Very interesting comment--thanks Cflaguy. To follow up on, and perhaps to amplify and to focus the implications of Roy's comments: This sounds like what Thomas Jefferson and his pals would have called Deism. And as I understand it, about 25% of those polled in the US who identify themselves as "believers" fall into this category--they don't believe in a personal deity, a deity who make sure your toast comes out perfectly, and who makes sure one's children aren't abducted on the way to school. But (and I think this is what Roy has in mind) this is an awfully metaphorical kind of "god." So why bother with the metaphor? Especially when we have what Jefferson didn't, namely Darwin, Einstein, and a scientific and technological revolution that helps us understand much more about the world and the universe than anyone knew in 1800. Just because science doesn't explain everything, why should we discard it when it comes to questions that can't be answered with absolute precision? Would Copernicus have achieved what he did if he simply gave up and said: "These anomalies in the heavens are just part of the mystery of the universe--why should I bother trying to figure them out?" Even when the explanation is incomplete and flawed (as, to some extent, it was with Copernicus before Galileo, Kepler, et al.) it's usually better than: "I don't understand this, let's assume there's a magical and supernatural entity behind it so I don't have to think so hard." Most of us now take the germ theory of disease for granted; folks living in the fourteenth century had no such theory, and they could afford to believe in a god in their efforts to find a cause for the various ill effects they saw in the world (e.g., the Black Death). Science has a pretty good track record, and not just because people have "faith" in it (this is a canard), but because it does a great job of correcting itself when it is wrong. If someone found precambrian rabbit bones, I can't imagine a biologist who wouldn't change his views on evolution. Isn't it possible to be spiritual, and to have a sense of the numinous--to have a sense of awe at the power and mystery of the universe--without needing to assume that there is some sort of supernatural, divine force behind it? Reading a poem by Keats can be a powerful spiritual experience--but not because there's a god lurking somewhere behind the poem. There's an awful lot I don't know about overhauling a transmission in my car. Why should I be so bothered by not knowing specific details about the origins of the universe that I need to assume that there's some supernatural cause behind it?
