In a poll taken in 1998, only 7 percent of the members of the US National Academy of Sciences, the elite of American scientists, said they believed in a personal god.

In fact, current cosmological observations indicate that the average density of matter and energy in the universe is equal, within measurement errors, to the critical density for which the total energy of the universe was exactly zero at the beginning.

Scientists have practical reasons for wishing that religion and science be kept separate. They can see nothing but trouble ... if they venture into the deeply divisive issue of religion - especially when their results tend to support a highly unpopular, atheistic conclusion.

The problem is that people think faith is something to be admired. In fact, faith means you believe in something for which you have no evidence.

In a poll taken in 1998, only 7 percent of the members of the US National Academy of Sciences, the elite of American scientists, said they believed in a personal god.

To most theistic believers, human life can have no meaning in a universe without God. Quite sincerely, and with understandable yearning for a meaning to their existence, they reject the possibility of no God. In their minds, only a purposeful universe based on God is possible and science can do nothing else but support thistruth.

Alternative explanations are always welcome in science, if they are better and explain more. Alternative explanations that explain nothing are not welcome... Note how science changed those beliefs when new data became available. Religions stick to the same ancient beliefs regardless of the data.