Even if it’s not from Pasteur, it is an idea that has been around. Francis Bacon said something similar, to the effect that a little bit of scientific knowledge (which he would have called “philosophy”) inclines a person to atheism, whereas a deeper scientific knowledge brings one back to belief in God. (Whether Bacon meant that sincerely is a debatable question, but he did say it.)
Bacon presumably would have said that they had not reflected deeply enough on the meaning of the scientific knowledge they have acquired. Newton, in his General Scholium, expresses the view that sound reflection on the system of the sun and planets leads one to the existence of a wise contriver of that system. Boyle, another titan of early modern science, held to a similar belief. The question is why so many modern scientists do not draw similar conclusions. And it’s not enough to say that modern scientists know that we don’t need God because we have natural laws, because Newton and Boyle also explained things in terms of natural laws, but did not from that move to the conclusion that God was nonexistent or unnecessary as an explanation. They saw God as the source of the laws, the reason for their rationality. So we know that scientific genius as such, and reflection on laws of nature as such, do not necessarily take one away from belief in God; this suggests that other cultural factors are operating. It is worthwhile trying discern what those factors are.