It takes a very special and very strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout "Oh, random fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!" or "Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!"
To the precise extent that we are spared, even for a moment, we degenerate - and this Iron Law applies to every dimension and scale of existence: phylogenetic and ontogenetic, individual, social, and institutional, genomic, cellular, organic, and cultural. There is no machinery extant, or even rigorously imaginable, that can sustain a single iota of attained value outside the forges of Hell.