>>13073864People naturally gravitate towards what is great, wondrous, cosmic, transcendental. This is a feature of human nature, and will demand to be fulfilled regardless of whether one believes in God or gods or nothing.
If people stop believing in a spiritual reality underlying the material world (as people do now due to rising atheism and secularism), they stop believing in what has to this point been the greatest, ultimate reality. To satisfy the natural longing I mentioned above, they will instead turn to the next best thing after ultimate spiritual reality - the ultimate material reality, the Universe. It's the grandest thing that exists in a world without God. As science deals with the structure and workings of this material reality, people will think about science the same way they used to think about religion - as something that gives them a look into the ultimate workings of reality - and approach it appropriately. It's simply the best candidate to fill the gap left by loss of religion.
