Huge problem mixing "science" and "religion" is that for many, religion is about "faith" and science is about reason. So it invokes the pre-modern versus the modern. Another problem is not just faith but the content of that faith. The Protestant Work Ethic is credited by some as a key ingredient why the West developed so fast, as the faith was, work for the sake of work, develop for the sake of development. That is a huge contrast to mere warlord hedonism, or a monk sitting recluse and fasting. Arguably, faith in modern progress is a thing people value and value for its own sake. So one can say that science has this aspect of faith in self determined progress and ability to lift ourselves out of material mysery. However, we are now talking a very reasonable humanistic value, in contrast to "kill the hethens" and "burn the witches who float like ducks" faiths which are just ignorance, along with "world created in 6 days". Now any atheist may say they have zero beliefs, but ask them what they want, and it is stuff like, to love my family, to see my children happy, to make a positive impact on the world. Now as it happens, none of those answers can survive a thorough postmodern deconstruction, they are all groundless, or "empty" as some Buddhists might say. So where are the atheists who say, "Darling, of course I don't love you, we all know I merely have a flow of hormones and other mood altering chemicals flowing around my brain, for survival reasons, selected by the environment from random mutations" No of course not, there are things which we still value as intrinsic to human life, not life as a collection of 40 trillion cells, but sentient experienced life with compassion and love. There is no reason why as biological machines, we need to be sentient, my brain can respond to the environment without there needing to be "anybody here" to experience the show. Anyway, this is where you can get into a scientific humanistic rational ethical purposeful arena, where as we understand more about the brain, and psychology, we can maybe understand more what makes people happy, what makes for better education, what makes for a better and healthier life. Here some rational "atheists" would be happy to include anything we might already have some ideas about, such as Buddhist self-questioning, who are you? and certain meditation, etc. as a small part of an overall scientific understanding of love, insofar as these things can be rationally tested, not merely believed. And if that means that most of traditional religious teaching is shown up to be the head fuck that it really is, well so be it.