I just read something that specifically answers the OP, at least in part. It's an essay from Dawkins' book "a devil's chaplain" entitled "The Infected Mind."
The thrust of the argument goes as follows. Suppose there exists a set of ideas which is self-reinforcing. That is to say, if you believe in idea A, that makes your belief in idea B stronger. And if you believe B, that makes your belief in A stronger. It becomes very difficult to break out of such a loop. Often, these cycles are created/implanted at an early age, so they are almost hard-wired into the adult brain.
Dawkins uses the specific example of faith as a virtue (A), coupled with that faith (B). The more you are willing to accept improbable things, the more virtuous you are. And the more virtuous you believe you are, the more you should accept things on faith.
So that, right there, might cover a lot of cases. The evidence for evolution isn't strong enough to break such a cycle in many people -- at least, the evidence presented to those people is not. There are other possible cycles, though. I suspect that a lot of the crazy ATM proponents are stuck in these types of idea sets. They're not necessarily religious ideas, but instead misconceptions about science which reinforce other misconceptions, which in turn reinforce the original misconceptions.
As an exercise, check out the Sully DC thread and see if you can pick out the self-referential, reinforcing ideas.
