A world of atheism

1. Communism tried to create such a world with horrific results. The result was an absence of morality, widespread corruption and human craving for spirituality that is very deep, almost as if something necessary was deprived.

"Some experts argue that all people have an inherent need for spirituality, and without the option of religion, they may become desperate for a belief in something greater than themselves. Communism has rejected religion, but has still tried to tap into the human need for spirituality. In a way, they have created a new religion called Deification of the State. Infamous communists like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong used this new kind of religion to make people believe they were virtual gods. The people of their countries were encourage (or forced, in some cases) to worship them. Ironically, by rejecting religion, communism has become a kind of theocracy." http://www.geocities.com/inyukun/communism.html

Worship of the Emperor was common during New Testament times ... so this is a political thing, to mix up God and country. Or as Bob Dylan wrote in a song, "You've gotta serve somebody."

For all that people like to talk about the Inquisition and Christians persecuting heretics, the world has seen no atrocity like that of the "no higher power" communist Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia.

2. For those who accept evolution, the presence of an enduring human characteristic is the result of that characteristic in some way or another encourages the survival of the species. Again, not a proof of anything, but a question whether religious belief (whether true or a delusion) helps people cope and survive challenges.

3. Another thought: some scientists believe that there are centers in the brain which predispose people to have a faith concept of their existence. This is not a proof that God exists or anything, just that religious thinking is typically human and has a spot in the brain. An article is here: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=503
God on the Brain: The Neurobiology of Faith by Greg Peterson (Greg Peterson is assistant professor of religion at Thiel College in Greenville, Pennsylvania. This article appeared in the Christian Century, January 27, l999. Copyright by The Christian Century Foundation, used by permission. This text was prepared for Religion Online by John C. Purdy.)
Review of The Humanizing Brain: Where Religion and Neuroscience Meet. By James B. Ashbrook and Carol Rausch Albright. Pilgrim, 233 pp., $20.95.
The Christian Century is a highly respected, liberal theological journal.

Hope this is helpful.

Dave Z

Wild Gold

While I do beleive that a world such as this would technically, I do forsee some problems which may occur:
a(con): Faith in things such as religion helps to give our people hope and purpose in lives. Imagine if someone was to go through a trauma which scared their mental self deeply then could they truly rely on this world? That person would give up on it, wouldn't they, if they saw the world turn on them, or be a danger to them in any sense? Taht is where religion gives us hope. After we lose hope on our world we ultimately turn our eyes towards something past the world-something unworldly and ethreal. So, to make this point, it matters not whether the god actually DOES exist, but rather that the beleiving in it helps to keep us alive. I add this up to where while a world such as this would not be bad, after the people and the world have failed themselves in any case than recovery will just not be possible .
b(pro): I do, however, agree that religion has caused quite a few wars for this world. Peoples veiws on religion have caused them to do things that would normally be unthought of or unforgivable. In this think of the massacre that has always and continues to happen with the jews, or the problems always happening in the middle east.
c(cons of the previous): Unfortunately while what was mentioned in (b) is true, more often then not it is seen that religion finds itself as more of an EXCUSE for war, than the actual reason for it to occur. For example, think of the crusades. The crusades were deemed holy wars by the pope and its people, and while they were originally for that purpose they eventually found themselves switching to more of an excuse for money in their later days, that is the same with many of, but not all, of the wars in medeival Europe(rennaisance was a completely different story). People who wish for blood to be spilt will often times use any excuse for that lust to be quelled.

This is an intersting subject; as previously stated the left temporal lobe is responsible for religious feelings -- and religious visions can actually be induced (this is why people with temporal lobe epilepsy often have religious/spiritual delusions). These "seizures" can actually be induced in functional humans without epilepsy, but not predictably or consistently.

If you're interested in innate religious nature you might want to check out the works of Dr. V.R.Ramachandran (I'm pretty sure that's right) -- he has an excellent book called "Phantoms in the Brain" that actually covers a considerable number of other delusions that give us interesting views on how weird and retarded people can be.

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Communism is a government controlled by the people, for the people. Stalin was a dictator, pure and simple. He controlled everything.

Same goes for Kim Jong Il. He is a dictator. Having a dictator in a communist country is a contradiction.

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I think that if you just took a random bunch of babies and secluded them and they started up their own society without any notion of anyone else's, over time they would develop a sort of god. The reason I think this is because we, as people, have come up with gods at all points in history. Many different cultures in many different times had gods, so it's not like a fad I don't think.

HOWEVER. If you took a group of atheists, then that would be a different story, and I really don't think God would play a role at all. Well, maybe in their children...

Well anyways, I think that as science gets more expansive, the number of atheists will go up. I think that as more things are explained, we have less of a need to have it explained in another way, such as god. But as long as people are brought up with religion, a lot of people will believe in god.

As for society, I'm not sure much would change. Our government prides itself as being separated from the church, so it can't have too much influence as it is.

Atheists aren't evil, they just don't believe in things blindly or in things that don't make sense, or things that can't be proven. Religion is not the only motivation for people to be decent human beings.

Honestly, I don't think the world would be that much different. Maybe less church buildings, missionaries, and holidays, but other than that, I think it would be very similar.

That's my 2 cents.

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Every successful civilization has had a belief in some sort of 'higher power' whether is was God, Mother Earth, the Great Spirit, the Emperor, Zeus and the Olymians, spirits of the ancestors, etc.

I don't think that the communist examples are conclusive. I don't think there was widespread corruption because communism is godless, I think there was widespread corruption because people could get away with it. My guess is that there is just much as corruption in a theocracy as there was in the U.S.S.R. Just a guess.

I think that widespread atheism would affect people on a personal scale, but not a societal scale. I know several atheists who are the most moral people I know. If there was no god to punish me for killing somebody, I would not just run into the street with an AK-47 and start blasting people away. I would still have to answer to the police and to the moral code that my (atheist) parents taught me. This is a very extreme example, but even atheists will refuse to shoplift on principle.

However, I think it could very well change people's personal lives. We would have to look much harder to find meaning and beauty in things. As a society, we would have to think a good deal more to come up with meaning in life. I don't think that that's a bad thing by any means, I think people should hold their beliefs up to serious thought, but it may very well make people more depressed. Being told something is easier than figuring out something for yourself.

In general, I think that society would not change that much, except that it might be easier for a charismatic leader to lead the masses, because they'd be looking for a person to fill that void in their brains. I think that it would be great for scientists, but I think that people would, in general, be more sad and aloof.

Personally, I would like to see it happen. I just want to learn what people believe if they are taught from birth the virtues of logic, but that might be a cruel thing to wish upon people.

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Thinking more about it, there is a possibility that someone, who was an atheist, will observe events that force him to conclude that there is a higher power. Perhaps he decides that he is going to be good and kind to people from now on and immediately finds a $100 bill. If more events happen like that, he would conclude that karma exists. People would probably then follow him, because it seems statistically unlikely for many events like this to happen, and people generally want to search for patterns. This would lead to the beginning of a church.

Also, if the question is, "what if there were a society where everyone was brought up from birth as atheists?" or "what if everyone suddenly stopped believing in God?" the former would be stabler, but I think the latter would leave too many holes in too many people's world for riots not to break out.

I think that with humans, an atheistic society would most likely be unsustainable because humans generally want to believe in something other than chance. However, a perfectly logical race of, say, aliens would eventually figure out the nature of whatever universe they were in. If you set up your novel to have no god, the aliens would figure this out, given enough time. If the novel's universe is Godless, the aliens would figure this out as well. I think that the scientific method truly can find the truth, given a sufficient amount of time for experimentation.

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If you read the section of the Bible portraying Noah's life, you get a glimpse of the horrific nature of such a world.
He and his famly were the only people to believe God was real and obey his commands, the men not of God would take women and use and abuse them, spend all day drinking and theiving, steal from and beat the elderly, commit murder for gain and a multitude of other horrific sins.

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Honestly I don't think it would be that different. People would probably be roughly the same, just their reason's for being good would change. Instead of, "I'm not going to do this because God doesn't want me to," the reasoning might go something like, "I'm not going to do this because it will screw other people over".

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