I don't necessarily see that as being the case myself. It's true that some people of a religious persuasion may see science as somehow adversarial to religion, but I think it's far more sensible to look at them as being complementary. The purview of science is to determine the mechanics and processes by which the natural world works, while that of most religions is to deal with human spirituality, the supernatural, and the possibilities of an afterlife, all of which fall outside a strictly natural definition of the universe. In the past, and almost out of necessity, religion wound up overlapping on many of the scientific fields of today, simply because humanity didn't know enough to understand the processes involved, but now that we have a general wide-ranging view of our place in the universe as a species, I don't see that as being a real issue anymore.
Moving beyond that point, I also don't necessarily see a conflict of interest between holding religious beliefs and seeking scientific truths for their own sake. In fact, some people who have religious faith and work in science-related fields would probably say that doing so helps to strengthen their faith. Scientific progress has led us to learn much about the fundamental underpinnings of our universe; to some, those underpinnings might be viewed as signs of the glory/majesty/skill of the creator(s) of their choice. In a universal view that requires a Big Bang, there had to be something to trigger it (if one can even use the concept of "before" without the existence of space-time, I suppose...). I personally know several tenured professors in my own physics department who are practicing Christians (and to be honest, I was surprised at that number myself); heck, one of them received a papal medal for a book he authored on the relationship between scientific study and religious faith. As strange as it may seem to some, there are many who view obtaining true spiritual maturity as requiring the same sort of rational discourse that one would use in following the scientific method. There's a famous quote by Einstein that states, "Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind;" if you stop and think about it, I think it's a rather appropriate comment on the historical and present relationship between the two pursuits.
To finish up, if I may comment on the article again for the moment, what annoyed me the most about it is something I've seen far too often, the act of applying certain behaviors conducted by certain people under the label of "Christian" to all people who profess that faith. It would be the same as me saying that all Scots wear kilts, eat haggis all the time, and toss sheep. (I mean, I know you're all about that stuff, aldo, but that can't be true for all of your countrymen.
) It's a statement borne out of ignorance, or even worse, of willful misapplication. There were at least seven or eight of those points that I not only disagreed with right off the bat, but actually saw as being counterproductive to Christian faith as I view it. When commenting on a certain group of people, it's generally a good idea to do so while fully understanding where they're coming from, instead of doing so based on your own opinion of where they're coming from. Otherwise, you wind up looking the fool to members of that group, just as that author did to me.
