Given how much science has had to say about nearly everything else in our lives and how successful science has been in transforming nearly every aspect of them, it is at the very least initially implausible that science can and should be excluded from debates about the existence of gods. Then there is the fact that theists themselves frequently trot out arguments that rely upon scientific data — or at least misrepresentations of scientific data — in order to bolster their positions. Finally, we must face the fact that any alleged god that matters will have some sort of impact on our lives, our planet, and our universe.Only a completely irrelevant god could leave no trace or imprint whatsoever, so if there is a god and it does matter, then it should be detectable even by a science that is completely limited to observations about the natural, material world. Indeed, most believers — and especially adherents of the three prominent monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam — posit precisely such a god that is active, detectable, and relevant to our material universe.
