Manufactured conflict

Anyone else feel the 'conflict' between science and religion wasn't well developed and very artificial? There was no obvious reason why an ET discovery would be blasphemous, yet we get Matthew Mcconaughey hanging around, some vague twaddle from a government advisor saying the President's ratings are falling, and then the choice of astronaut is decided on whether the candidate is an atheist?! 95% of the world may believe in a God, but not always the same one.

It then tries to weakly tie this into the ending with Jodie forced to describe a word-for-word religious experience, but again it just doesn't work. There is no given reason why the experiment can't be repeated, and indeed we get pretty good evidence that was concealed from the public that her story is true.

I enjoyed many parts of the film, but it's central premise of these supposed paralells and conflicts between religion and science really doesn't hold together. Maybe they should have given some reason why the discovery was offensive and developed it further, or else choose a different conflict. What do others think?