I agree that they can get along just fine. I'm with Prof. and James. I think historically religion has had great power and being accustomed to it isn't giving it up easily. Perhaps a modern view on religion is to provide purpose in life or spiritual guidance, but you will quickly notice that's not how it's been. In the past when people died (sometimes in masses) it was not due to infections, but because God wanted to punish them and it was considered godless heresy to seek explanations of how the world works outside of religion. That's just how it was.

I would disagree with Mark that religion and science are seeking the truth. It is not the same kind of truth they are seeking. The definition of truth in science is experimental reproducibility and predictive power. Religion asks people to unreservedly believe in absolute truth, the one that God only knows and the only way you can know it too is check with God.

As far as the best physicists being believers, I don't think that's true. Newton and Einstein were, but Feynman wasn't. Most of the creators of modern physics were not either. It's a matter of time and culture. The person who discovered phase coherence in superconductors believes in aliens, ghosts and paranormal phenomena...

I don't even know what to say about a person believing in God just because the laws of physics turned out not to be what they expected. And as far as I know the same laws that can predict the behavior of subatomic particles can predict the one of a baseball or a black hole.

I think any scientist would have no problems whatsoever with all physical laws being created by God, for those who prefer a personification of something that may or may not have happened. The same way they could have been created by the primordial Frog, Razor, etc., either way it is just a matter of belief without any proof.

I'll not that many people find their ethics and purpose in life outside of a great plan that God has for them. Others find it in God. Either way if you really separate the domains of religion and science there isn't anything to argue about.