I think it's important for people to consider themselves in historical perspective, and I've been thinking recently that this is harder and harder to do. I just finished reading Angels and Demons, and despite the many liberties it takes with both science and history, it brings up some solid points about how the past two hundred years have drastically tipped the scales in favor of science. Because of the scientific advances of a short amount of time, conventional wisdom has long since proved inadequate; this is one of the reasons for the modern movement. Can you imagine living in a world that didn't understand the causes of lightning, that couldn't explain why children inherited certain traits of their parents, that understood so little of the human body that certain types of death were attributed to madness? How much differently would we regard ourselves (and a religion that asserted our utter centrality in the grand scheme) if we believed that Earth was the center of the universe?
It is more and more difficult to believe that God is the reason for lightning, and since I now believe that my body operates according to the laws of science and it would be illogical for it to suddenly stop, it is harder to believe that God sustains me and that he does so for a purpose.