I was talking with a friend of mine who is finishing his Masters in Bioinformatics and moving to his PhD soon about this whole thing. I think it really comes down to a couple things.

First, people in this country have zero science education. I'd like to say it's otherwise, but honestly, the amount of people who buy into perpetual motion and other impossible things is terrifying.

Second, the vocabulary of science is foreign and somewhat different than what people normally use. For scientists a "theory" is something with a good basis in evidence, but that's not how a lot of people interpret it. They don't understand the difference between a hypothesis and a theory. Just misses them.

It's really terrifying and makes me fear for Enlightenment.

It really makes my head hurt sometimes. Every good scientist will start questioning a theory if presented with contradicting facts. When it comes to religion, however, people start adapting their 'theory' (i.e., religion) in the weirdest ways, rather than questioning the base of their beliefs.

The best example is when the first smart person asked the question, if god is so infinitely good and merciful, how can he let something happen like say the Holocaust. And the answer is ... "the ways of the Lord are mysterious".

This already does away with any logical argument one might bring up against any aspect of biblical theory, and thus basically makes it exempt from scientific or logical scrutiny. (I remember my dad telling that at the catholic boarding school he attended, the students were told that merely asking oneself about the existence of God was already a sin.)

What's more, the story of the bible, as opposed to any scientific work, is not based on observation, built up and revised as more information became known. It started as a given set of 'facts'. (This aspect is much better explained by Daniel Harbour's book "An Intelligent Persons Guide to Atheism".)

I prefer to follow the principle of Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is the one that should be considered first. So far, I have not found enough compelling arguments against my theory that there is no God. Sorry.

"The Holocaust issue has been addressed with "God didn't cause the Holocaust. Man did.""

But if God created man in his image, does that mean that God is a Nazi?

In all those cases where man did something, one should ask, why did God not protect the victims? He is almighty, after all.

Joe: Yes, that's what this Christian says. (Although I don't take the creation accounts literally)

I wrote a little more about this once at
http://www.roadtosurfdom.com/MOVABLETYPE/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=2879
The relevant words were:

"""
[Your question] assumes that God's actions should be explicable to man, but God is as far beyond us as you are beyond a two year old. When my son was two, I took him to the doctor for his shots. It hurt him, but I let the doctor do it anyway. My son didn't understand, and I couldn't explain it to him. All I could do was offer my comfort and ask for his trust.

In the same way that little Mitchell was afflicted with the needle, we are afflicted with evil. I don't know why God allows it, and I often despair. In the end, I trust that God is looking out for my best interests.

(I should also point out that this answer isn't something new to Christianity. There are many examples of this attitude through the Bible. Many of the psalms, parts of Ecclesiastes and the letters to churches suffering persecution.)
"""