play God
Verb
Meaning
play God (third-person singular simple present plays God, present participle playing God, simple past and past participle played God)
(intransitive, usually derogatory) To act in ways commonly associated with or reserved for God, especially by scientific means, such as exercising omnipotence or excessive control over life and nature.
With all due respect, professor, do you really think that playing God and researching human immortality is a wise idea?
Examples
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.
A person who believes, as she did, that things fit: that there is a whole of which one is a part, and that in being a part one is whole: such a person has no desire whatever, at any time, to play God. Only those who have denied their being yearn to play at it.
Bren MacGuff: Well, honey, doctors are sadists who like to play God and watch lesser people scream...
The conscience of a conservative is pricked by anyone who would debase the dignity of the individual human being. Today, therefore, he is at odds with dictators who rule by terror, and equally with those gentler activists who ask our permission to play God with the human race.
Architects shouldn't play God.
It is very lonely sometimes, trying to play God.