Hi Jimmy. I don't think any person, christian or atheist, would consider "formulating ideas" to be evil. I think the contention (from the Christian perspective) comes when the formulated ideas lead toward denying or disproving the creator. It makes sense, from the Christian perspective, that if there really is a creator, then denying it's existence would be offensive (i.e. evil?) to the creator.
From both the atheist and Christian perspective there is plenty of evidence, though in my experience the issue has never been about evidence (or lack of it) rather how we interpret the evidence. There are lots of examples of religious people throughout history twisting and abusing their interpretations for personal benefit, but then again there are plenty of examples of people in general (including scientists) who do the same.
Hi ES, thanks for your response. I wholeheartedly agree with most of your post. My point is that evolution and science in general does not formulate ideas that deny or disprove a creator, it deals with the natural world. There are plenty, I would think most actually, of Christians (even on this thread - Hoghead, Papias, lesliedellow for example) who can reconcile their religious beliefs with the observations of science. I admit that there are some outspoken atheist proponents of evolution who do attack religion, Dawkins for example, but they are the exception rather than the rule. On the other hand, some of the most famous 'evolutionists' have a very strong religious faith such as Francis Collins.
It seems to me that rather than threatening anyone's faith in God the only thing that science challenges (and I include biology, geology, cosmology, paleontolgy etc etc) is a rather strange view that everything written in Old Testament has to be interpreted literally, word for word. We can't even be sure that that's what the original authors intended, as the stories were passed down verbally for many generations before anyone made a record of them.
If observations and facts we can verify for ourselves (and we can, there is no conspiracy), with a little education, conflict with an interpretation of an ambiguous ancient text is it not sensible to be open to the fact that there's a possibility that that interpretation may not be correct? The Bible is not God, you may believe it was inspired by God but it was written, copied and translated by fallible men. If you do believe in God surely the best evidence for his Creation is in what we see in the world around us? It isn't lying to us, despite the fact that some have to try invent justifications like the Devil has planted evidence or is tricking us somehow.
Sorry, I rambled a bit there!