I don't know if I agree. I mean, atheism's function seems clear to me - to organize and marginalize traditional religions. You can't compare that to not being an astronaut or not believing in dragons. If everyone in the world believed deeply in dragons without evidence... then not believing in dragons would all of a sudden have an important function.By it's very nature it doesn't have a function. Does the fact that I'm not on astronaut have a function? Does that fact that I don't believe in dragons serve a function? No.
Sure I could, if I spent all my time talking about how stupid astronauts and dragons are, and found others like me to talk about how much better we are for not being astronauts or not believing in dragons. Again, don't get me wrong, people HAVE found a function to atheism, which is to belong to a group and counter culture to religion. But I said it has no "inherent" function, which it doesn't. Exactly, we would have created that function. Inherently it does not have one.You can't compare that to not being an astronaut or not believing in dragons.
If everyone in the world believed deeply in dragons without evidence... then not believing in dragons would all of a sudden have an important function.
Alright, I think this become pointless nit picking because we essentially agree.
We do, I just think my post wasn't very clear.