Religion

If its my wording, than mea culpa: I should have said "scientific reason/athiesm are optimally adapted to our current environment" which is to say "science/reason/atheism will propagate" which is to say "those who embrace these ideas will (in most cases) do well."

If its the spirit I stand by it.

Though it may seem a paradox, there is no promise that an understanding of evolution, atheism, or any of that make for a culture which is better adapted long term to survival. Specifically atheism, or the idea that there are no religious deities, is a concept which has been available to humans since the beginning, yet religious ideas have, for whatever reason, propagated to most corners of the earth. Its incredibly uncomfortable to admit, but the truth may be that knowing the truth damages people in some cases.

An example can be seen where a partial truth is worse than a total distortion: Think of a game, the board can be represented by 100 bits. Its perceived by a robotic player, which has a 100 bit sensory device, which reduces it down in some ordered way to a 10 bit conception of the game. So the robot views a 100 bit universe with a 10 bit mind. Now if we demand the robot have a truthful conception of some of the game, it must always be aware of only 10% of the board. However if we allow the robot to believe in a distortion of reality, coupled with an evolutionary function to sort out what works, the robot can evolve 2^10 different strategies, which correspond to 2^10 groupings of game states (perceptions of the game) for all of the 2^100 possible game states on the board. Whereas the first robot, which sees a small truthful part of the board, can't even identify the 2^100 game states, because it only sees 10% of the board at any given time. It loses because its obsessed with truth, while the other robot is happy to hold in its 10 bit mind a delusion, which through evolutionary process, has been shown to be optimal.

A REAL possibility exists that knowing the truth can be bad for you. I'm not saying this because I think its cool, but because it tortures me. Refute me, please, refute me!