Interestingly enough, I am reading Cardinal Ratzinger's (benedict XVI) homilies on creation. He does not take the Genesis story to be literal but puts it into the context of the Babylonian captivity...
Foremost he says that it is telling us God is the creator...
"God shines through the reasonableness of his creation. Physics and biology, and the natural sciences in general, have given us a new and unheard-of creation account with new images, which let us recognize the face of the Creator."
-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
Of course this is the description of a man of faith, but I think mostly it is America that thinks that religion and science are so at odds.