Has Science done away with a need for God?

[Kingpin]

I don't think you have that quite right.  It is not just that "science explains more about how the universe works and is better for making predictions about it than God is," it is that science actually provides some explanations and predictions, whereas God explains nothing.

Saying "God did it" is not an explanation; it is a pseudo explanation, a fake explanation, because it explains nothing at all.  It is merely pretending to have an explanation.  Take the rainbow, for example.  Saying "God did it" does not explain it at all.  One does not know anything more about a rainbow after hearing that than one knew before hearing it.  Saying it is caused by the reflection and refraction of light on water droplets is giving an explanation for a rainbow.  (For those wanting more details of that explanation, start here.)

This, by the way, is one of the ways that religion impedes knowledge, as it gives people a feeling of having an explanation when they don't have one, and if you already have an explanation, you don't need to look for an explanation.

We find this presently in the question of the origins of the universe (if it has an origin).  People pretend that saying "God did it" gives an explanation, when it is no explanation at all.

So the theists who say that God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe are wrong.  Not because it isn't "best," but because it explains nothing whatsoever.  Just like the rainbow.

And this is what grates on me when these arguments are put forward -- not merely that nothing is explained by invoking God but that the use of that argument leads to one of two outcomes: either the fake explanation obviates the need for further thought or investigation, or it serves as a springboard from which the believer is free to indulge in any manner of pseudo-philosophical speculation (leading unsurprisingly into their shoehorning their favorite ancient literary character into the role they've dreamed up in their ramblings).  Either way, there is a pretense of knowledge that is wholly unearned and unjustified dressed up in the borrowed rags of the likes of William Lane Craig.

I understand where you are coming from, and I too don't like to make the "leap" to God though on here it seems most seem to think I imply that in my responses.  I do not KNOW for certainty but I can make certain probable deductions from the evidence.  We are miles from the God of the Bible in this question (or any specific God for that matter) but what I am trying to show is that on this evidence I personally feel it leads to a mind behind it all (Deism if you will) and I am not alone in that thinking.  I could "argue from authority" here but we all know some of the greatest minds in science and even modern science admit the universe certainly appears designed, to me that leads to a mind behind it.  I look at DNA, an enormous database of information with everything in the "correct" order to function and it screams intelligence not mindless unguided processes.

If I present to you a dictionary, with all of its pages containing all of the words we know, with all their definitions and in correct alphabetical order and bound in leather and enscribed on the front "Dictionary" and I tell you that this came about because of an explosion in a printing press, you would think it nonsense.  There are far simpler things that we KNOW are created by an intelligence but we can look at the vast complexity of the universe and even more so humans and say time + chance?  I don't think I'm the one being delusional to assume there must be a mind behind it.