Cognitive dissonance is a common condition. For me, the more I learned about science, history, and comparing religions, I could only come to the logical conclusion of atheism. I held my mother's hand as she took her last breath and as strong as my sorry and grief was, I could only see a biological process. I am 100% based in science and reality. Too many people, even those who are educated and/or use logic in parts of their lives, do not apply that logic to religious belief.

I have heard of religious scientists who try to weave in God as being behind science. There is also the term; god of the gaps. This allows them to think that god is seen to be there wherever there is a gap in our scientific knowledge. These gaps become smaller and smaller as time goes by.

Only if one adopts the coping mechanism of compartmentalizing one's existence.

Yes. Not all science deals with creation or is based in evolution. There are many scientific fields that wont' conflict with religious beliefs.

I think some people are just ok with inconsistencies and excuses and reinterpretting things in ways that make themselves more comfortable with living in the world they live in. Not many people like change. Tons of people stay in toxic relationships and continue to do toxic things because it is the known. The unknown is to much for them. And when it comes to religion it makes them feel comforted because it is a known to them.

History is littered with religious scientists. However, had they grown up in our time, I'm sure most of the influential ones would have shook that dogma.

My father was a college Chemistry professor and a Catholic, so I would say it is possible.

There are many, many people who are both intelligent and smart at the same time and always.

YES

Unfortunately yes .. but they are trying always to hide their eyes from the facts science say

Francis Collins comes to mind. He is head of the National Institutes of Health and a leader in the Human Genome Project. Michael Reiss, an Anglican priest has campaigned for the teaching of evolution. I have watched John Lennox from Oxford debate with Richard Dawkins. Frank Tipler has authored books and papers on the Omega Point, which he claims is a mechanism for the resurrection of the dead.
These folks seem to be able to compartmentalize their minds and separate religion from their science when working. Some very religious folk tend to be engineers more than scientists like Raymond Damadian who created the MRI machine and is a young earth creationist.

Not a chance- totally incompatible. What I think happens w/some people is that they see that life can be very over-rated, and they start looking for utopia after death.

It really depends on the what kind of science, I think. I went to school for geology and had a classmate who's father was a pastor. She really struggled to reconcile what she had been told about the world her entire life with the rocks and fossils that clearly contradicted those teachings.

What do you guys think?

I don’t see how they can be. Science is one of the main things that was the nail in the religion coffin for me. I have religious friends that I consider very intelligent but I think the indoctrination from childhood and the normality of religion is too strong. They may know that scientifically something doesn’t make sense but they always have loopholes, justifications for getting around the facts. They are going to hang on to those beliefs no matter what.

I suppose it depends on how precisely you are using the phrase "at the same time." If you are currently conducting a time-sensitive experiment, and you stop to take the Haj, your experiment will probably be ruined by the time you get back. If you are receiving communion in a Catholic church and stop to run a PCR on the wine, looking for human DNA, you will probably be asked to leave the ceremony.

But sure, a person can follow rigorous scientific procedures in the lab and field, Monday through Friday, and still sit in a church on Sunday morning, or say your prayers at bedtime.

Science and religion are different "sense making" systems that address different types of questions and experiences, and use different sets of procedures and rules. Just like chess and baseball follow different sets of rules, but a person can play both games. It really only becomes a problem when you try to play baseball using the procedures of chess.

If you want answers to physical, material questions, science can potentially provide those, but it doesn't address issues of the "supernatural." Applying religious reasoning to material phenomena will lead to unsupportable conclusions (at best).

Yes, many scientists throughout history were religious.

I'm a retired scientist. I'm a de facto atheist, but I've worked with a number of good scientists who were religious. Also many older relatives in my extended family who were religious (all gone now) but were perfectly happy with scientific theories like evolution.

The scientific method was developed over the last 5 centuries by many eminent scientists, most of whom during the earlier part of that period were quite religious individuals. As the "god of the gaps" lost more and more responsibility for natural phenomena, the more that scientists and others tended towards atheism.

Yes though it's hard to wrap my head around it.

Yes, but one can't believe the bible as literal and know science. Scientists try to prove two things when they make discoveries; 1) try to prove it's true, and 2) try to prove it's false. It doesn't take much to prove the bible false in many areas. Read "Misquoting Jesus" by Ehrman. It proves the myriad versions of the bible differ and say differing things ...and they can't all be true!

yes especially if you look at it from their perspective

You make a good point. Check out quantum physics; it answered alot of my questions

I don't see how that's possible...so NO.

No; they must compartmentalize. A person can be religious at times, and scientific at other times, but not both at the very same time.