The key word here is “evolve.” If I approach the issue through the eyes of evolution, then my core focus shifts from the observable “now” to survival. Ingrained into all human beings is the innate desire to survive — to not die. Higher reasoning doesn’t seem to change that desire, instead it masks it into the abstract.

We all desire to live forever and religious belief (including less organized, but culturally transmitted superstitions) communicate that one can live forever. Therefore, religious belief, and it’s prevalence across all humankind, can be described as a form of survivalism. It quite possibly is the evidence of what survivalism looks like in the mind of the conscious self.