[malakhi]

In evolutionary terms, atheism is a cultural dead end, lacking the fitness necessary for longterm direct propagation. It recurs though, like some recurrent defect or pathogenic illness that reduces fertility but persists through new recruitment instead of direct propagation.

IMO, the advancement of science and our understanding of the universe has been primarily achieved by people who place a higher value on reason than on traditional belief accepted on authority. Some of these people are atheists, and some are not. Those who are not atheists nevertheless evince a willingness to reinterpret traditional beliefs in light of evidence gleaned via the scientific method. I'd suggest that such an application of reason does have an evolutionary "survival value".

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded -- here and there, now and then -- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.

This is known as "bad luck."

[Rockingham]

Reason is to the good, but it can be misapplied, especially when allied with grave personal, cultural, or moral and philosophical faults. The great question of human life is what happens when we die? In the end, that is answerable in life only through faith and reason, but not the pure reason of science.