“The evolutionary future of religion is extinction. Belief in supernatural powers is doomed to die out, all over the world, as a result of the increasing adequacy and diffusion of scientific knowledge.” (Anthony F.C. Wallace, in his Religion: An Anthropological View, 1966)
A bold prediction indeed in an exceedingly influential book, which many non-theists took as a prophecy and which idea is still being taught in University social science departments.
Yet, as former atheist Astronomer/Mathematician Dr. Michael Guillen points out in his very recent game-changer of a book: “A [2017] Pew Research Center study titled The Changing Global Religious Landscape states it quite plainly: ‘The global share of religiously unaffiliated people is actually expected to fall. People with no religion will make up about 13 percent of the world’s population in 2060, down from roughly 16 percent as of 2015.” (In his 2021 book Believing is Seeing, p.61)
On the same page Guillen adds: “…as scientific knowledge soars, the universe is becoming more mysterious. Not less. Nowhere is this mystifying trend more on display than in modern physics. Quantum mechanics, special relativity, general relativity‒the theoretical pillars of modern physics‒verge on the supernatural. Their ideas about quarks, gluons, the quantum vacuum, virtual particles…black holes, white holes, wormholes‒and on and on‒are no less otherworldly than any religion’s Gods, gods, Supreme Being, or beings. Consequently, over the past century, modern physics…has increased by orders of magnitude our awareness of the universe’s deep, jaw-dropping mysteries.”
This is no ‘dibby-dibby’ [ small fry] social or even natural scientist but the former ABC News Science Editor and Harvard physics instructor.
If all of this leaves you cold atheist/agnostic/skeptic then cover yourself with an adequate intellectual blanket and before the return of Jesus muster, not simply a rebuttal but a refutation. I trust you know the acute distinction between the two cruel options I leave with you.
Of course, Guillen is not God and so could be dead wrong but for now the defence rests. Your witness Counsel!