It’s an appropriate day for a man who has been straddling two worlds his entire adult life. In 1980, he and a couple of high school friends founded the punk band Bad Religion. Almost 20 albums later, the group has a worldwide following for its hard-driving and intelligent songs. But the singer is also a scientist. In 2003, he earned a PhD in zoology from Cornell University.

As part of his dissertation research, Graffin asked 149 prominent evolutionary biologists whether they believed in God; 130 answered no. But something surprised Graffin. Only a handful responded that they considered science and religion to be incompatible.

That tolerance frustrates Graffin. He describes himself as a naturalist, which to him means someone who holds that the natural world is all there is. “If you can believe in God, then you can believe in anything,” he says. “It’s a gang mentality.” He’s also offended by what he calls the “intellectual dishonesty” of scientists who find compatibility with religions that, in the case of Christianity at least, embrace walking on water and resurrection.