The Pope - The Nazis - The Atheists

The Pope flew into England this past week and dusted up a storm of controversy.  Upon landing, His Holiness spoke to a gathered crowd and proceeded to blame atheists and secularists for Nazis and the other atrocities of the 20th century.  

Even in our own lifetime, we can recall how Britain and her leaders stood against a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society and denied our common humanity to many, especially the Jews, who were thought unfit to live,

We have seen this before- anti-evolutionists love to link Darwin's Natural Selection with Hitler's Holocaust.  While I disagree with the atheistic position on God, we don't have to blame them for all of the evil in the world, especially when ample evidence exists of Hitler's use of religious language to encourage the deaths of millions of people.


PZ Meyers provided a list of books banned by the Third Reich.  Included in the list: books about evolution and naturalism and books that criticized religion.  Over and over, Hitler emphasized his version of Christianity to justify anti-Semitism- never did he use atheism as an excuse for his atrocities.


Perhaps the most stinging retort of the Pope comes from Richard Dawkins, the famous British Atheist and Scientist.  His speech criticizes the Popes statement on the historical front and the PR front.  He challenges that the Pope chose to attack secularists to divert attention from the sex abuse scandals and other Church problems.


Here is Dawkins at Protest the Pope (below the fold):





Even with all of this evidence against the Pope's absurd position, how can you blame a modern group of people for the past or blame an entire population for the actions of an extremist minority.  We should not blame all Christians for the actions of some Germans, just like we should blame all Muslims for the actions of Al Queda.

Thought This One Was Settled

A group of people will be gathering for a conference on geocentrism.  Their presentation is called Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right.  They lack any backing from the Catholic Church, but boast their ties.  They also have no relationship to Notre Dame, but this will take place nearby.  

Talks will include:

1. Geocentrism: They Know It but They're Hiding It
2. The Biblical Firmament: Outer Space is Not Empty
3. Carbon 14 and Radiometric Dating Show Young Earth
4. and more

You just have to say, "Wow".  With just the titles, you wonder how much they will get wrong on that day.

Armstrong writes about 9/11 and Compassion

Karen Armstrong, a former nun now religious historian/writer, has proposed a radical idea.  She says that we should all attempt to live by the Golden Rule.  That ideal was sealed in the Charter for Compassion to promote treating others as we wish to be treated.


On the anniversary of 9/11, Armstrong wrote an interesting article on 9/11 and compassion.  We have seen a resurgence of animosity towards all Muslims (and others) in the last few years.  However, the greatest weapons we have against terrorism and fundamentalism are love, peace and compassion.  She ends her article with a great line:

It is time to combat the ignorance that inspires hatred and fear. We have seen the harm religious chauvinism can do; now let us bear witness to the power of compassion.

Building an Empathic Civilization

Jeremy Rifkin explores the implications of empathy in our society as an artist animates his talk.  He discusses (very quickly) evolutionary psychology, mirror neurons, and Y-Chromosome Adam in this talk.  If we can feel what others are feeling, then we should remember such emotions when dealing with others.  Let's build an empathetic society- basing our behavior on the Golden Rule.

Being Good Stewards

From the Huffington Post, Kristin Swenson continues a debate over mankind's dominion of animals from TIME magazine.  In the article, she parses the word "dominion", which means to rule over.  While God gave us dominion over the "beasts of the field", that does not mean we are to abuse our power.  


As God places us in charge of His Creation, we must take the responsibility seriously.  Human beings have caused great damage to planet Earth.  Habitat Loss and Fragmentation may cause abrupt changes to the ecosystem, pollution affects all organisms for generations.  Insecticides like DDT lead to endangering the Bald Eagles.  Chemical Runoffs into rivers and lakes creates algal blooms and choke life out of the water. Worse yet, fossil fuels and more generate the problem of Global Climate change.  We, as a species, have begun another mass extinction of species.  This mass extinction is quite different from previous ones, as this is caused directly or indirectly by human activity.  


We must take care of this planet we have been given.  While we may continue to find Earth-like planets, we cannot reach them anytime soon.  So we only have this one shot for ourselves and our children.  We must all take the responsibility that God have given us a be as good stewards caring for our home.

Darwin and Baptists

Karl Giberson has written another article on the Huffington Post Religion page called How Darwin Sustains My Baptist Search for the Truth.  In it, he opens with a plea for truth.  Too often, the opponents of evolution descend to misinformation and misunderstanding to score debate points.  In this case, Giberson takes aim at Al Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.


In a lecture, Mohler sought to explain how so many Christians believe the world is only a few thousand years old.  During the discussion, he takes aim at Charles Darwin by making up facts to fit his story.  As Giberson notes:

He apparently wanted to undermine evolution by suggesting that it was "invented" to prop up Darwin's worldview, rather than developed to explain observations in the natural world. 

Mohler and other anti-evolutionists have claimed that Darwin embarked on the Voyage of the Beagle to prove evolution, instead of developing the theory upon his return.  Unfortunately for Mohler, Darwin's records clearly indicate the development of natural selection long after coming home to the Down House.

Darwin's personal journey continued after the Beagle and has been studied by many historians and scientists.

Darwin's religious journey has been the subject of intense scrutiny and even entire books. He struggled throughout his life with issues of faith. He did eventually lose his childhood Anglican faith, but he lost it reluctantly and not until middle age, long after his famous voyage on the Beagle. Toward the end of his life he wrote to an old friend about the painful experience of losing his faith: "I was very unwilling to give up my belief."

In every discussion I have had with Creationists/Fundamentalists, I spend the majority of my time correcting their falsehoods, misunderstandings, and, sometimes, outright lies.  It is never a discussion about Evolutionary Theory, but about their confusion on the subject.  If we are to have serious discussions about the reconciliation of science and religion, we must first agree to an honest debate based on facts.

It's the End of the World and He Knows It

Ah, I love when some people attempt to predict the end of the world.  The foolishness of these predictions completely amazes me.  Last year, a website said that the world was going to end in April.  Two days after the predicted apocalypse, they updated the site to say that they had done the math wrong and the world would end in September.  It didn't, and I have seen it again.


Now some guy says that May 21st, 2011 will be Judgement Day.  That's right!  You only have 9 months and 19 days to prepare (They have a countdown).  Five months later, God will destroy the world (October 21, 2011).  Apparently, this guy made a similar prediction in 1994.  But at least he's trying.


This kind of thing can be dangerous.  Sometimes, cult leaders predict the end of the world (or the arrival of the aliens) and lead their followers to a mass suicide.  Less dangerously, this guy probably just wants recognition (I guess ridicule works too) and money (won't be giving him that though).


Maybe I will check back on May 22nd, 2011 to see what happened.  Nah, I probably won't.

My Favorite Painting

Michelangelo's depiction of the Creation of Adam upon the Sistine Chapel has always been my favorite painting.  I like for many many reasons.  

1. I selfishly enjoy the painting because of the name. 
2. On a deeper level, this image captures the moment when we became human.  At this moment, God provided the spark to turn a naked, bipedal ape into a soulful, thoughtful human being.  In our past, a moment came that separated us from our animal ancestors.  When did that moment arrive?  Fifty thousand years ago we began drawing cave art with the great leap forward.  Sometime earlier, hominids buried their dead and possibly preparing them for an afterlife.  When did humanity become conscious of the universe, or God?  I find all of these questions in this masterpiece.
3. Both Adam and God are represented in fine, pale Italian form.  The first humans, "Adam",  "Eve", and the other apes lived in equatorial Africa and lived with very dark skin.  Only after a small group made their way into Europe between 50-60,000 years ago did pale, white skin develop.  Renesssaince artists all drew Biblical characters including Jesus as Europeans, even though they would have shown a mix of Jewish and Arab traits.  
4. Notice the "red thing" around God which shares a resemblance to the human uterus and the green robe which looks like an umbilical cord.  Recently, neuroscientists recognized many anatomical features of the brain within the image of God.  
5. This image appears throughout pop culture.  Most vividly, ET touching the finger of the boy.  You can find more instances at the Wikipedia page. 

Enjoy the links and the wonderful painting.

Image from Wikipedia.

Lessons of Colombine

Last Sunday, I saw a video which brought back the Colombine shootings to my mind.  On a sunny day in April, 1999, two boys walked into Colombine High School and began shooting their classmates as they roamed the halls.  This is the most well-known of all school shootings.


The short clip praised Cassie Bernall for standing up when one of the two shooters asked the crowd if anyone believed in God.  She said yes and she was then shot and killed.  The example is used over and over again to promote her as a hero and a proud Christian.  Some even attempt to USE her death as proof that Christians are persecuted in the United States.  The notion of Christian persecution is laughable in the US as we are in control of every branch of every level of government.  Sadly, such comments take away from places in the world where Christians truly are persecuted for their beliefs.

But let's look at the story of Cassie Bernall specifically.  In this story, she is a brave little girl who should be praised for her faith and courage.  However, the shooters (will not give them the honor of mentioning their names) not only targeted Christians, but jocks and popular kids.  Why?  Well, they told us.  Those were the kids that made fun of the them, bullied them.  Bullying has always been a serious problem in schools, and the Colombine story is an example of two kids taking out the ultimate revenge on others.  Some kids, who called themselves Christians, had harassed these kids enough that their delude minds decided to take revenge.  In this light, I don't think the Columbine story benefits our message.  


From such a tragedy, we should learn that bullying must stop.  No one deserves to be bullied.  NO ONE!  You never know how the kid might react- whether violently towards others or turn that violence on themselves.  Even "mild" instances of bullying can trigger major changes in the personalities and emotions of the victim and result in a suicide or a shooting.


Interestingly, as I did some research for this article, I learned something.  Conflicting stories suggest that the whole encounter between the girl and the shooters never took place.  She may have been shot and killed under a table.  No matter the circumstances, she died in a tragedy that took many other classmates.

Morality, Evolution, and God

Dr. Michael Ruse wrote an interesting article on the Huffington Post about Darwinism and Morality.  It is not a great article, but addresses some interesting ideas, mainly the presence of a natural morality.  Some scientists and philosophers have argued for a naturalistic/materialistic explanation for civilized society.   On the other hand, some regard religion with sole possession of behavior.  As we find in the conflict of science and religion, the truth tends to combine both positions.  Religion provides the cultural guidelines for us to follow, while science explores the anatomical basis for society.

I often hear from some Christians that without God there is no morality.  The meaning changes according to context, but mostly means that without a knowledge or recognition of God we lack morality.  I have always found such arguments absurd.  I know many atheists who are high-caliber people, act honorably, and make great citizens.  On the other hand, I know many Christians who are hate-filled, nasty people.  Most of us fall somewhere in between.  The point remains, people can be good without God.  We should approach the conversation as Jesus provided a template to live our lives and commands us to love one another.  We shouldn't just assume that all non-Christians are hedonistic barbarians.


Some too readily associate science with atheism and connect evolution with morality.  Some creationist groups suggest that before evolution was taught in school all children behaved and everything was perfect (the good ole days).  They blame all of society's ills on either the teaching of evolution or the end of school-mandated prayers.  A lot has happened since evolution took center-stage in biology classrooms.  The changes to our schools have more to do with cultural shifts than subject matter.  


For another complaint, creationists claim that evolution could not explain why people are good.  Their understanding of evolution limits the topic to survival of the fittest, kill or be killed, winner take all.  We those description only work with a larger understanding of the game being played.  The game of life is played to survive and reproduce.  Sometimes, cooperation benefits a group more than competition.  Cooperative groups share scarce resources and can flourish while in other situations a competitive attitude would hurt all individuals.  Human evolution and culture shows that a cooperative strategy best suits our species and our societies.  Just as some species work together, we can help each other through the hard times.


Dr. Ruse discusses a moral organ in his article and moves on, but I shall continue it.  When comparing the brains of humans and other primates, one major aspect stands out.  Ours is bigger.  But ours is also bigger in certain places- especially the Frontal Lobe.  The frontal lobe holds our movement, personality and judgements.  In primate species, as the frontal lobe increases, so does the troop size.  An expanded brain allows the organism to better remember others in your group- specifically how other organisms have acted towards you.  If you know people will remember you, you tend to behave.  Anonymity leads to immoral behaviors- thinking you won't get caught.  Psychopaths have no concern for others in society and feature distinctive signs in their frontal lobes.  So maybe the human brain is the moral organ of humanity.


Most cultures/religions feature some version of The Golden Rule.  As Christians, Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors, even our enemies.  As social animals, cooperation among individuals decreases the competition for scarce resources and promotes altruism.  In this case, both science and religion favor a cooperative approach to human society.

Creationists in the Classrooms

The Creation/Evolution Controversy does not just exist on our continent.  Recently, England has seen a rise in creationism.  But it hasn't gotten as far as it has in Australia.  Queensland suffers from Fundamentalists getting into the Primary (Elementary) Schools.


They have taught the students:

1. Noah collected dinosaur eggs and put them on the ark.
2. Adam and Eve were protected by a spell from the dinosaurs.
3. The Great Flood skewed the data of carbon dating (explaining why dinosaurs only appear to be much older than people).
4. DNA wasn't invented in the time of Adam and Eve (explaining why there was no inbreeding in the beginning).

Thankfully, these were not science classes, but Religious Instruction.  The school system says that students can opt out of the classes.
Things like this highlight my opposition to Creationism.  They seem to think that they can just make stuff up to answer questions, whereas science requires observation, experimentation and data.

How Would I Handle This Situation

In what will surely be a losing cause, a Louisiana School Board prepares to allow the teaching of creationism in their science classes.  Any opponents to this potential decision will easily win in court.  Time and time again, judges have ruled Creationism/Creation Science/Intelligent Design to lack scientific credibility and an attempt to establish religion into schools.  


Not only do they lack understanding in science/evolution, they do not seem to understand the legal history of teaching creationism.  Board President said in the interview, "Maybe it’s time that we look at this."  It has been looked at.  Over and over again.



I have tried to think about how I would handle my job if the school board decided to demand that I teach creationism.  Since the newest attack of the anti-science crowd is to claim a position of promoting "critical thinking", I believe that would be the best approach.  I would gladly take up the offer to critically analyze evolution and creationism.  In fact, most good teachers already critically show evolution to their students.  I discuss all kinds of experiments, discoveries, and debates within evolutionary biology.  I could do the same thing with creationism, but the unit would be much, much shorter.  I could show my students how no empirical evidence supports creationism.  I could show how almost every claimed fallacy in evolution stems from common misconceptions with what the science really is.  Because no experiment has supported the creationist hypothesis, I can move on to the experiments of evolution- my favorite involves breeding foxes for tameness and the appearance of domestic traits we find in dogs.


So, I believe that I could easily handle a mandate to teach creationism in my science classroom.  But  somehow, I don't think that is what the Livingston Parish School Board had in mind.

Reflections on Fear and Love

According to Master Yoda, “Fear is the path to the Dark Side.”  Yoda continues to digress that fear begets anger which begets hatred which begets suffering.  In the end, the root of suffering comes from fear.  However, fear has its own father.  Nothing in mankind’s history produces more fear than the unknown.  Whether an explorer’s ignorance of the frontier or an American’s uncertainty of the future, the unknown makes us all tremble with fear.  On the other hand, nothing in mankind’s history produces more joy, more sagas or songs than love.  Love glues us to each other and cements our place in society.  The Christian Bible states that there is no fear in love (1 John 4:18), providing the impression that fear and love stand at odds to each other.  In my opinion, fear results from ignorance while love results from knowledge.

Before fear catalyzes the response towards suffering, fear must develop from not knowing.  We fear what we do not know.  Ancient cartographers lacked the knowledge about what could be found between continents or what laid to the west of Europe.  They depicted their ignorance as sea monsters or the edge of the world, clearly expressing their fears of what lay beyond the known world.  A bigot’s ignorance of other ethnic groups can be seen the violence of hate crimes and wars.  The American public reached near meltdown in their fear of Swine Flu (H1N1) or Avian Flu (H5N1).  One factor has always protected us from our fears: knowledge.

As humans continue learning about the world our fears are laid to rest (until some other unknown is found).  Explorers braved the uncharted waters between continents and calmed the fears of land lovers, erasing the monsters of the sea from our maps.  Integration and multiculturalism bring people of all groups together to learn about each other and to relieve the fears we have of people who don’t look like me.  Medical understanding of the Swine Flu has waned our fear of the less virulent strait of influenza moving through the world.  The more we know the less we have to fear.  We see ignorance as the driving force of all fears in the world.  Likewise, knowledge brings forth calm.  The more we know, the less we fear and in effect, the more we love.

Love makes our society flourish.  Artists, musicians, poets, and sculptors profess love everyday.  Love is the byproduct of knowledge.  We know more about our favorite subjects than any others.  The people that we love the most are the ones that we know best.  We love our family members because of our understanding of who they are, for good or for bad.  In marriage, love comes from fully knowing who the other is and who they want to be.  Marriages break down when our lover does something that we thought they could never do.  The unknown in the person frightens us and replaces our love with fear.  During courtship, a man and woman learn everything about each other.  When secrets are kept between the two, love cannot flourish as it should.

The contrast between fear and love truly result from the conflict of the known and the unknown.  This can be seen in the development of many religions throughout world history.  Before Pasteur, illnesses were not thought to be the result of viruses, bacteria or fungi, but the effects of evil spirits, demons or the punishments of sins.  The Germ Theory of modern medicine relieves our fear of disease and helps us find new and better ways to cure patients.  How many disorders, diseases and just bad luck have been blamed on the devil?  When the cause is unknown, our inquisitive minds may produce elaborate tales to explain the cause.  Knowledge eliminates superstitions.

For many, an important aspect of God is omniscience.  God must know what happens throughout the world across time.  God is love because love is knowledge and God knows all.  This theology brings relief to the people who do not know why things happen as they do.  We don’t know why bad things happen to good people, but God does.  God knows why people suffer and even if he won’t share his secret, at least the answer is known.  Modern Christianity mixes a fear of God with the love of God as both represent our knowledge of who God is.  The message of Jesus is a personal understanding of God hence more knowledge of who God is.  Jesus describes himself as the Way, the Truth and the Light: three common metaphors for knowledge and learning.  Christianity, as well as other religions, presents the opportunity to understand the unknown.  If we mortals cannot control our future, then someone, something must have the ultimate knowledge of time.  Pagans seek to understand the world through the worship of nature, Greeks and Romans create elaborate mythologies, Buddhists seek Nirvana, and Christians, Jews and Muslims seek a personal relationship with an all-knowing God.

The greatest gift God gave man is not love, but knowledge.  Knowledge and reason set us free from the oppression of ignorance and uncertainty.  The future of scientific understanding will open new doors to the mind of God.  We learn more about biology and astronomy.  For those who don’t know, the ideas of evolution and black holes will only produce fear.  The more we learn, as individuals and as a culture can eliminate the fear we have over these subjects.  The frontiers of mankind’s knowledge hold both the greatest risk and the greatest opportunity. 

Finding a Rational Belief System

"Faith is what you believe in the absence of evidence, not in spite of the evidence."

In the conflict between science and religion, we face a strange problem.  Many people fear the scientific world-view as damaging to their belief system.  When that happens, they cling to their beliefs regardless of data or argument.  And this is the problem.  Too many people believe things that are factually, demonstrably wrong.  They don't care about data or facts.  They just continue to believe.

In The Humanist magazine, Brian Trent wrote an impressive article on "America's Addiction to Belief."  He details some of the rampant conspiracy theories and discusses the underlying psychology of the phenomenon.  For instance, some people believe: Obama is not a US Citizen, Bush orchestrated 9/11, NASA faked the moon landing, Obama is a Muslim terrorist, Evolution is a lie, Global Warming is a hoax, and that the world will in 2012 (which will no doubt receive countless jokes during that election year).  It amazes me that people believe these things even after presented with evidence to the contrary.

We fall for these statements out of ignorance, but also out of the safety that long held believes seem to bring us.  We also continue to believe these things, because we tend to only talk to people we agree with.  Trent quote Joe Scarborough, a moderate Republican on MSNBC:

“A conservative can wake up in the morning and never have his or her views challenged. And the same is true for liberals,” said none other than MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough in aNewsweek interview last summer. “It’s just stunning to me how difficult it is to have a political conversation with adults. It’s very disturbing to me as someone fired upon by the left and right pretty regularly… Where is the rational middle?”

We fall for these ideas, because the modern blogosphere and 24-cable news pits all opinions as equal regardless of their validity or veracity.  I once saw a NASA climatologist challenged on Cable News by a Tea Party protestor over global warming.

When it comes to these belief structures, a rational analysis of facts plays no role.  Emotional, visceral appeal replaces critical thinking.  The coalescence of science and religion can only occur in a rational conversation- one where facts mean things.

In the debate of evolution in schools, Trent says:

Evolution is taught in schools not because there is a global secular conspiracy, but because it’s backed up by factual data. By comparison, modern creationism (dressed up—and down—as intelligent design or as the preservation of academic freedom) lacks any credible documentation or data and fails even the most basic of rational tests. Perhaps most astonishingly, it has yet to articulate what its theory actually is. At day’s end it is a position of faith; in other words, it belongs in Sunday school and not biology classrooms.

Over and over again, the proponents of intelligent design fail to offer an scientific perspective or empirical facts.  That is why Creationism-ID alway fail in the court of law.

A belief system based on rational facts will easily find a method of combining modern science and modern religion.  Notice, that this article has not stated any irrationality in the belief of God.  That is not what we are talking about.  Science and religion can co-exist, but only when we are prepared to accept a rational belief system.

Krista Tippett Speaks About Faith and Science

In a Huffington Post piece, Krista Tippett discusses the reconciliation of science and religion of the great scientific minds.  Science best explains the nature of light, gravity, and cells while religion examines the meaning of life, fate, and spirituality. 


Unfortunately, our national discourse focuses on the false dichotomy.  As Tippett points out, "Opinion polls promote hyperbole and false dichotomies. Ask Americans to choose between God and Darwin and they'll opt for God." A recent poll shows that 46% of Americans favor creationism over evolution (51% in the South), while Canada and Great Britain lean towards evolution.


She writes a good article and I have listened to her podcast called Speaking of Faith before.  Check it out!

The Clergy Letter Project

On the Huffington Post, Michael Zimmerman has profiled some courageous people on the evolution/religion debate.  In his latest post, he highlights the Clergy Letter Project which features a diverse group of clergy members taking a stand for both science and religion.

Unfortunately, as most moderates find out, the CLP writers take shots from both sides.  Fundamentalists insist upon their narrow view of a literalist interpretation, while New Atheists attack anything which might favor religion.  People tend to reject science when they feel that it threatens their beliefs, so these clergy members educate their parishioners on how theology can incorporate scientific data.

You can checkout Zimmerman's article with the link above, or follow this link to The Clergy Letter Project website.  Over 12,000 Christian Clergy have signed the letter and almost 500 Rabbi.  

An Interview With the Pope's Astronomer

New Scientist featured an interview with Jose Funes, a Catholic Priest who happens to run the Vatican Observatory. I would say that I agree with his positions in the interview.  There are not two truths, scientific or religious.  When we find an apparent conflict between science and religion, it probably stems from the fact that we, humans, are flawed.  We can make mistakes interpreting scientific data or religious statements.


Also, here is the link to The Vatican Observatory.  The Catholic Church and science have a long history with each other- not always for the best.  But they seem to be getting better, coming a long way since Galileo.  The last two Popes have seemed interested in scientific endeavors and how they relate to religion.





Below is the Crab Nebula, or the remainder after a star explodes (supernova):

From: The Vatican Observatory

The Daily Show and Marilynne Robinson

Last week on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart interviewed Marilynne Robinson.  Robinson's book, Absence of Mind, approaches the question of science and religion in a cautious, reasonable manner.  She says that many religious people are comfortable with science and many scientists are quite religious.  These are true statements, which thankfully pulls us away from the extreme viewpoints on the matter.

One correction to Jon Stewart though, anti-matter is not a subject of faith in science.  It is a carefully researched and observable phenomenon.  If you go to the hospital, a Positron Emission Tomography Scan uses the interactions of electrons (matter) and positrons (anti-matter) to figure out what is going on in your head.  Anti-matter may sound like the work of science fiction, but it has useful applications in science and medicine.

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From The Huff: Are Science and Religion Compatible?

Karl Giberson, Vice-President of the BioLogos Foundation, wrote an interesting piece for the Huffington Post.  While I don't think he completely answered his title's question, he raises a few good points.  He asks, Can a religious person accept modern science?

My answer to this question is "yes, of course," for I cannot see my way to clear to embrace either of the two alternatives -- a fundamentalist religion prepared to reject science, or a pure scientism that denies the reality of anything beyond what science can discover. 

Science does not attack all forms of religion, nor vice versa.  Extreme fundamentalism runs counter to science, just as philosophical materialism rejects the supernatural.  Yet a very large number of religious people and scientific-minded individuals lie between these two ideological extremes.  Science and religion do not exist as opposite sides of a chasm, but as part of a continuum.
I place myself in the middle ground.  As a science teacher, I must follow the evidence where it goes.  As a believer, I must have faith in God.  I find both aspects help to define who I am.