Is evolution really inconsistent with religious faith?

Back again to that pew poll, the section "Opinion Gaps between Scientists, Public" is interesting although not particularly surprising. In particular, only 32% of the public believes that humans and other creatures evolved from natural processes while 87% of scientists think so. (side note: I wonder how many biologists and geophysicists do.) This result is nowhere near surprising in the least, but I wonder if attitudes about evolution are shaped by the media's portrayal of the issue of teaching intelligent design in schools. As the media is wont to do, this issue has been shown as one side versus the other side, with no regard for how one side, you know, might just be right. Without doubt, intelligent design is not a valid scientific theory. Even worse, the media narrative creates a false sense of dichotomy between religion and science that is toxic for both.

I think a personal example would be most appropriate. Growing up, I went to a Lutheran parochial school (for late elementary and middle school) that taught evolution in biology class because the state required it, but the science teacher would often go on tangents about creationism. Like, "did you know that all the fossils we can observe in the geological record were created during the Great Flood?" My favorite was when he observed that it was amazing that God could create men with many parts that were useless, like the appendix or nipples on men! (I could think of a few uses for men's nipples... ) Anyway, though, this left me rather confused growing up as I really liked science. I ended up eventually becoming an atheist partly because of that conflict when I realized that "creation science" is anything but science. However, later on in life, I began to realize that atheism itself is a matter of faith, as there can be no physical proof of the existence or nonexistence of any kind of supernatural, metaphysical being by their very nature as nonphysical. More simply, evolution, a physical process, has no bearing on the existence of God, a metaphysical being.*

Of course, evolution (or the big bang theory or what have you) begs the question "Well, what started that?". Since science is limited to the realm of what can be physically observed or inferred, it obviously cannot definitively answer these questions. On the other hand, intelligent design or creationism are not adequate scientific answers to this problem because they are not testable by physical evidence and cut off further motivation for inquiry. Furthermore, as hopefully my above personal story highlights, religious faith masquerading as a scientific theory has the unintended consequence of making people question their faith unnecessarily. Faith, by its very nature, does not require physical evidence. It seems to me that those who promote pseudoscience such as intelligent design are doing more to destroy their own religious faith than the theory of evolution ever will.

*In case you're curious, I'm neither an atheist nor Christian. My beliefs are, if you have to put a label on them, somewhat close to Natural pantheism.