I am and have been a man of science, reason and fact-based life.
Unlike some, I do not care if you yourself hold religious views.
I used to. I used to rail against religion the way some people rail against smoking cigarettes or eating red meat. I've given up on it, having realized that religion is one of those things you can't argue people out of. So, I don't bother. If you wish to continue believing I can't stop you. But you can still hold religious views, express religious faith and worship in the manner that suits you without eschewing science and reason. While the two are not wholly compatible, they can and do co-exist without friction. Some consider there to be non-overlapping magisteria, that is to say, the two things each have their own provinces which they do well in just so long as they stay within their realm -- keep to their own lane, so to speak. A prime example of what happens when religion attempts to speak to a question of science is when religious zealots attempt to define the fundamental nature of our home planet. For anyone who has studied science it's a settled issue - - the earth is a very slightly oblate spheroid some 12742 km in diameter, that turns on it's N-S Axis once every 24.025 hours, and orbits it's primary star at a distance of some 151.42 million km once every 365.25 days. These facts are not conjecture, or suppositions, they are known. They are observations, made using instruments from the primitive -- a pole of known length -- to the incredible -- a ring laser gyro, or focused light prism gyroscope. The first attempt to divine the circumference of the earth was done by Eratosthenes in 245 BC; see Wikipedia's explanation of how, here : Wikipedia on Eratosthenes
But here's the thing. There exist out there on the internet, most especially on Youtube, those who openly, loudly and insistently opine that the Earth is, and must be, flat. Many of them cite Judeao-Christian religious beliefs as being the reason why the Earth must be flat. Others do not make any such claims, but they hold to the idea of a flat earth despite any proofs to the contrary, hand-waving any information that goes against their beliefs away as incorrectness on the part of the science based community. That is, if you assert that no, the earth is not flat, that gravity would see to it that the accretion disc that became the earth fell together in the form of a sphere then they simply reply that gravity does not exist, that everything is electric, or based on volume, or that they don't know but that you don't either and you can't prove your assertion therefore you might be wrong therefore you must be wrong. Anyone expecting a rational, logical argument should stop here. The thing is, if it were just a few kooks on Youtube, nobody would care. But it is not just a few kooks on the Youtube, it's it's thousands and tens of thousands all over the internet, and they are influencing others. In addition to this, they are invoking the rule of crank magnetism and bringing more crazy to the party. I could write a book on it. For now, I'm just going to close with this : Science works. Science delivers the goods. Anyone interested can, with a moderate expense, replicate the work of Eratosthenes. With somewhat more money they can replicate experiments to derive the gravitational constant, and thus be able to calculate the mass of the earth. (see: Cavendish Experiment,Wikipedia ) In fact, students of astrophysics, and even of general physics, perform these experiments every day, in order to experience for themselves. They know, not just because they have been told, but because they have done the work and seen for themselves. You can do the same thing. Harvard Natural Sciences - Calculation of gravitational constant, with accompanying apparatus model.
Go look. -- I'll wait.
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