While I think Provine has a rather too narrow vision of what sort of God
might be worth having, the account you present above (which evidently
Provine has witnessed himself) has drawn attention from theologians.
Since belief in God is not usually ascribed to some rationalist chain of
argument, it is harder to argue that logical flaws in decisions to
believe in or disbelieve in (or remain agnostic about) God are primary.
Instead, some theologians (not all, of course) are arguing that in the
present day, belief in God is being compared with competing explanations
for what God is supposed to be doing. When God's "job" is declared
to be the creation of complexity (or of species, or what have you),
then God is placed in direct competition with other philosophies (like
evolutionary theory). If someone (like his mother) finds evolutionary
theory puts God "out of work," then, according to this scaled-down
vision, there is really little point in believing any more.
Unfortunately (in my opinion), creationists often consciously push
this approach to God, declaring that the Flood is the crucial block on
which Scripture rests, or the literal week is the kingpin of the Bible,
and if one is removed, the whole edifice topples and we have no meaning
in life, no God, no motherhood, no apple pie. It is my contention that
while this may work wonders for keeping sixth-graders in line, it
sets up a situation where later in life, people will view God (as
Provine seems to) as being reduced in scale and function to competition
with evolutionary theory. This is certainly not the only direction in
which modern thought about God has gone awry, but it is perhaps
relevant to this list, as theological convictions are the subtext which
surround all discussions here.
-Greg