This has never been discussed before.

With that said, lets keep it as civil as possible and avoid personal attacks. Here are some questions to guide the discussion I'm looking for on this topic.

1. Do you think there would be less war and political conflict without religion? If we had a world without religion, would people find another way to group themselves and attack each other anyway? Isn't it human nature for us to form groups and fight? How many examples are there of completely secular wars?

2. Is religion necessary for keeping the minds of the simple-minded majority from behaving in completely immoral ways? I understand that many atheists are still moral people but would much of the world descend into evil and chaos if the simple minded "proles" had no threat of a boogeyman to get them for eternity?

3. Would religion exist if we found answers to all of the questions?

What if we met advanced aliens from another universe who told us about how we started and how our universe began and explained to us that there were many other universes elsewhere, with no religion and that our universe had been observed to begin spontaneously.

10/4/2012 10:45:46 PM

1. There would be as much or less, but definitely not more
2. Not necessary
3. Yes, people will always ignore answers

10/4/2012 11:31:45 PM

Yes, religion is the most evil and corrupt thing ever created by man.

10/4/2012 11:46:06 PM

by no religion do you mean...

no hierarchical organized social structures offering supra-sensory explanations to/explorations of the meaning of life?

and/or

no supra-sensory explanations to/explorations of meaning of life regardless of where/how said explanations/explorations are derived?

1. i think it impossible for us to truly know human nature (at least presently). however, so long as we live in ego-driven cultures, treating the material universe as if its paramount and failing to see ourselves within every other person, then yeah, people will probably continue grouping up and battling each other.

2. no, but a belief in some objective truth is necessary. i think.

3. no. your hypothetical barely scratches the surface of "all the questions." it actually just brings up more things to be asked.

10/5/2012 12:07:27 AM

1. Maybe a little less. Human nature causes conflict, and religion is one way that is manifested. You can't fix human nature.
2. I do believe religion is a pillar of morality, and removing it will hasten our descent into depravity. Of course, its a huge barrier to reason-based morality. The problem is, depravity is easier than reason-based morality, and humans will choose easy over hard.
3. Human nature tells us we'll never agree on the answers, even if they're beamed into our brains.

10/5/2012 12:45:42 AM

Quote :

"You can't fix human nature."

fix it, how can you even define it? and if you can, please do and provide irrefutable sources, if possible.

10/5/2012 12:48:45 AM

/thread

10/5/2012 1:39:01 AM

you cant fix human nature, this is true. even if religion did not exist, humans would find some other bullshit justification to kill each other en mass. still, id much prefer a world without religious bullshit. if humans are going to kill each other, id rather it be over some justification grounded in reality as opposed to some fantasy nonsense that can not be proven.

10/5/2012 2:46:22 AM

Quote :

"You can't fix human nature."

atheism and intelligence have a very strong correlation, and human intelligence is still evolving.

so, yes you can. just not in time to preserve the planet.

10/5/2012 3:50:29 AM

religion died 500 yrs ago. philosophy and literature died 100 yrs ago. long may the reign of science and internet.

10/5/2012 6:50:48 AM

The universe is all dust and emptiness maaaaaaannn.

10/5/2012 8:37:55 AM

Quote :

"no supra-sensory explanations to/explorations of meaning of life regardless of where/how said explanations/explorations are derived? 1. i think it impossible for us to truly know human nature (at least presently). however, so long as we live in ego-driven cultures, treating the material universe as if its paramount and failing to see ourselves within every other person, then yeah, people will probably continue grouping up and battling each other."

So you think not believing in magic is the reason we're a tribal species with strong ingroup/outgroup tendencies?

It's this thinking that will be our downfall. The key to moving beyond our animal nature is fully understanding it, not denying it.

10/5/2012 9:08:00 AM

Quote :

"you cant fix human nature, this is true. even if religion did not exist, humans would find some other bullshit justification to kill each other en mass. "

Japan has one of the lowest religiosity rates in the world.

A recent (like 2008) prime minister of Japan had a wife who had been abducted by aliens. No, really
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/02/us-japan-election-alien-idUSTRE5812DV20090902

Many Japanese believe there is a bug that lives in the atmosphere, is lighter than air, travels at 100s of km/hr, and sometimes appears in pictures.

Almost all Japanese believe that blood type matters greatly in determining your personality. Horoscopes are insanely popular.

This is all accomplished without believing in a great man in the sky determining the fate of the world.

Also, the US government is libertarian. Compared to what the people want, that is:
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/09/why_is_democrac.html

This is the same argument our founding fathers used to create dumb stuff like the electoral college - that people are so stupid as a group that a true democracy is back to witch trials in a week.

Almost everything that religious groups lobby for has nothing to do with what their founding profits taught.

Individual rights and freedom are really new ideas that stem from the enlightenment, but we take them for granted as default positions. The truth is that for the vast majority of human history power couldn't have given less of a shit about personal liberties. The mentalities of the voting public still reflect this. We're basically no better than the mongols, but are blessed with government institutions that were drafted during a brief and fleeting moment of sanity in human thinking.

If religion is removed, it will re-evolve quickly.

This is because "religion" really evolves from "culture", and culture is just saying whatever doesn't get you burned at the stake at that particular moment.

10/5/2012 11:54:58 AM

Quote :

"nothing to do with what their founding profits taught"

I'm pretty sure that "make the Bush tax cuts permanent" aligns well with that

10/5/2012 12:58:14 PM

well, in their defense, ^ doesn't imply that tax cuts aren't a religious position.

it's just that the seminal figure in Christianity for many southern baptists isn't Jesus, it's their pastor, or a televangelist. Also, going by words spoke, GWB was one of the most religiously-oriented orators of past presidents. It's still intensely religious. Religion can be many, terrible, things.

10/5/2012 2:00:25 PM

Quote :

"If religion is removed, it will re-evolve quickly."

Which is why the real goal should not be "remove religion" but "replace irrationality with rationality." Religion is a by-product of evolutionary sensory errors and mental shortsightedness. We need to keep adapting.

[Edited on October 5, 2012 at 2:19 PM. Reason : .]

10/5/2012 2:18:50 PM

1. Less war, I don't know know. There would still be plenty of war, and many wars that have been waged in the name of religion would still have taken place.
2. Couldn't tell you, but I believe quite a few people would be more immoral than they are now. There would have to be some other control put in place, and it would probably be just as "harmful" as people assume religion is. For example a "shame based" society like feudal Japan.
3. Are you assuming that one of the answers to those questions is not "God exists"?

10/5/2012 2:47:38 PM

.No, I don't think there will be any less war or political conflict without religion. The reason I believe this is because in my opinion, religion is less the cause of war and more a rallying flag for different groups to mobilize and demonize the "other". The fundamental problem is that people are always suspicious of people different from them, and when the blows begin, they highlight the differences to justify their violence against them (Look! They're oppressive, worship a different god, have different skin color, speak a different language, eat their toast butter-side down!). If you remove religion from the equation, they'll simply find a different reason to hate you.

Also, I would note that religion has been displaced in large part by ideology during the 20th century, and the clashes between Nationalists, Capitalists, Communists and Fascists, all non-religious movements, have stacked up equivalent body counts to the "religious" wars of the past.

I should add: I'm not saying religion hasn't been a cause for wars, but I'm merely pointing out that the fundamental problem isn't religion but man's tendency toward tribalism. Removing religion doesn't address that problem and therefore won't change the level of conflict, warfare and strife.

[Edited on October 5, 2012 at 3:29 PM. Reason : Added last paragraph]

10/5/2012 3:25:15 PM

'It won't solve every problem humanity faces' isn't a good reason to NOT get rid of religion, however. I'm all for giving humanity one less excuse to hate each other even if other excuses remain.

And the fact that religion is standing in the way of scientifically understanding our nature and morality means it's a stumbling block for truly getting past our tribal nature that you suggest is the real problem.

As long as people remain convinced that science "can't answer certain questions" we are truly fucked.

[Edited on October 5, 2012 at 3:42 PM. Reason : .]

10/5/2012 3:41:34 PM

A couple of years ago I would have said "absolutely". Now, I worry about what would replace religion. Ideally, reason and rationalism, but that isn't guaranteed.

Traditionally, religion has been a tool to manipulate populations. I have a suspicion that many political or religious leaders, given their access to higher education and information, are not genuinely theists. I think they may construct an illusion of religiosity; this is one of many ways to convince people that "he's one of us".

I think we're living in a time that will be seen as a turning point in human history. The fact that we have information literally at our fingertips is a gamechanger. Even two decades ago, most people had to go to the library to do research. Now you've got the wikipedia article pulled up inside of 30 seconds.

With greater access to information comes reduced reliance on religion for its explanatory power. I think that's why we're seeing a major uptick in the "non-religious" demographic.

I think atheism will become the norm soon enough, so I concern myself with which tools will be used to manipulate people in the coming century. While the trend is moving away from religion as the primary tool, it appears to be moving towards increased use of violence and abuses of state power to get people in line. Globalization and international financial markets have also made it that much easier to control people, even in the absence of religion.

10/5/2012 5:17:26 PM

^^this.

I'm worried that I'm agreeing with disco_stu more and more lately and Bullet is bothering me far less.

10/5/2012 5:22:32 PM

Getting rid of religion wouldn't suddenly turn the world into a peaceful utopia where everyone loved each other and worked towards a common good, but it sure would take away one big reason why people don't. The bottom line is that in order to convince people to act irrationally, they have to believe in something irrational. Religion is in essence, the belief in fairy tells. Believing in fairy tells is dangerous anyway you slice it, and removing that from the equation would ultimately create an environment more conducive to rational decision making.

10/5/2012 5:23:19 PM

It's not as simple as removing religion, though. Societal change happens on a very long timeline and in a complex way. People rarely wake up one day and reject their culture outright.

I would argue that some moral systems based on non-violence, even though these systems are enshrined through religion, are superior to many secular, Western philosophies which allow and actually encourage violence.

What I think is most important is philosophy and how it leads us to our present values. There are religions that include mysticism but also emphasize the importance of self-knowledge and mutual respect. These aspects are absolutely critical to human progress and should not be thrown out simply because they are associated with religious beliefs.

[Edited on October 5, 2012 at 5:40 PM. Reason : ]

10/5/2012 5:39:26 PM

Religion was just a means of convincing the poor and uneducated to die in war and sacrifice their lives for the financial benefit of the ruling class. We don't need that anymore. Now we have capitalism and free markets to satisfy that need.

10/5/2012 7:12:49 PM

If you took it away, people would just recreate it. But, I do think that it has it's bright spots and it is a source of morality for a bunch of people.

10/5/2012 7:14:44 PM

I'm mostly talking about Christianity, and I often write about religion as if it were a person...cause I don't feel like being precise or clear.

From my point of view, religion is largely outdated; we’ve developed so rapidly that it hasn’t been able to keep up. But, in some respects, it has been able to keep up. For instance, if we all stopped being greedy, gluttonous, and vain, our economy would collapse...the church understands that reality and therefore doesn't really put too much emphasis on the 7 deadly sins. Of course, if we became a poor country, and only a handful of people had wealth, the church would be on us all the time to not covet or be too greedy or jealous...don't worry that you're poor/oppressed; your kingdom is in heaven and blah, blah, blah...

And so it's obvious that religion has to adjust with society, and it's just not doing such a good job of it right now.

Quote :

"d357r0y3r: The fact that we have information literally at our fingertips is a gamechanger."

Yes! We can use the Internet to research sciencey stuff so we don’t really need religious explanations as much. And we can also use the Internet to research religion, which makes proselytizing and converting people a fairly difficult and pointless task.

Quote :

"JesusHChrist: Religion was just a means of convincing the poor and uneducated to die in war and sacrifice their lives for the financial benefit of the ruling class. We don't need that anymore. Now we have capitalism and free markets to satisfy that need."

Yes!

Also, we have birth control…so there’s no need to regulate people’s sex lives and force folks to get married. Women are totally out of line with their equal rights and whatnot…so using religion to keep women in line is a lost cause. Since we were crazy enough to give women rights, we know it’s only a matter of time before gays get their rights…so religion will soon be behind on that issue, as well.

Conversely, religion has really dropped the ball on things like gluttony. We’re consuming bacon cheeseburgers like crazy, which is bad for the planet and bad for society, but apparently, gluttony is no longer a problem for God. So God hates things that would be good for society (gay marriage) but doesn’t care about things that are actually bad for society (gluttony)…the church would have a much better chance of hanging around and maintaining its influence if it would adapt and work that kind of nonsense out. They could even embrace science!



Now I was raised outside of religion, but I read a lot of fables/stories that were basically intended to teach values and life lessons. Storybook versions of “The Tortoise and the Hare,” for example, taught us all about being patient/persistent and not being a cocky jerk like the hare. And we learned all that without having to have faith that the story was non-fiction. Certain religious texts, when used in that manner, are surely quite valuable.

Shared holidays/traditions are also very valuable to the community. I like looking for neon-colored plastic eggs filled with candy, getting time off in December, and eating delicious seasonal delights with my family and friends. Those things are necessary.

[Edited on October 5, 2012 at 9:06 PM. Reason : ]

10/5/2012 8:52:46 PM

you cant practically get rid of religion, but you could maybe do stuff like get rid of the protections and special statuses they receive under the law. the idea being to lower religion to the same level as other bunk like astrology. without legal protection it loses alot of its power.

10/5/2012 9:00:41 PM

Quote :

"1. Do you think there would be less war and political conflict without religion? If we had a world without religion, would people find another way to group themselves and attack each other anyway? Isn't it human nature for us to form groups and fight? How many examples are there of completely secular wars?"

I don't think it's human nature to arbitrarily form groups and fight. But we do like to fight over power, money, land/food/natural resources, women, stuff, etc... We use religion to manipulate people into fighting so we can have a better chance of getting whatever it is that we want. But, of course, we also use religion to oppress people into not fighting (like, say, slaves in the Americas).

Quote :

"2. Is religion necessary for keeping the minds of the simple-minded majority from behaving in completely immoral ways? I understand that many atheists are still moral people but would much of the world descend into evil and chaos if the simple minded "proles" had no threat of a boogeyman to get them for eternity?"

Religion has nothing to do with morality. When the church tells you not to cheat on your wife, it's not because it's necessarily immoral to cheat on your wife. It's because it's bad for society if everybody is running around, making fatherless babies with people they're not attached to. When the church told people not to be gluttonous, it's not because it's necessarily immoral to eat/drink a lot. It's because you can't be eating up all the food when other people need to eat too; also, you can't be expecting to have a feast when the king wants everything to himself--you think you're better than the king?

Quote :

"3. Would religion exist if we found answers to all of the questions?"

Yes.

10/5/2012 10:45:57 PM

Quote :

"1. Do you think there would be less war and political conflict without religion? If we had a world without religion, would people find another way to group themselves and attack each other anyway? Isn't it human nature for us to form groups and fight? How many examples are there of completely secular wars?"

Same amount of war. Humans fight because we're stupid, not because of religion. Without religion we'd just use other thing to justify it. Wars are always secular. Religion is used as a means of motivation for war but it's never the cause of the war. The root cause is arrogance and the yearning for power. Even in the supposedly religious wars, it's the arrogance of the aggressor--"we're doing this because our way of life is the right way of life"-- that drives it.

Quote :

" 2. Is religion necessary for keeping the minds of the simple-minded majority from behaving in completely immoral ways? I understand that many atheists are still moral people but would much of the world descend into evil and chaos if the simple minded "proles" had no threat of a boogeyman to get them for eternity?"

Religion is not necessary for anything. It will vanish in the same manner that other things in human history have. Just have to think on a longer time horizon. Recorded human history is a SMALL sliver of history itself.

Quote :

" 3. Would religion exist if we found answers to all of the questions? What if we met advanced aliens from another universe who told us about how we started and how our universe began and explained to us that there were many other universes elsewhere, with no religion and that our universe had been observed to begin spontaneously. "

Religion is an attempt to understand why we and everything we see are here. That want will never vanish.

10/5/2012 10:57:30 PM

Quote :

"Religion is used as a means of motivation for war but it's never the cause of the war."

I'm having a hard time seeing a meaningful difference between "means of motivation" and "cause." Religion is one of the causes and you can't say with confidence that without religion the masses (especially modern Islamists) would be motivated to the same degree that they now are.

Quote :

"Religion is an attempt to understand why we and everything we see are here. That want will never vanish. "

It was the first attempt, and it sucked. Time to move on from "making shit up" to "actually figuring shit out."

10/8/2012 9:04:46 AM

It needs to be said that religion is a failed brand.

Many of the "normal" people I talk to hold on to their religious identity because they say they can't be convinced by the Atheist position. They believe there might be a God, not really like what's described in the bible, but the possibility of us being a part of something greater can't be dismissed.

And I'll try to make the point that... that's the same position as Richard Dawkins. Not only is Dawkins an Atheist, he's a front-runner atheist activist. The majority of the people who agree with him have literally no idea that they agree with him. Atheism has been a truly epic fail in terms of winning converts.

Rallying people under the tent of a non-belief hasn't worked. Is there any reason to think that it should work? Figures like Sagan actually had a sell, which related to the expanse of the cosmos, the grandeur of it all, and the vast amount of knowledge that we don't yet posses. The problem with atheism itself is that it's not even a thing, only the lack of a thing. The "skeptic" movement does at least a little better, but there's a bigger problem.

The recent phenomenon of Atheism has been a trend only on this side of the digital divide. It's probably true that Atheism is a deterministic product of reading and interacting more. This thought smorgasbord, however, is not something everyone has dinned on equally. The problem this creates is more toxic than it seems. Correlation between education and theology is a dead serious problem that can threaten the stability of the world.

Religion is also self-interested, and hardened into self-perpetuating theology through 1000s of years of selective pressure. It's frankly a textbook example of natural selection. Look back to the tribes of Israel selected by God. Look back to Abraham. Religion theology always had to balance two factors for maximum self-perpetuation:
- encouraging missionary work to win converts
- bestowing a sense of privilege on those already in
My simple summation is that Islam has a stronger focus on the latter, while Jesus himself created a culture of the former, which has always been insufficient in Judaism. The new Christian covenant was a critical for the latter half of the Roman empire. The privileged factor is necessary both to strengthen the group in the face of external pressures (including Apostasy punishments), and to encourage growing of the population.

[Edited on October 8, 2012 at 10:22 AM. Reason : ]

10/8/2012 10:21:08 AM

You're all over the place in that post.

One thing I'll respond with is the number of non-believers has been ever increasing in census data. It hasn't dropped off with the "departure" of Sagan and the "rise" of Richard Dawkins.

We had the largest gathering for non-belief in the history of the world last year and you're saying it hasn't worked? It continues to work. It just won't happen overnight because people are still entrenched in their need to be part of something greater.

What they miss is that we really are part of something greater: the Universe and all living things in it. We are connected with every living thing in a very intrinsic way and to the rest of the Universe nearly as strongly. You don't have to look to myths, you just have to look around.

[Edited on October 8, 2012 at 10:44 AM. Reason : .]

10/8/2012 10:44:32 AM

And I think these groups of non-believers are insular. Not insular in the conventional sense, but the outlets organize into filter bubbles. You can scream all you want and you'll never make it onto Fox News. There are too many people out there who groups like that simply don't have access to. We don't have a table to come to and have national discussions at anymore. The people who read TSB are the same people who will read it next year. The religious who are convince-able were probably thoroughly alienated a few months after they registered.

The number of non-believers will increase as per demographics. Exposure to factors increasing the rate of non-belief is obviously more pervasive for the younger generation.

Religiosity has recently decreased in the developed world, but that's cherry picking. Of course it decreased in the developed world, that's entirely predictable. Has it decreased worldwide in the last few decades? I see no clear evidence to think so.

10/8/2012 11:22:18 AM

Quote :

"We had the largest gathering for non-belief in the history of the world last year"

Non-belief, the absence of an interest in something, seems like an odd thing to organize around. It's like some people go to conventions for their various favorite sci-fi shows. But why would anyone go to a convention for people who aren't into sci-fi?

10/8/2012 12:17:16 PM

Quote :

"Which is why the real goal should not be "remove religion" but "replace irrationality with rationality.""

How do we go about doing that? Irrationality is baked into our DNA, among our self-preservation instincts. We have chemicals in our brains specifically designed to suppress or bypass rationality. Also, our environment doesn't necessarily select in favor of rationality.

We humans who ARE dedicated to rational thinking achieved this state through unique environments; environments that do not necessarily promote procreation.

[Edited on October 8, 2012 at 12:25 PM. Reason : .]

10/8/2012 12:21:14 PM

Quote :

"Non-belief, the absence of an interest in something, seems like an odd thing to organize around. It's like some people go to conventions for their various favorite sci-fi shows. But why would anyone go to a convention for people who aren't into sci-fi?"

Because the world is overrun by people are ARE into sci-fi. The only commonality between the opposition is that we don't. At such time when a-SciFi-ists are the overwhelming majority we can stop using that word I guess.

Quote :

"How do we go about doing that? Irrationality is baked into our DNA, among our self-preservation instincts. We have chemicals in our brains specifically designed to suppress or bypass rationality. Also, our environment doesn't necessarily select in favor of rationality."

We have 'rape the shit out of everything that moves' baked into our DNA, and our environment doesn't select for philosophy or mathematics. I think that what makes us different than any other animal is our ability to move beyond our physical nature and limitations.

I want to add that the fact that we can recognize how irrationality is baked into our DNA is a testament to our rational faculties. That we can understand how things like paradolia and sensory error affect us is our strength to overcome these shortcomings.

Quote :

"We humans who ARE dedicated to rational thinking achieved this state through unique environments; environments that do not necessarily promote procreation."

I don't think the endgame requires that every single person be 'dedicated to rational thinking.' Gradually rationality will become even more trusted and irrationality relegated to the dustbin of history. Or it won't and we'll have another dark ages.

I just don't get how we can go through the Enlightenment and be so pessimistic about the influence of rationality.

[Edited on October 8, 2012 at 12:39 PM. Reason : .]

10/8/2012 12:32:15 PM

Quote :

"Non-belief, the absence of an interest in something, "

Some non-believers are very interested in religion and how it influences people's lives and how organizations and politicians and government try to use it to control people. And some of these "non-believers" are interested in eradicating it, or at least lessening it's influence in government.

10/8/2012 5:17:02 PM

The short answer to this is yes.

10/8/2012 5:42:09 PM

Quote :

"Gradually rationality will become even more trusted and irrationality relegated to the dustbin of history. Or it won't and we'll have another dark ages. "

In the US, the amount of people believing evolution has DROPPED recently, the amount of people who believed Obama was a muslim GREW during his term, ~15% of Romney supporters in Ohio pegged him as being more responsible than Obama for killing Bin Laden.

Rationality doesn't naturally grow, it's not more inherently suited for survival than irrationality.

This graph should terrify you:


Even with our unprecedented, immediate access to information never before seen, science can lose ground to mysticism.

Some of this poll could be explained by our political process (right wing politicians using religion as a wedge), but this doesn't change how scary it is.

10/8/2012 6:54:58 PM

Quote :

"We have 'rape the shit out of everything that moves' baked into our DNA, and our environment doesn't select for philosophy or mathematics."

I don't buy this at all. Read about early human brain development and you will understand that cortisol levels in the mother have a significant impact on how the child behaves later in life. Early childhood also plays a critical role. Anyone that feels the need to rape, murder, or behave violently most likely experienced trauma as a child. There are exceptions, but in the majority of cases childhood trauma is the culprit.

I don't believe that humans are inherently unethical. Humans, like most forms of life, respond to their environment. If the feedback they receive from the environment tells them that ethics and virtue don't matter, they're less likely to worry about those things. Those of us that can reason are able to shape our environment in positive ways, especially for children. However, rationality is only one piece of the puzzle. Ethics and morality are just as important when it comes to making the world a better place.

[Edited on October 8, 2012 at 10:07 PM. Reason : ]

10/8/2012 10:03:37 PM

Quote :

"it's just that the seminal figure in Christianity for many southern baptists isn't Jesus, it's their pastor, or a televangelist."

I don't think that's true at all; I just think that they can't seem to look past dogma to see what Jesus was really about.

Quote :

"Non-belief, the absence of an interest in something, seems like an odd thing to organize around. "

Ve ah nihilists, Lebowski. Ve believe in nothing!

Quote :

"Atheism has been a truly epic fail in terms of winning converts."

Yeah, I've said before: an evangelical atheist is fucking annoying most of the time--not because of what they're saying, but how they generally deliver their message. I guess there's no Atheist Seminary, to teach how to present the argument in a palatable, non-abrasive way.

Quote :

"Religion has nothing to do with morality. When the church tells you not to cheat on your wife, it's not because it's necessarily immoral to cheat on your wife."

Agreed on the first statement. On the second, well, I'd say it's immoral to cheat on your wife, but not because the church says so.

Quote :

"I think atheism will become the norm soon enough"

Really? I don't foresee that at all.

I think that maybe atheism will become more tolerated and not viewed as so, for lack of a better word, taboo.

10/9/2012 12:10:54 AM

Quote :

"theDuke866: Agreed on the first statement. On the second, well, I'd say it's immoral to cheat on your wife, but not because the church says so."

Instead of "cheating," I should have said "have sex outside of marriage."

10/9/2012 12:52:26 AM

^^Indeed, I don't see atheism actually becoming hegemonic in this country, but there will be more countries within our lifetimes where it will be.

10/9/2012 1:01:00 AM

moron
If I thought that secularism's victory was assured I wouldn't be outspoken about rationality and atheism. I know that America becoming a Christian Saudi Arabia is a very real possibility (though not incredibly likely short-term). That being said, that chart isn't extremely disheartening, given the overall trend of the bottom track. Give me another decade of data before I start crying chicken little.

d357r0y3r
I admit I was being overly simplistic. My point was simply that traits being "baked into our DNA" (whatever the hell that means, surely it could include gestational-environmental traits instead of just hereditary traits) doesn't necessarily mean that's how we ought to act nor do we need to be constrained by it.

I agree with you though. There is compelling evidence to suggest that morality is normal, both genetically and learned. We spend the first decade of our lives being completely dependent on other humans and conversely later spend decades completely taking care of other humans.

theDuke866

Quote :

"Yeah, I've said before: an evangelical atheist is fucking annoying most of the time--not because of what they're saying, but how they generally deliver their message. I guess there's no Atheist Seminary, to teach how to present the argument in a palatable, non-abrasive way."

You know what's even more annoying? Tone trolls.

Oh and oblig:


lewisje
Any of those countries you're thinking of were once dominated by fundamentalist religion. If it can happen there, it can happen here. It definitely could not happen too, though. We do have the advantage of being one of the first countries with an expressly secular Constitution.

[Edited on October 9, 2012 at 9:09 AM. Reason : .]

10/9/2012 8:55:20 AM

^So what does it mean to be very intrinsically connected to the Universes?

Also, how can we scientifically understand our morality?

Why should we try to overcome our tribal nature?


I don't read books so I don't know what you're talking about.

[Edited on October 9, 2012 at 12:16 PM. Reason : Questions comes from multiple posts. My bad.]

10/9/2012 12:15:03 PM

Would it be better off? Yes. At least without that, all the strife would be over something legit like avarice rather than a mythical sky fairy.

[Edited on October 9, 2012 at 12:23 PM. Reason : *]

10/9/2012 12:23:31 PM

Quote :

"So what does it mean to be very intrinsically connected to the Universes?"

Every atom in your body heavier than helium was forged in the explosion of a dying star. You are literally made up of stardust.

Quote :

"Also, how can we scientifically understand our morality?"

It's a fledgling idea to be sure. Start here if you feel like it:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine/dp/143917122X

It's not scripture on the topic but it's a launching point for having the right kinds of conversations regarding morality.

Quote :

"Why should we try to overcome our tribal nature?"

Because tribal nature + advanced military technology could easily be the end of our species.

10/9/2012 12:30:45 PM

Quote :

"I just don't get how we can go through the Enlightenment and be so pessimistic about the influence of rationality."

Because I can rationalize a lot of seriously evil shit, and I believe the ultimate result of rationality is classical utilitarianism.



[Edited on October 9, 2012 at 4:00 PM. Reason : .]

10/9/2012 3:53:17 PM

A) So?

B) I believe you misinterpreted what I meant by 'pessimistic'. I was unclear. I was referring to being pessimistic about rationality's ability to prevail over superstition, not being pessimistic about rationality's philosophical implications. As if being goal-oriented with morality is a bad thing.

[Edited on October 9, 2012 at 4:08 PM. Reason : .]

10/9/2012 4:02:02 PM

New poll out, 20% of Americans now claim "no religious" belief.

10/9/2012 5:05:38 PM