blind credulity you seem to be suggesting.
I'm not suggesting that it has reached that level (Tom Harkin, the big congressional sponsor, has complained repeatedly about it not validating enough pseudoscience), and agree that it gets mostly negative results when it funds actual experiments. The troubling parts tend to be slips, or channeling money and prestige to the merchants of madness.
Lots of charlatans spend lots of money advertising diets and health products that don't work. We have a National Institutes of Health that, among other things, funds studies that make more-objective pronouncements on diet and health.
Argue pro or con: It would be a good investment (payback would exceed opportunity cost) for the US government to create a National Institute of Theology, that would fund research into theological questions. For instance:
Everyone, religious and atheist, should be motivated to want the answers to these questions to become widely known.
(Yes, I know this would be politically impractical. Pointing that out is not interesting. What is interesting, is whether such a NIT would be beneficial, supposing it could be made.)