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But such data as we currently have can't be encouraging to the atheist cause. As many studies have shown, atheism is especially associated with higher levels of education and with Western Europe, and highly educated people and Western Europeans tend to have low birth rates—less than replacement level, in many cases. If religious people are having lots of offspring and atheists aren't having many at all, that would suggest that it's almost impossible for atheists to gain ground, evolutionarily speaking.
(Here, I must admit, I am but summarizing the conceit of the movie Idiocracy, which is extremely crass but also quite germane to this topic. Reihan Salam explains why here, not neglecting to note some of the less edifying aspects of the film. You have been warned.)
So here's where I'm headed with this thought experiment: if the evolutionary account of religious belief that many atheists are now promoting is correct, then atheists don't have much of a future. Their own arguments, plus some elementary demographic data, show that their position cannot become dominant. The only real chance that atheism has to flourish is if it's wrong. If the Christian anthropology, for instance, happens to be true, then we will expect people to rebel against God, to act in violation of his will. But we will also expect them not to want to admit that that's what they're doing. So they will try to argue that their actions, however sinful, however violent, intolerant, and cruel, are somehow in keeping with God's will. But eventually the cognitive dissonance of that position is likely to become too much for them, at which point they might find—like that one–time Russian Orthodox seminarian Josef Stalin—that the easier path is simply to deny the existence of the God who otherwise would be their Judge.
So if Christianity is true (and a similar case could be made with regard to some other religions, though not all), then we might well expect atheism to flourish, at least in certain places and at certain times. But if the evolutionary argument against religious belief is true, then atheism is doomed.
Perhaps my thought experiment has gone awry somewhere—I am not convinced of its correctness—but I am sure of one thing. After having spent a great deal of time and energy trying to come up with an evolutionary explanation of religion, atheists now need to turn their attention to a still greater puzzle: What's the evolutionary explanation for atheism?
Alan Jacobs teaches English at Wheaton College in Illinois; his Bad to the Bone: an Exemplary History of Original Sin (HarperOne) will appear in Spring 2008. His Tumblelog is here.
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