Question: Do you think there is the potential for religion to 'die out' over time as science advances. For instance, do you think if we definitively proved that God did not exist would the religious communities accept this or would it just be shot down due to the unfalsifiable nature of religion? Thanks

Ben Kenward answered on 12 Jun 2017:

As you say, religion isn’t really falsifiable. It’s explicitly part of many religions that you are supposed to have faith despite lack of physical evidence. There are societies where religion is discouraged (e.g. China, Soviet Russia) but it has not tended to disappear. I would love religion to die out but I suspect that realistically it will not. A really interesting question is why religion is so popular. Some psychologists suggest that we have actually evolved to be predisposed towards religion, because the group cohesiveness that it fosters (e.g. more cooperation within social groups) helped people to survive. Others say it’s just a by-product of the fact that we need to be really good at detecting agency in the world. You know like how it’s really easy to see faces in trees and clouds? That’s because it’s so important to detect faces, that the parts of the brain that do it are a little “over-active”. Similarly, the parts of our brain that detect an agent (a person) who might mean us well or mean us harm need to be really active, and are maybe also a little “over-active”.