" Initially, all idols seem to deliver exactly this escape from mere goodness into transcendent greatness. Consider the weather. In our scientific age, amidst the technological achievements of modernity, we have lost much of our reverence for and sense of helpless dependence on the weather. But imagine the sense of mastery and awe that must have overwhelmed the first people who pounded out an exuberant and desperate dance, in hopes of cajoling the sky god into bringing rain, when they were rewarded by an unexpected cloudburst an hour or a day later. Or the sense of awed gratitude and newfound power when a libation poured out on the ground seemed to deliver an abundant harvest. There must have been some such moments—how else would the rituals have become credible? "

― Andy Crouch , Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power