The reality is that religion has been a central part of the advancement of civilization to the point we see today. Space rockets, genetics and microbiology. The majority of people who led to the inventions of all of these things had some deistic or religious belief. Darwin was a Christian who lost his faith with the death of his child, not because he discovered evolution. Newton did more writing on religion than he did on physics. Einstein was a deist. Collins (man who mapped the genome) is a hardcore Christian.
The point is that these brilliant minds could make their peace with some understanding of the universe which involved religion or just a deity. That doesn't make it any truer however they weren't bitter and vicious children like modern anti-theists who think they're scientific geniuses because they can read half of the Origin of Species and feel ultimately equipped to trash on religion as though they're the first people to do it.