There's no way that scientists can ever rule out religion, or even have anything significant to say about the abstract idea of a divine creator.

Many different planets are many different distances from their host star; we find ourselves at this distance because if we were closer or farther away, the temperature would be hotter or colder, eliminating liquid water, an essential ingredient for our survival.

A unified theory would put us at the doorstep of a vast universe of things that we could finally explore with precision.

Science is the process that takes us from confusion to understanding.

So: if you buy the notion that reality consists of the things in your freeze-frame mental image right now, and if you agree that your now is no more valid than the now of someone located far away in space who can move freely, then reality encompasses all of the events in spacetime.

How can a speck of a universe be physically identical to the great expanse we view in the heavens above?

We are living through a remarkably privileged era when certain deep truths about the cosmos are still within reach of the human spirit of exploration.