We all heard it commonly said, or said frequently science the main producer of knowledge has replaced the role in explaining the world that faith previously held. And there are a whole host of discussions on this topic.
My contention is if anything it's a later development of what drove and continues to drive the abandonment of religious faith: the problem of evil coupled with the silence of God. Ignoring the silence of God...
The allegedly poor design of the universe was evidence of God's piss-poor design qualities, and such a blasphemous sentiment was the reason troubled followed these folks around.
The defenses of God's goodness though took the form of arguing that in fact the world was much better designed than we give it credit for, something Copernican astronomy and Newtonian physics readily attested too. Their depiction of God though, argued against His interfering with the natural order, which in turn especially shifted the blame from God to an inevitable consequence of the natural order, when those predisposed to question God's goodness were forced by science to readily accede.
What this did though was strengthen a deistic impulse, one which is felt by even the most fundamental of religious observers. Even those who still interpret spectacular natural evils (acts of God) are loathe to do such with common incidents.
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