Why I respectively in large part disagree with your conclusions is that unlike for most of human history, in the modern age, there has evolved a bad habit among many of drawing an unwarranted distinction between what most people view as “science and reason” and belief in God, which is not at all the same as belief in religion. Many prominent people of history who did not ascribe to a religion believed in God, including Socrates, Einstein, Jefferson and Thomas Paine, among a long list of others. Belief in God tends to be defined as “faith based” or a conclusion based on “faith”, whereas science and reason claims to base what it believes on evidence, although I find the views of many modern scientists, such as Richard Dawkins, directly contradictory this—Dawkins often states many ‘conclusions’ that have no basis in evidence, such as “the universe represents nothing but blind pitiless indifference”. This statement is obviously false, directly contradicted by the life of human beings like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks, to name just a few, as well as directly contradicted by the behavior of small children on a school playground, where actions adults consider to be both “bad” and “good” can clearly be distinguished—it also contradicts modern animal research, which indicates animals are far more complex than once thought; animals are known to take in other species far removed who are blind, lame or otherwise defenseless for no apparent reason other than caring for and protecting them and some if not all animals may well have a morality of sorts of their own; elephants mourning for their dead, birds sacrificing themselves while covering their chicks as they burn in a forest fire, to name only two of countless examples.

As a lifetime student of history and curious student of science as a minor, I find the insistence of divorcing science from belief in God essentially inaccurate regarding the known history of human civilization. Throughout much of history and in particular among the Greeks and the authors of the New Testament, science and belief in God are not divorced from each other, both viewed as being based on evidence. Many modern scientists, in particular Francis Collins, also base their belief in God on evidence and in fact, some argue the evidence for God is overwhelming, far greater than evidence for evolution, invisible light, dark energy and many other unseen and sometimes even non-demonstrate-able “beliefs” of modern science. Darwin himself stated the “Creator” is behind whatever we can physically observe (implying regardless of how right or wrong his theory may be), as did Newton and Einstein also believed in God based on evidence. Jefferson, Madison, Adams and the deists Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine believed in God, as did the vast majority of European “thinkers”. Deism itself, similar to the Greeks and New Testament, places God above everything else and science, religion, theories of government and other human inquiry underneath; the idea being, regardless of how right or wrong human beliefs and conclusions may be, God and what is actually true remain the same (similar to the Greek concept of “logos” below). Darwin seems to have also agreed with this view (unlike Dawkins erroneously claims). While most scientists prior to the 20th Century only believed in one Milky Way galaxy, this did not exclude the other trillions of then unknown galaxies as being non-existent.

The New Testament Paul specifically states that we can believe in the unseen Creator based on the visible creation, which clearly represents a scientific evidence-based view rather than a faith-based view (i.e., modern science believes in invisible light and dark energy based on the visible evidence), the same view espoused by the late Antony Flew, Francis Collins and many others in the modern age. The unknown author of Hebrews specifically states, “faith is the evidence of things not seen. . .” This view seems to be shared by Socrates, Plato and other Greeks, where similar to several biblical authors, “Logos”, what is ultimately true, is placed at the top above everything else and, all scientific, religious, philosophical and other human inquiry is placed underneath. This is clearly the view of the New Testament John, who writes “In the beginning was Logos and Logos was with God and Logos was God”, in this case referring to Jesus. Jesus, who strongly believed in God, specifically links knowing what is true with freedom, implying if we don’t know what is true, then we will never be free, which is clearly demonstrated to be correct today in light of the incompetent boobs we have in government leading us.

In true reality, there is no separation or difference between what science calls the “natural” world and what people for centuries including many prominent European and later early American “thinkers” referred to as “creation”, nor is there any separation from belief in God and belief that the sun is larger and warmer than the moon. Socrates along with Samuel Clemens might remark that God is the more likely of the two conclusions. It is easy to challenge the fallacy of religions, in particular Christianity, as there is no historical or any other evidence that Jesus is the founder of Christianity or any other religion. On the other hand, it is a definite stretch of invention to equate God with religion, blame God for religion or to eliminate God because of religion, as if what human beings choose to do or believe or not believe has any relevance to what is actually true.

Unlike James Madison and the First Amendment, which seeks to divorce “church” from state, modern Americans are very wrongly taught to merge God with “religion” and divorce God from state, rather than correctly taught to divorce God from religion, as Jefferson and Thomas Paine did, which is why in my opinion, we continue to have incompetent boobs elected to federal office. Divorcing God from religion, common in the age of the Greeks, the New Testament and later in the age of Deism, is rarely if ever discussed in any American classroom or media, which only indicates to me that Americans remain among the most poorly educated humans in history. Like Paul wrote in the First Century, no human being understands everything about God and what is true about the universal reality; for now we see “in part”. This is a humble, true and correct view, based on the known evidence then and the known evidence today, a view largely ignored by atheists and much of modern science and education.

There is no evidence for magically appearing universes or magically appearing anything else; there is no evidence for motion arising from non-motion, energy arising from no energy, light arising from no light, intelligence arising from no intelligence, design or parts-within-parts arising from no design. In fact, some scientists conclude today that the universe is not only mathematically designed, but that it appears to be designed according to Pi, something only an eternal Creator would be capable of doing. As such, modern atheism remains a faith-based religion without foundation in evidence, devoid of reason, rhyme or hope. Jesus said, “before Abraham was, I AM”. If God is eternal, this rationally explains the modern observable reality. If there is no God or, if God is not eternal, then there is no rational explanation for anything; there is no science, there is no hope, there is no reason and, there is no rhyme. Science historically has long been the best explanation until proven otherwise and thus, Eternal Creator remains “science” until proven otherwise, just as noted above, the existence of only one static Milky Way galaxy and in the time of the Greeks the postulated smallest part of the universe being the atom remained “science” until proven otherwise. Science and other human knowledge have only ever been and remain today, the best explanation unless and until proven otherwise.