The past few hundred years has witnessed a sea-change in the way we think about the world. Science, not theology is accepted as the final arbiter on everything from the power of prayer to the age of the earth. This would have been unthinkable to the vast majority of folks even 300 years ago. True, the YEC camp has to fall back on an alternative science to justify their positions - but the point is, they don't just say "it was a miracle" and leave it at that - no, they go to amazing lengths to argue that THEY have the 'true science" and the more accurate view of the world. In other words, they grant the primacy of science when it comes to the natural world.
Most religions record interactions between gods and people. Gods are revealed to change history, perform miracles and dwell in the heavens (or some such place) - which were viewed not as extra-dimensional or outside of space and time, but as PART of the natural order - albeit generally inaccessible. All the same, Orpheus went into Hades, and John had visions of heaven - which are portrayed as actual, physical places.
The point is, we are transitioning from a worldview in which God built the universe, populated it, and physically inhabits it, to a vague notion of God as Spirit, but no longer actually living in the same physical universe with us. Yes, we discuss God as being present in Spirit with us - but the notion that God, who is part of the Universe, extends that presence via his Spirit is quite different than the notion that God is somehow outside space and time, with no natural properties at all, yet somehow interacts with us via spirit, which itself has no natural properties at all - but still has the power to impact us in undetectable (that is, purely subjective) ways via an unknowable mechanism.
Do we need to update our theology (in the classic sense of knowledge about God) to take into account what we now know about the universe?
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Capable of better in what sense? Conservative Christians are being fed falsehoods in the name of piety. It is shameful, and the people resonsible are at best misguided. That my reputation is damaged for speaking the truth is a wake up call in itself.
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