What is the function of religion?

[Faith No More]

Not directly, but that's simply a logical consequence of the hypothesis. Your argument is of the same type that creationist do against evolution: you can't show some intermediary stage for them, and thus, they claim, eveolution is crap ... But if evolution is true, then obviously nature has not kept some fossils for us simply to convince the creationist.

Of course, if it is the case that religion has made society really fit, then there should be no non-religious societies.

But if it is as damaging as the New Atheists claim, I wonder why cultural selection has not done away with it?

What I posed is an alternative hypothesis for the New Atheist story, which makes much less sense and is even less testable.

And: I am not trying to convince you to think that religion should or should not exist. It will exist whatever you or me think of it, and trying to bash it, btw, is not the best startegy to get rid of its harmful forms, at least in my opinion.

I'm not making any argument. I'm pointing out that the premise of yours, that all societies have been religious and religion has benefited them, is impossible to prove. You're just making an assertion that you can't back up and exepcting everyone to just accept it.

The rest of your post is just fallacy ridden nonsense. I mean, if cocaine is so harmful, how come cultural selection hasn't done away with it? Because people don't necessarily choose to engage in activites simply by looking at the benefits or harm they provide.

And bashing religion itsn't a strategy to get rid of it. It's a coping mechanism for the fact that I have live with human beings that prefer to push their brand of delusion onto others. If people would learn to keep their fucking religion to themselves, there would be a lot less to bash.