Only 400 or so years ago, the Salem Witch Trials took place. So at the time the books of the bible were put together, mankind was not exactly scientifically advanced.
If I meet God in the afterlife and he asks “why didn’t you believe?”, I’ll answer - “Well, sir, your marketing campaign could above been a little better.”
We haven’t had a visitation in 2,000 years. Once a century would do it for me. So, how can I put my faith in a god that no one living has seen, hasn’t been seen on earth in 2,000 years, whose visitation is historically questionable and who this very night will ignore the prayers of abused, starving and helpless children? Because the bible says so?
It’s not enough for me.
The truth is rather more complicated than your feeble little mind can hold.
As a "Cliff's Notes" TO the "Cliff's Notes" -- suffice it to say that the development of philosophy and the development of science and the development of theology were all intertwined.
The historical myth of the "god of the gaps" arose because people in ancient times did not make distinctions in categories that to us seem obvious (historical Monday morning quarterbacking); and once the distinctions were made, it was a further step to separate the "why" (grounds/consequent) from the "why" (cause/effect).
It wasn't a matter of the common atheist mythology that "people used to believe in gods to assuage their fears of a scary world, but then science appeared, and we, the heralds of light, the brights, willing to accept the persecution of our inferiors much as Prometheus, nobly accept our calling to reveal the TRVTHTM". That's an autofellatory wet dream.
What really happened is that as people thought about things, they made practical applications to make their lives easier. Science was rooted in empirical technology (think the horse collar or easier navigation on the ocean, not "ennobling sense of learning for its own sake").
As the technology improved, people tried to create crude models to allow them to improve more rapidly: and much of early science was just as much a popularity contest or mass propaganda eerily similar to The Federalist Papers.
It was only after awhile that the idea of systematizing and comparing observations came about; and then the very TERMS used (mass, momentum, energy, temperature, volume, etc.) had to be painstakingly derived; not without many false starts.
Along the way, the geocentric system accounted very well for the motions of the inner planets: it was only after the invention of the telescope that moons were seen, that Kepler's Law was developed. Do yourself a favor and try deriving the mathematics behind epicycles *without* using Mathematica -- and then realize you have Google, and math textbooks, and calculators to help. The medievals didn't even have calculus or slide rules to help.
Mixed in with this was the dual change from scholasticism (reliance on trusted authority, seen in the Renaissance in the reliance on the Greeks and Romans, and today in places like Salon which consciously refer back to the degeneracy of skeptical France, and seen even today within Medicine much more than in physics) to empiricism, AND the change in asking "what is the teleological / moral 'purpose' of this or that event" to "what can we measure about it, and once we've measured it, can we predict or control it, first for the *hey, COOL!* factor, then for intellectual pride, then convenience, and finally, wads of cash"...
In the wake of this, the philosophical implications followed, and here as well the terms in use today had to be invented. And so, since the philosophy followed the observations, the idea came about that the concept of God was only a weak younger sister to the new, strong, bold, fresh ideas of science. But that isn't true, nor was it ever true. The real change came in the nature of the questions asked, and in the philosophical underpinnings changing from "why does this matter" to "can we predict what will happen next?"
Try reading Galileo's Daughter for more on this.
Remember that the most dogmatic resistance to science came from anti-religious, or even atheistic philosphies, and that in the 20th Century: from Adolf Hitler's dismissal of quantum mechanics as "Jewish science" to Stalin's embrace of Lysenkoism.
Then you have the further problem of uneven propagation of scientific knowledge coupled with the unintended consequence of specialization, that is, total abysmal ignorance outside of one's own chosen field. I have read on sites other than FR that most of the "new atheist" arguments have been hashed over and rejected by the professional philosophers and theologians ages ago; but the imprimatur of a scientific popularizer such as Hawking is enough to invest them with borrowed prestige.
And if you rely on Hawking you have descended to "argument from authority" which is just the same as arguing "because the Bible / Christians / God said so" -- except that the Bible already IS about morality, whereas Hawking is talking out of his ass on a topic unrelated to his studies.
And finally, the politicization of science -- it started with Lysenkoism, but the temptation is ever present, from Eugenics to Anthropogenic Global Warming. Recall the words of physicist C.P. Snow in his novel The Search:
“The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time. If we do not penalize false statements made in error, we open up the way, don’t you see, for false statements by intention. And of course a false statement of fact, made deliberately, is the most serious crime a scientist can commit.”
Cheers!
sorry, the utterances of excuses will not even be permitted, the gavel will sound and judgment will be pronounced, GUILTY, “I never knew you.” God placed the knowledge of Himself within man — therefore, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.” If you don’t know Him, when you leave your body you will only cower in fear before the Almighty — you will be absolutely speechless when you stand before the Most High God. Within yourself, you will be pleading for mercy, but it will be too late.