Right, STEM-types tend to lampoon religion due to being based on "mere faith" rather than "hard evidence." But anything that is not directly experienced by one

Right, STEM-types tend to lampoon religion due to being based on "mere faith" rather than "hard evidence." But anything that is not directly experienced by oneself requires some substantial faith; one cannot possibly redo all science experiments oneself and personally collect evidence. Therefore one must have faith that the aggregate scientists had no motivation to skew or misrepresent evidence. As a scientist, I know how reasonable doubting this to be.