At no point do I ever remember taking religion very seriously or even feeling that the biblical stories were any different from fairy stories. Certainly, none of it made any sense. By comparison, the world in which I lived, though I might not always understand it in all aspects, always made a lot of sense.
You've accepted a lot of things without evidence. Find out what the evidence is for that. Find out what the evidence is for everything that you accept.
You can be an idiot and survive because you just go to McDonalds for your food, and you go to work and do some sort of inane job, which is nobody taking any responsibility - it's always up the line - and then you watch the Super Bowl, and that's it. But in the old days, you really had to know how your world works. You don't need that anymore.
The laissez-faire attitude to science education has resulted in a disaster exemplified by the fact that more young people are opting for media studies than physics.
Scientific education is by far the best training for all walks of life because it teaches us how to assess situations critically and react accordingly. It gives us an understanding based on reverence for life-enhancing technologies as well as for life itself.
Scientific discoveries matter much more when they're communicated simply and well - if you can't explain your work to the man in the pub, what's the point?
Science is based solely on doubt-based, disinterested examination of the natural and physical world. It is entirely independent of personal belief. There is a very important, fundamental concomitant - that is to accept absolutely nothing whatsoever, for which there is no evidence, as having any fundamental validity.
Many think of the sciences as merely a fund of knowledge. Journalists never ask scientists anything other than what the applications are of scientific breakthroughs. Interestingly, I doubt they ever ask a musician, writer, or actor the same question. I wonder why.
It really does not matter whether one believes a mystical entity created the universe 5,000 or 10,000 million years ago - both are equally irrational, unsubstantiated claims of no fundamental validity.
Imagine if we had stopped science in 1904. Yes, there would have been no nerve gas and no Bhopal, but there would also have been no penicillin. All science is a trade-off.
Art and science are intrinsically the same except for one thing. The universe is in control of your science, whether it's right or wrong, and the public are in control of your art - if they're going to buy it, if you're going to make a living that way.
