  It is a quite common view among people, that are not aware of the
developments in modern physics, that it is part of human nature to substitute
religious faith in places where there is no knowledge. Therefore, an increase
in knowledge would lead to a decrease in the necessity of faith. Further, it is
argued that, ideally speaking, a full knowledge of the laws of nature would
make obsolete any sort of religious faith and would ultimately allow a complete
control of nature by man. Since referring to nature, such views must be founded
in the natural sciences of which physics is the most fundamental. Therefore,
the question whether such views are compatible with the current state of
natural sciences is ultimately decided in physics. Indeed, it is likely that
these simplistic views have their origin in the world view generated by the
successes of Newtonian physics from the middle of the 17th century until the
beginning of the 20th century which viewed the physical world as a type of
mechanical clock in which the motion of the gears affect each other in a
precise and predictable way. In particular, the paper points out that the above
views are no longer supported by current physics and that abstracted world
views cannot be considered as part of natural sciences, but only as belief
systems.
