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Topic: God of the gaps

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	God of the Gaps
		There were gods of the sea, gods of storms, gods of forests, gods of rivers, gods of cities, and probably gods of that place under the stairs where you can't quite reach, even though there's a really useful Hoover attachment back there somewhere.
		God, who once shook the planet, created stars, filled oceans and populated continents and coral reefs with everything from starfish to starfruit, seems to be suffering from a case of erosion that would put the ice-worn mountains of the North to shame.
		Unlike God, scientists are not omniscient, and so there are still plenty of gaps for God to hide in, and be invoked as an ideal explanation at a moments notice.
	www.abarnett.demon.co.uk /atheism/gaps.html (890 words)

	God of the Gaps - Theopedia
		God of the Gaps arguments are a discredited and outmoded approach to apologetics, in which a gap in scientific knowledge is used as evidence for the existence of God.
		From a philosophical point of view, the inherent problem with a God of the Gaps apologetic is that it relegates God to only a portion of creation — the portion that we don't understand yet.
		The earliest use of the term "God of the Gaps" was probably by Henry Drummond, a Scottish evangelist and close associate of D.L. Moody, who was renowned for his endeavours to harmonize emerging scientific theories with the gospel.
	www.theopedia.com /God_of_the_Gaps (536 words)

	God of the gaps - CreationWiki
		God of the gaps is an argument often made by evolutionists.
		Expanding gaps: The god of the gaps argument assumes that it is inappropriate to credit God with acts because those beliefs are just "gaps in science." The unstated assumption, however, is that science will one day fill those gaps, and more specifically, fill those gaps with evolution.
		It claims that he created life (and life cannot arise spontaneously), that the forms of life were created fully formed and separate (and thus all life is not related), and that the dominant trend in genetics is one of genetic entropy rather than increases in information and complexity.
	www.creationwiki.net /index.php?title=God_of_the_gaps (413 words)

	Is there anything wrong with “God of the gaps” reasoning? by Robert Larmer
		A common objection raised against those who defend the proposition that God acts upon nature to cause events that nature would not otherwise produce, is that any such claim commits the fallacy known as “God of the gaps.” Such a position, it is urged, cannot be defended either scientiﬁcally or theologically.
		Unfortunately, although the phrase “God of the gaps” is widely and disparagingly used, and is understood by those employing it to refer to reasoning that is clearly fallacious, there has been little rigorous examination of this presumed fallacy.
		This implies that if “God of the gaps” explanations are to be rejected as in principle scientiﬁcally illegitimate it must be solely on the basis of their inferring a supernatural cause and not on the basis that gap arguments are in principle unscientiﬁc.
	www.newdualism.org /papers/R.Larmer/Gaps.htm (5549 words)

	God of the gaps (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		God is more and more pushed out and eventually "he will hang on his fingertips on the windowsill outside the window".
		A very good illustration of the "God of the gaps" is found in the debate that took place among chemists at the beginning of the last century.
		God, who is the originator of meaning (and mechanism), is therefore not less necessary just because science partly can explain the mechanisms behind the creation.
	gluefox.com /min/english/godgapeng.htm (5701 words)

	God of the gaps - EvoWiki (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		God of the Gaps is the method of claiming God (or gods) exists by pointing to gaps in our present knowledge of how things work.
		The weakness of "God of the Gaps" methodology is that the existence of God is, of course, endangered every time scientists filled the gaps with knowledge.
		The God of the Gaps argument indicates enormous conceit because, by implication, a believer indicates that understanding of all there is, except those things God did, and therefore declares that a miracle is necessary to make him fail to understand.
	wiki.cotch.net /index.php/God_of_the_Gaps (340 words)

	CA100: Argument from incredulity
		This argument, also known as the argument from ignorance or "god of the gaps," is implicit in a very many different creationist arguments.
		Gods were responsible for lightning until we determined natural causes for lightning, for infectious diseases until we found bacteria and viruses, for mental illness until we found biochemical causes for them.
		God is confined only to those parts of the universe we do not know about, and that keeps shrinking.
	www.talkorigins.org /indexcc/CA/CA100.html (230 words)

	Skeptical Christian: God-of-the-Gaps?
		Since God can be defined as possessing certain characteristics, it is easy to show that God is the best explanation if the characteristics of God are necessary in the solution to the question (for example, this seems to be the case in the origin of the universe, see HERE).
		Since God is not considered an answer to anything, we are therefore forced to limit that explanation from the pool of possibility.
		They claim that, if we accept God as the answer to a particular problem, then science will be stopped in its tracks and we will return to the mysticism and scientific ignorance of past millennia.
	www.skepticalchristian.com /godofthegaps.htm (1754 words)

	God of the gaps (methodological naturalism)
		According to the latter, God is already and always intimately acting in nature, which depends from moment to moment for its existence upon immediate divine activity; there is not and could not be any such thing as his intervening in nature.
		The thought that there is such a person as God is not, according to Christian theism, a hypothesis postulated to explain something or other, [18] nor is the main reason for believing that there is such a person as God the fact that there are phenomena that elude the best efforts of current science.
		The Christian community knows that God is constantly active in his creation, that natural laws, if there are any, are not independent of God, and that the existence of God is certainly not a hypothesis designed to explain what science cannot.
	www.asa3.org /ASA/education/origins/gaps-ap.htm (2473 words)

	Big Bang and no God of the Gaps
		God retreats in the face of scientific theory and knowledge, and gap after gap is filled by science.
		When the creed believes that God created heaven and earth, or the Zoroastrian narrative relates creation and resurrection, the fact is that we hear statements of pre-scientific peoples of a rich interactive human created cultures.
		For me, a God of the narrative relates to religious ritual by which we ask ourselves who we are and how we should relate to all that is around us.
	www.change.freeuk.com /learning/relthink/universe.html (1024 words)

	"God of the Gaps" in The AnswerBank: Science
		When "god created us from his image," in actuallity, he created "us" from "him." God is Evolution, He is everything that we know of in the cosmos.
		God does not discriminate, even against those who, by some intricate mix of factors, were led astray on the wrong path in life, and consequently committed some "crimes" or "harm" toward others that give him the lable of "criminal" or "sinner."
		Christ may have been god no more or less as every other person was, and is. Christ just had the charismatic forethought and aptitude to understand this idea and persuade others to follow.
	www.theanswerbank.co.uk /Science/Question164924.html (2735 words)

	God of the Gaps (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		He concluded that God was directly involved in running the physical universe and that's God's involvement accounted for the discrepancies.
		By using this argument, Newton was unknowingly treating God as if he was a member of the universe - perhaps the top story of universe, but a member none the less.
		The God that was getting pushed out was the God of Deism, which dependant totally on the book of nature for existence.
	members.aol.com /langdonp/god_of_the_gaps.htm (211 words)

	The Bible vs. God-of-the-gaps - We Christians often betray our materialsitic assumptions (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		God exists outside of time, and in that case, God caused the world at E. Causal chains are real (i.e., there is no requirement that material things play this causal role).
		Since God gave His Creation a number of different kinds of yardsticks to measure age, you'd think we are supposed to use them.
		God is the cause in the sense that he is the one who necessitates or determines what will happen in natural processes.
	debatingchristianity.com /forum/viewtopic.php?t=1311 (4130 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		Playing God, God of the Gaps and Passive Euthanasia Introduction Whether a “hopeless” patient has the “right to die” or removing life-prolonging medical equipment from that patient is unethical remains an unresolved controversy.
		God of the gaps Verhey compared DETPA to the notion of “God of the gaps” (GOTG): It is an old and unhappy story in Christian apologetics that locates God’s presence and power where human knowledge and strength have reached their (temporary) limit.
		This God who is pushed to the margin is a God of the gaps” Psychological dimension of GOTG Both examples cited by Verhey and Drees emphasized that people do not take God seriously.
	seamonkey.ed.asu.edu /~alex/education/hps/god_gaps.doc (5393 words)

	the evangelical outpost: Does God Live in the Gaps? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		The phrase, according to chemist Craig Rusbult, actually encompasses four different views based on distinctions between a “science gap” (a gap in our current scientific knowledge) and a “nature gap” (a break in the continuous cause-effect chain of natural process) that may or may not be bridged by miraculous-appearing theistic action.
		The most reasonable position is the view that “gaps are possible”, a broad spectrum that ranges from “gaps are exceedingly likely” to “gaps are statistically improbable.” Because this breadth allows for a significant amount of wiggle room, the view that gaps are possible isn’t very useless as a descriptive category.
		In this context the gap is between phenomena we observe and an explanation of that phenomena.
	www.evangelicaloutpost.com /archives/001845.html (20035 words)

	God of the Gaps?
		At the root of a very large fraction of the arguments concerning science and religion is the persistent belief in the "God of the Gaps".
		Similarly, believing in the God of the Gaps is believing in a God who actually isn't a very good creator.
		This refers to God's ability to run the Universe to accomplish His purposes, without having to violate the rules of the Universe, without having to show humans everything He is doing.
	www.charleswood.ca /reading/godofgap.php (914 words)

	NoodleFood: Last Gasp for the God of the Gaps
		This striking pattern is called the "God of the Gaps," where something supernatural is cited as the reason behind those things we do not understand--God lives in the gaps of our knowledge.
		Thus the validation of value judgments is to be achieved by reference to the facts of reality."[6] In rejecting the fact-value dichotomy, we should expect to see the God of the Gaps squeezed just as hard in the realm of morality as in the realm of science--and to similarly positive effects.
		In illuminating the essential connection between fact and value, Rand effectively closed off the last refuge of the God of the Gaps and cleared the way to a rational, scientific morality based in facts and causality--a morality that can be pure and powerful in serving peoples' lives as against the muddled morality of tradition.
	www.dianahsieh.com /blog/2006/03/last-gasp-for-god-of-gaps.html (2146 words)

	Obelus.org \| Intelligent Design: God of the gaps (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		A theory such as ID posits what is pejoratively known in philosophy as a 'God of the gaps': in short, it slots the concept of a God into any feature of existence which science or reasoning cannot explain (for the moment).
		Not only does this constitute enfeebled reasoning, but it is degrading to God himself, for it essentially distributes him across a number of precarious locations, right in the firing line of rational inquiry, primed to be easily refuted.
		Belief in God is essentially an article of faith: there is no 'leap of faith' or even 'test of faith' involved in trying to prove him rationally or empirically.
	www.obelus.org /index.php?artID=8 (1939 words)

	God, Humanity and the Cosmos Topic: God of the Gaps
		There was a long period in Western thought in which God seemed to be progressively edged out of descriptions of the development and functioning of the world - both as described by physics and by biology.
		The understanding that living things were made of the same components and obeyed the same laws as non-living things eliminated the need for God to be the breather of life into the living.
		“God behind” - the third obvious strategy is to posit that God acts ‘behind’ the system of causation, at another level not susceptible to physical description.
	www.counterbalance.net /ghc-div/godof-body.html (412 words)

	New Statesman - The God of the gaps
		The weakness of this strategy - sometimes caricatured as the "God of the gaps" - should be obvious.
		God could easily be invoked as the supreme purpose towards which all other, lesser purposes tend.
		It is the world that needs to be conformed to God, not God to the world.
	www.newstatesman.com /200303100042 (1664 words)

	Stand to Reason Blog: God of the Gaps
		A caller quite predictably accused the scientist of using "God of the gaps." He said something like, Because science hasn't answered everything yet, you choose to assign those unanswered questions to religion.
		The reason religion, philosophy, history, and morality are not filling the gaps with God is because different kinds of questions require different fields of inquiry.
		In fact, the caller was guilty of a "god of the gaps" kind of answer.
	str.typepad.com /weblog/2006/07/god_of_the_gaps.html (523 words)

	Mind the gaps. By Dahlia Lithwick
		Instead, it fills in the myriad "gaps" and "problems" in Darwin's theory of evolution with an unnamed, omnipotent "designer." (Hint: His name rhymes with "Todd.") For this exceedingly pluralistic and tolerant worldview, Dover School Board members have gotten themselves into a world of trouble with parents, the ACLU, and pundits across the land.
		My modest proposal would be that, instead of using intelligent design merely to fill in the gaps and inconsistencies of our most intractable scientific puzzles, we roll back what we've already learned about science and plug God into the equation at the outset.
		God didn't want Newton to study science, and he doesn't want us to, either.
	www.slate.com /id/2127054 (848 words)

	FAQ: Is ID a "god-of-the-gaps" argument?
		Furthermore, the "gap" in Darwinian evolution is not a gap in knowledge, but a fundamental theoretical gap that represents an aspect of biology which Darwin's theory is simply incapable of bridging.
		Thus intelligent design theory is not attempting to insert itself into some "gap" but rather it deserves a chance to be heard as a sufficient cause for the origin of complex and specified biological information.
		This is a gap that Darwin's theory is incapable of bridging.
	www.ideacenter.org /contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1159 (1343 words)

	Lugenbeal, E. N. --- A God of the Gaps?
		With the confidence befitting a juggernaut, Darwinian evolution has rolled on, content in its belief that the gaps in the fossil record were not real.
		This tends to minimize the significance of gaps in the record — the lynchpin of the creationist critique.
		But paleontologists still shrink from the possibility that the gaps in the fossil record can be the final word about the origin and history of life.
	www.grisda.org /origins/05049.htm (1798 words)

	the evangelical outpost: Comment on Does God Live in the Gaps? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		Which is what Rusbult himself doesn't want to look at: a "god of the gaps" is a god who exists as a construct to substitute for something that folks don't want to observe, because doing so would cause them discomfort.
		Therefore, any alleged gaps in our knowledge of the natural chain of cause and effect should be viewed as a challenge to scientists and naturalists to provide an explanation of the gap, and reasonable people can disagree as to whether the explanations are plausible or not.
		THAT is the material "gaps" argument: gaps in factual scope relative tot he world as we experience it, gaps in coherence, gaps in explanatory power.
	www.evangelicaloutpost.com /mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1845 (19209 words)

	Gaps for God? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		So believers are forced to try and make the best of the situation, by looking for gaps to crowbar their gods into, and by trying to put the sort of "spin" on such discoveries that will make the answer come out to their version of god.
		I'm reminded, first off, of something I read years ago in a book titled (IIRC) "The Power of the Witch." It was by some sort of leader of the Wiccan movement, and it was pretty interesting.
		Apparently, a "god of the gaps" will happily fit into any tiny, even imaginary gap available &endash; and especially into the gaps between the ears of certain believers...
	home.earthlink.net /~jehdjh/gosgaps.html (427 words)

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