"I'm very religious and I follow science, and it's extremely rare that I feel conflicted."

How? Please elaborate.

I can only assume that he means that he's not a Young-Earth Creationist who believes that God created the world and life as we see it today a mere 6000 years ago, and then subjected the globe to a catastrophic flood a short time thereafter.

Creationists (usually of the Abrahamic faiths) are pretty much the only ones who have a hard time reconciling God and science. They also make up the minority of religious people in developed nations.

Actually I would consider myself "of the Abrahamic faiths" - I'm Mormon, and we accept both the Old and New Testaments, among with other books that we consider scripture. The reason I don't feel conflicted, is because I don't place a huge amount of emphasis on

1) My own interpretation of that scripture, or 2) Theoretical science

A lot of both of them is just ideas. I think it's good to have ideas and theories and try to improve those over time, but just because one turns out to be wrong, doesn't destroy my whole belief system. Those theories exist because we're trying to piece really complex things together, and it will be a long time before we really understand the whole picture. My "religion" is based on simple things that I feel very sure of. I'm very sure that there is a God, I'm very sure that Jesus Christ is the messiah, etc... And those are the things that I base my faith on. Science is similar - there are simple principles that every scientist accepts as fundamental, and they work on those to come up with more complex theories. I see creation as one of those theories. The scriptures aren't specific, and it's left to us to try to understand it for ourselves. I don't think we need to understand it to be "saved" - it's just part of learning and understanding more about the God we worship. What God requires is, I believe, that we simply live good lives according to what we believe to be 'right'. So if a comet shows up with Amino acids, it has nothing to do with my religion. The Bible never said there WASN'T life on other planets, or that God didn't work natural laws. Personally, I believe there is life on other planets. After all, why would an infinite and eternal being limit himself to one planet? But like I said - that's not one of those "fundamentals", and so if something conflicts with that, it doesn't bother my faith. It's just a part of piecing those complex pieces together - and so I see nothing wrong with discussing different religious ideas with people, or discussing science and religion, etc... To me it's just a discussion of what we think makes sense. God wants us to try and learn for ourselves - reasoning and making guesses is a part of that.

I hope that makes sense. If anyone's interested in discussing the matter further, I'll add my email to my profile.

"Creationists (usually of the Abrahamic faiths) are pretty much the only ones who have a hard time reconciling God and science."

I would agree that they have the hardest time, but I disagree that anything in science points to the existence of the supernatural (including one or many deities).

It may not point to anything for you, and that's fine. But there are lay people and scientists alike who see the pursuit of knowledge about our universe as a glimpse into God's own mind. Note that most of this hinges on accepting at least a simple cosmological argument for God.

The fact that these people phrase it like that - or believe that there's something supernatural about it - isn't something that increases the probability of it being true, IMO.

What have you found that suggests that there is a god in the first place?

You are asking for what evidence he has of the existance of a god. That question, by its nature, is a scientific one. The poster you are responding to stated that they do not base their belief in God on science. You are asking the wrong sorts of questions.

Actually, in all fairness to kevin, I think it would be silly to believe in God for no reason. But on the other hand, it's equally silly to say that he doesn't exist just because we don't see him everywhere. If there is a God, he's obviously not going to do all the work for us - he wants to us to learn, and we do that by learning from experience and from testing for ourselves.

So to answer Kevin's question: prayer. That's what suggests God's existence to me. Yes, it's very personal and subjective, but it's an 'experiment' of sorts. If God's there, AND wants us to know about him, AND created us, then surely he'd provide some way for us to find out about him, and he'd make it possible to tell him part of some 'trick' or 'coincidence'. I believe one can simply ask God if he's there, and he'll answer. I also believe you can ask him if the Bible, or the Koran, or any other thing is true. If you do your part to learn for yourself and then seek his guidance - he'll answer. How he answers is the very personal part. The Bible talks about 'fruits of the spirit' - feelings of love, joy, peace, comfort, etc... I've prayed, and I feel those things. They're distinct from anything else - they almost have a 'personality' to them. Maybe another person will get a different answer. I would never claim that a person who got different results was somehow 'less worthy', because like I said - it's personal. It's between that person and God, and he judges our lives. I'm in no position to judge what someone else feels.

Now, I don't expect everyone to believe what I said just because I said it, but to me what I experienced is evidence. Nothing anyone could say or show me could convince me that I didn't feel that. And that's why I said that no science could change my mind about God. It could make me question complex beliefs and assumptions, but the aforementioned comet doesn't make me question those feelings by any stretch of the imagination.

edit: I added my email address to my profile - if anyone has further questions or issues with anything I've said - feel free to email me.

I guess I'm getting negative points because some people either disagree with questioning faith, or because others consider this flameworthy.

But I assure you, my goal was merely to probe the OP's lack of conflict between science and faith.

What have you found that suggests that there isn't a god in the first place?

Please, everyone on earth knows proving or disproving the existence of god is impossible, so why did you ask a moronic question like that?