Many skeptics believe that as science progresses it continually battles with religion, and that inevitably religion always loses. This view, known as the “warfare view,” is almost universally rejected by mainstream historians of science. Instead of “warfare,” historians explain that the relationship between science and religion is “complex.” And this complexity includes at least one episode in which the favourite theory of certain atheist scientists turned out to be wrong.
In the 20th century, there was a battle amongst cosmologists between the steady state theory and the big bang theory. The steady state theory, which entailed an eternal universe without a beginning, was developed and advocated by atheist scientists such as Fred Hoyle. Hoyle seemed to oppose the big bang theory partially because it implied a moment of creation and therefore a Creator. In contrast to Hoyle, the Roman Catholic priest-scientist, George Lemaître, argued for the big bang theory and was accused of promoting it simply to support his religious beliefs. It turned out though, that Hoyle was wrong and Lemaître was right.
John Farrell's book, The Day Without Yesterday, describes the resistance amongst scientists toward the idea of the universe having a beginning.
…many scientists admittedly resisted the big bang theory because for them it seemed to imply the moment of creation. English physicist William Bonnor clearly believed this and said so in his book, The Mystery of the Expanding Universe. Hoyle, of course, made the term “big bang” famous-but only by deriding the concept. Even Howard Robertson, with whom Lemaître worked, did not like the implication of the super-dense nuclear state from which all things evolved.
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Reference
John Farrell, The Day without Yesterday: Lemaitre, Einstein, and the Birth of Modern Cosmology., 1st ed. (New York: Thunder’s mouth Press, 2005), 206.