It clarifies a little clearly to the ignorant theists what atheits profess science can do.
Edit: can do in theory.
Three centuries of science has brought life expectancy up from the mid 40s to the mid 80s; Reduced child mortality so much that most people no longer know what it's like to attend the funeral of an infant (a routine occurrence before science came along); Eliminated smallpox, and made other diseases (measles, mumps, rubella, typhoid, cholera, polio, malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever, and many others) so rare that people question the value of vaccinations against them; Enabled communication of words and pictures across the entire planet in real-time; Enabled travel to the far side of the world in less than a day; Provided luxuries to ordinary people that even kings and emperors couldn't dream of (Henry VIII was so wealthy and powerful that he took on the Pope; But neither man ever saw a flushing toilet, and anyone who has spent any significant time camping can tell you how luxurious that is. Neither ever saw soft toilet paper either); Put men on the moon, and into orbit; Ended famine; Invented computers and the internet (thereby enabling us to have this discussion at all); Given us electricity, providing safe and reliable light, the ability to cook without fire, the abilty to heat our homes, microwave a burrito, watch a movie (at home, or in a cinema); and millions of other things, some mundane, some spectacular, all of which would have left any medieval person in awe.
Before that, we had over a thousand years of religion, which achieved three eighths of fuck-all.
It turns out that trying to understand the world through prayer and study of scripture is completely ineffective; While trying to understand it through science achieves things that I would call 'miraculous', if it wasn't abundantly clear that miracles never achieved even one billionth of what science has done.
To suggest that religion is a competitor against science, as a means to understanding our existence, is rather more crazy than to suggest that the Talbot Road Primary School under-8s third eleven are a competitor against Manchester City, for the 2020 FA Cup.
Science doesn't need atheists to 'profess' that it can do stuff. Science did stuff, and still is doing stuff, that speaks for itself.
Nature wants you, and five of your eight children, to be dead by the time you reach forty years old. Religion didn't change that one iota in several thousand years. Everything better than that was brought to you by science.
