Brit, Let's put it this way..Religion will not be a 'blocker' for progress if it is screened and interpreted by nations only to form societies and individuals having good human values. If you take the church to the class rooms, there's going to be a clash.

Personally, I would call a person a hypocrite if he believed in the creation theory just to get acceptance from his faith-fellows and pursued space research based on experimental evidences. One has to be true to himself in his pursuits for best results.