Religion as Anti-Religion

Metafilter linked to an article about the evolutionary role of religion. I agree with some of the author's points, at least about the possible evolutionary role of religion, but I think that his conclusions the religion serves no purpose are utterly incorrect. To point out the inconsistency of athiesm - that it, as a belief-structure, requires as much faith as any religion - would be the easy, snarky way out.

Rather, he misses an extraordinarily simple but important counter-point: that if religion has evolved, and done so well for itself (in Darwinian terms), then it not only serves a purpose for humanity, but perhaps an extremely important purpose.

The atheist / religious dichotomy never ceases to fascinate me.