I don't collapse from shock when I meet a scientific person who is religious. While it can be argued from some angles that they are mutually exclusive, in day-to-day life I think that there are plenty examples of where they coexist.

I think Tony did a good job of pointing out the circulararity of Larry Wall's response, but one thing I'd say is that Larry Wall has probably given more to his fellow humans in the way of perl than Jim Hogan ever will in the way of anything, so I'd say that the supernatural beliefs he describes seem to be working for him and they're not bothering me (I haven't heard of him proclaiming any fatwahs or anything!).

As for the more scientific you tend to be in either hobby or profession, the more you tend to lean toward there being a Supreme Being. , I would not agree. Just to make it easy, I'd allow that a majority, say 80 percent of folks, believe in a supreme being of some sort. I have no solid basis for that number, but I'd even allow that perhaps a majority of scientists hold that belief. What I am very skeptical of, and which I think has been shown not to be the case through some survey research, is that being more scientific *increases* your chances of belonging to that 80 majority.

One distinction, probably better left to the alt.atheism FAQ (but I'll still make it) is that many folks such as myself don't think of ourselves as people who "profess that there is no God". I don't profess this. It is a losing proposition. Other folks then say "Prove It!". But there are a lot of things that I don't spend time professing don't exist, but which I don't tend to believe in due to lack of what I consider decent evidence. A few years ago a coworker quite seriously confided that there is a second, not-readily-visible moon circling the Earth (I looked it up. I guess, unbeknownst to me at the time, that this is what the term "Lilith" refers to.) Would it be useful for me to spend my time professing that Lilith doesn't exist? Probably not. Maybe I just have a crummy telescope!

Anyhow, I guess, I'll agree with your physics teacher that the more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. Boy, oh, boy, now that I am slowly sliding into "incapable of learning" status, does that mean I will stop realizing how dumb I am??