Hello Nicole, I'm not sure that my posting this article shows that I am starting to learn about the diversity of beliefs among scientists. I've been aware of that for a long time and have documented much of that in over 110 posts on Medium, so nothing new for me in this post.

Your view of faith is that it is motivated by a need for security. No question that faith provides much that is needed by us humans. Some believe because it meets important human needs including a need for hope and security. Others believe because they believe in objective truth and believe that the story tells or at least contains some of that truth.

I also agree and appreciate that the view that one is a miniscule part of a incredibly vast universe is awe inspiring and leads to a kind of deep faith. While I agree with this response, I don't think comparing it to a rigid Christian belief system is quite right. Certainly there are believers with such a rigid belief system, but many great thinkers who had very deep, mystical and open beliefs. Many of them were some of our earliest and greatest scientists. I think and hope we are starting to get past the old science-faith conflict and learning again that the two work together quite well.