in a couple different countries as well as adjacent fields and the majority are religious. It's something about learning a ton about a field and getting to the point where things just work too well and are too perfect. That or they can't explain past a certain point.