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Want to know something interesting about Christianity? Read "Why the Jews rejected Jesus" by David Klinghoffer. This is not the only book to read; I mention it to illustrate the point you cannot truly understand the reality behind people's religious beliefs without examining opposing viewpoints.

The fact of the matter is, faith is personal. I am not the same type of atheist as Richard Dawkins, for example. As a trained scientist I prefer to answer questions by understanding what Nature tells us. My problem is not with religion at all (one can make a successful argument religious belief is evolutionarily plausible), but with a religious person crossing known boundaries by trying to explain natural occurrences with supernatural explanations.

Science does not answer "Why?" questions, i.e. questions of morality. This is why I reject most religions, because those religions require an absolute morality where there is no evidence for it and plenty of valid arguments for a flexible morality. BTW, I do NOT consider any of those arguments a license to kill, steal, or anything else that might hurt someone. Morality is very difficult to pin down. One does not need to be religious to have a good, healthy moral compass.

I am not anti-religion, I just don't want them stepping on provable reality. Evolution is a fact of life, depending on many separate disciplines to build the theory, and it answers many questions religious belief cannot.

On the other hand, science can only deal with nature, and may not be able to answer all questions. For example, in my opinion the human mind is an emergent property of having a big brain. As of today, science cannot tell us why the mind exists. However, recent experiments suggest that, like many things, there is not "mind or no mind" but a continuum. Chimps and elephants can self-recognize and self-contemplate, although not to the extent humans can. Dogs can self-recognize to a very limited extent, and can't self-contemplate at all. People have argued the mind is what separates us from the animals, but the more research is done the more we fill in the continuum from no thinking at all to the most advanced thinking machine in nature. If the mind is the soul, what does that mean? If it is, where do we draw the line between having a soul and not having one?

The key to getting along: have an open mind. Remember, even conservative Christians know this: "Judge not, lest ye be judged."

I'll leave it at that. There's a lot more to this philosophical bit, but I'm running out of room. Happy thinking!