What if Atheism was the dominant concept?

[Zhavric]

If this often-touted religious theory were correct-that a turning away from God is at the root of all societal ills-then we would expect to find the least religious nations on earth to be bastions of crime, poverty, and disease and the most religious nations to be models of societal health. A comparison of highly irreligious countries with highly religious countries, however, reveals a very different state of affairs. In reality, the most secular countries-those with the highest proportion of atheists and agnostics-are among the most stable, peaceful, free, wealthy, and healthy societies. And the most religious nations-wherein worship of God is in abundance-are among the most unstable, violent, oppressive, poor, and destitute.

One must always be careful, of course, to distinguish between totalitarian nations where atheism is forced upon an unwilling population (such as in North Korea, China, Vietnam, and the former Soviet states) and open, democratic nations where atheism is freely chosen by a well-educated population (as in Sweden, the Netherlands, or Japan). The former nations' nonreligion, which can be described as "coercive atheism," is plagued by all that comes with totalitarianism: corruption, economic stagnation, censorship, depression, and the like. However, nearly every nation with high levels of "organic atheism" is a veritable model of societal health.

...

A country's suicide rate stands out as the one indicator of societal health in which religious nations fare much better than secular nations. According to the 2003 World Health Organization's report on international male suicide rates (http://www.who.int/en/), the nations with the lowest rates of suicide were all highly religious, characterized by extremely high levels of theism (usually of the Muslim and Catholic varieties). Of the ten nations with the highest male suicide rates, five were distinctly irreligious nations ranked among the top twenty-five nations listed earlier. These five are Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Russia, and Slovenia. It is interesting to note that of the nations currently experiencing the highest rates of suicide-including the five just mentioned-nearly all are former Soviet/communist-dominated societies. (The nations of Scandinavia, where organic atheism is strongest, do not have the highest suicide rates in the world, as is widely thought to be the case.)

In sum, countries with high rates of organic atheism are among the most societally healthy on earth, while societies with nonexistent rates of organic atheism are among the most destitute.

Council for Secular Humanism

[arielmessenger]

Atheists are always a minority of the population because most whether they themselves have had such experiences at least know that spiritual experiences have been leading human social organization for most of human history.

The modern democracy movement only develops to facilitate differing social group experience of spirituality so that none dominate the community's freedom to choose ideologies or theologies. But it is theologies that always will win out over ideologies because there's no way to get rid of spiritual reality, no way to get rid of the Archetypes that will forever re-occur in human experience, the Archetype of God and gods never extinguished from the human mind because, why?

Because God guides us, not ourselves. However, you can only really know this by experiencing spiritual consciousness which with atheist being left-brain dominate people is hard for them to relate to intellectually as an abstract concept let alone experience for themselves. So we will always have the vocal spiritually blind wondering why the fuss over a phenomena they cannot see which they therefore think doesn't exist. But it does..it won't ever go away because this world is not the result of chance play of random variables but is a Script written from the beginning of time and space with ourselves actors acting out eternal archetypal dramas in order to learn moral lessons in preparation for the world to come.

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: arielmessenger Because God guides us, not ourselves.

In that case, God has a lot of explaining to do. Not only did he rape my sister, he's killing Jews, burning witches, torturing the innocent (oh wait, he already does that.. we know that :) ), driving drunk, doing pot, shooting people, robbing banks...

So, since I'm just part of this play that you yourself say God has written from the beginning of time, why am I so damn unlucky as to get the role of the moral modest kid that gets good grades and loves his family and friends but ends up in Hell to suffer forever and ever and ever? :]

[Jack]

atheist being left-brain dominate people is hard for them to relate to intellectually as an abstract concept let alone experience for themselves.

Theories such as that are hard to reconcile with we atheists who are former theists. Religion is far from an abstract concept. As a left-hander, I qualify as a right-brainer. What other suppositions support your theory?

[Kamehameha34]

Atheists who do bad things don't connect bad things to atheism.

Your reasoning is as follows:

Some X's are Y's > X causes Y

This is flawed reasoning, because there could very well be X's that are not Y's, or in this case, atheists who aren't immoral - and there are certainly atheists with morals.

I could also defer to the millions who died in the crusades, or the hundreds of thousands, if not millions who've died because of Islamic terrorism. I don't use this to link religion to the causation of immorality.

[pahl]

Its a pretty interesting question. I would like to think that the world would be a better place, with logical, peacefull people everyewhere. But im not sure. Religion might had and still have a calming and restricting effect on some humans.
Atheism is afterall a pretty scary concept, no life after life, nothing you do will ever matter, your insignificant, even less then that. Its something i myself can only realise logically, but if i could really realise it i might go mad. And i dont put enough faith in humanity to think that everyone could cope with this, many might need the comfort of religion.

[another day]

atheist being left-brain dominate people is hard for them to relate to intellectually as an abstract concept let alone experience for themselves.

Crap. I'm atheist and highly right brain dominant...artistic, musical, linguistic. not mathematical at all. This is simply a falsehood.

[The_Genius]

Quote by: Zhavric I can't help but notice that you failed to provide a link to your list. Please not that this is in violation of volconvo.com rules.

List of countries by suicide rates....

List of countries by suicide rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Atheist stats.....

Adherents.com: Atheist Statistics | Agnostic

[The_Genius]

Quote by: rez which type of suicide are you referring to? The suicide where you place explosives in a car and blow up some kind of institution because your god says to or the suicide where you decide it is not worth to live life anymore? Your topic seems to be proving that beliefs and faith corrupt the human mind.

Suicide because of the lack of respect for human life, which atheism encourages in an indirect manner.

[The_Genius]

Quote by: Zhavric It would be a lot harder for middle easter terrorists to get people to blow themselves up for "the cause". Honestly, we'd still have problems, but it would be a lot harder to motivate people into doing things they wouldn't otherwise do (see above). We'd still have people fighting over land & resources, but people would probably think of life far more preciously if they weren't deluding themselves into thinking some sky-god was going to give them some reward for "dying gloriously" in combat.

I think life on Earth would be seriously affected. The evolution myth will be taught in every schools to brainwash masses with theories that lack scientific foundations and we may experience more genocides since atheist leaders like Hitler would promote social darwinism. I'm glad atheism is ot the dominant concept.

:)

It's a common misconception that morality exists only from religion. As highly intelligent social mammals, our morals come from our social biological instincts and our collective interpretations of those instincts.

Instincts??? I can't imagine a society where people have no morals but they act and react with instincts. Complete anarchy comes to my mind...

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: The_Genius List of countries by suicide rates.... List of countries by suicide rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Atheist stats..... Adherents.com: Atheist Statistics | Agnostic

Where's the correlation?

I'm not saying there isn't, but you haven't shown a correlation. I could also show that as the pirate population decreased, global warming increased. Does that necessarily mean there's a correlation?

You're almost there..

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: The_Genius Instincts??? I can't imagine a society where people have no morals but they act and react with instincts. Complete anarchy comes to my mind...

That's nice.

It's a shame you forgot to support anything you've just said.

Please, please, address my posts on the matter.

Also, to think you actually need to have an all powerful authority figure tell you not to kill or abuse others is simply frightening. What's even more frightening is that this same authority figure also tells us to do much worse and people actually listen.

It's also quite disturbing to see you claim that atheists live in anarchy. No, it's not just disturbing, it's incredibly rude and highly delusional.

Quote by: The_Genius List of countries by suicide rates.... List of countries by suicide rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Atheist stats..... Adherents.com: Atheist Statistics | Agnostic

I don't see the correlation, let alone causation, in these numbers. No doubt, I'm missing something. Please explain how you arrived at the conclusion "Countries with large atheist population also tops the chart when it comes to highest suicide rates.... "

Thanks
S.

[Jack]

Suicide because of the lack of respect for human life, which atheism encourages in an indirect manner.

Atheism doesn't address the value of human life. There are atheists who do and atheists who do not value life. Those who are also humanists would value life more than theists, since they wouldn't see the "them and us" division between believers and non-believers like religion teaches.

The evolution myth will be taught in every schools to brainwash masses with theories that lack scientific foundations and we may experience more genocides since atheist leaders like Hitler would promote social darwinism.

Just because you didn't pay attention in class and learn the science that supports evolution doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The only organized opposition to evolution comes from the theistic crowd with their agenda to have religion taught in public schools. And Hitler was a Catholic.

I can't imagine a society where people have no morals but they act and react with instincts.

I can't either. There's no evidence that atheists are any more immoral than theists. So your imaginary society is just that, imaginary.

Quote by: The_Genius ...since atheist leaders like Hitler would promote social darwinism. I'm glad atheism is ot the dominant concept.

I can't find any evidence that Hitler was an atheist. In fact according to a Wikipedia article, <<Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia>>, "Hitler was opposed to state atheism...". Do you have some evidence that Hitler was an atheist? I ask because you seem to making a number of assertions of fact that do not seem to be true, which, I'm sure you would agree, could reflect on the quality of your arguments.

Also, I'm not sure that Social Darwinism (which had nothing to do with Darwin) precludes, as you imply, a belief in deities.

Regards
S.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: The_Genius List of countries by suicide rates.... List of countries by suicide rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Atheist stats..... Adherents.com: Atheist Statistics | Agnostic

Sweden, you'll agree then, has the highest percentage of atheists and isn't even in the top 20. Thank you for helping me debunk your argument.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: The_Genius I think life on Earth would be seriously affected. The evolution myth will be taught in every schools to brainwash masses with theories that lack scientific foundations and we may experience more genocides since atheist leaders like Hitler would promote social darwinism. I'm glad atheism is ot the dominant concept.

Evolution is evidenced. Why do you keep calling it a myth?

Instincts??? I can't imagine a society where people have no morals but they act and react with instincts. Complete anarchy comes to my mind...

Complete lack of education in South Africa is what should be coming to mind. We are descended from human beings who learned to instinctively work together. We see similar behavior in all social mammals including whales, elephants, some felines, and canines. As I've already detailed, religion seeks to take credit for out instinctive morality.

Your inability to conceptualize this very simple concept does not in any way invalidate it.

:)

[Athena]

Quote by: webjedi Damn you people post fast and furious don't you? No sooner do I respond to your post than you write another one. Anyway, here is my response to the following arguments: No, I am crediting the Ten Commandments as the foundation of our legal system. Fear of jailing keeps people from misbehaving, and in the past jailing usualy meant torture (hence the iron fist of the Catholic Church). However, I do find it difficult to bleive that most people don't modify their behavior due to the possibility that they will suffer after death. Also, I do not argue against or for any aspect or part of atheist beliefs or concepts that does not in some way involve the Ten Commandments. In other words, my concept of the Universe is not based on simply a "deist" philosophy, it is based on a specific form of deism, which has it's roots in the handing down of laws from God - THE God. I cannot argue for any other philosophies because I do not share them. You are redirecting: not believing in something above you leads to the pursuit of your own selfish desires. Your statement is arguably correct, but you are misdirecting. During the ~250 years of the Crusades no more than 5 Million people were killed. In just one century - the 20th - 100 Million people were killed by atheist governments. The argument that religion increases body count is not supported by empirical evidence. Also, the bloodiest societies since the birth of Jesus have been the non-monotheistic ones: Mongol Conquests - 13th Century - 40 Million people killed An Lushan Revolt - 8th Century - 36 Million people killed Fall of the Ming Dynasty - 17th Century - 25 Million people killed Taiping Rebellion - 19th Century - 20 Million people killed Some good men lie, some bad men do good deeds - what's your point? Everyone agrees murder is wrong, does that mean it won't happen? By your logic there is no point in having a law against murder since some people will not abide by it. Our legal system is founded on the principal that men are created equal by God - not made equal because you woke up this morning and decided it was so. You're saying we should throw that out?? OK, so you pejoratively characterize belief in God as "scaring people into good behavior", well isn't that what our legal system does? Are you arguing that if there were no laws or jails crime would be at the same or lower level it is today? The NAZIs created a "individual moral system", are you seriously going to argue "who am I to say the NAZIs were wrong?" Atheists may also order the execution of all homosexuals - like the NAZIs did. I don't know who wins the noticeability contest you are eluding to, but I would venture to guess crime is lower among people who regularly attend a monotheistic place of worship than those who do not. A minority of populists living in a free society is expected. I don't get it, are you saying other people will love and respect others simply because you do? There are enough people in the World that, without laws, following their own "core attitudes" among a very small portion of them without objective rules of conduct would would lead to widespread crime and misery. Humans need objective rules or we kill each other. Period. - - Joseph Stalin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Stalin's role in the fortunes of the Russian Orthodox Church is complex. Continuous persecution in the 1930s resulted in its near-extinction: by 1939, active parishes numbered in the low hundreds (down from 54,000 in 1917) PS: Don't insult people. - - Athena, you contradicted yourself: Under this system the laws can be changed as our knowledge increases, and with new knowledge we reason why a law should be made or changed. Under this system, laws are based our knowledge of universal laws. These laws do not change, only our understanding of them changes Am I missing something? Are you talking about the Christians who persecuted the Jews during the Inquisition or the Christians who hid the Jews from the NAZIs? Are you talking about the Catholics or the Protestants or the Baptists or the Mormons? You are lumping a lot of people together. The splitting of Christianity into different denominations shows that Christians do process information and modify their conduct - religion has not precluded that. Philosophers don't have a lock on reason. Apparently she wasn't a very good teacher. Democracy in Greece was nothing like our concept of democracy. Modern day Saudi Arabia is more democratic than Greece. BTW, why would a goddess - a female - not grant voting or even citizenship rights to women? Does that sound even remotely logical to you? Prove it.

Come on, Athena is not a supernatural being. My point was human beings can make their own laws without a God giving them laws, and they do a much job of it when they study something besides a holy book. Our present democracies were inspired but Athens democracy and philosophers have everything to do with us having science and technology and a more moderate religion with democracy. We have evolved, building on the past and still have a ways to go. Advancing, however, is very difficult when the masses are largely ignorant of what has gone before.

I think you are missing a lot.

[Athena]

Quote by: arielmessenger Atheists are always a minority of the population because most whether they themselves have had such experiences at least know that spiritual experiences have been leading human social organization for most of human history. The modern democracy movement only develops to facilitate differing social group experience of spirituality so that none dominate the community's freedom to choose ideologies or theologies. But it is theologies that always will win out over ideologies because there's no way to get rid of spiritual reality, no way to get rid of the Archetypes that will forever re-occur in human experience, the Archetype of God and gods never extinguished from the human mind because, why? Because God guides us, not ourselves. However, you can only really know this by experiencing spiritual consciousness which with atheist being left-brain dominate people is hard for them to relate to intellectually as an abstract concept let alone experience for themselves. So we will always have the vocal spiritually blind wondering why the fuss over a phenomena they cannot see which they therefore think doesn't exist. But it does..it won't ever go away because this world is not the result of chance play of random variables but is a Script written from the beginning of time and space with ourselves actors acting out eternal archetypal dramas in order to learn moral lessons in preparation for the world to come.

I agree with

know that spiritual experiences have been leading human social organization for most of human history

. And, don't you think the Aztecs gave the best explanation of how a spiritual power has directed our evolution with an end result in mind? Their understanding of math and how one thing unfolds into another is totally awesome, isn't it? It is so sad the holy books of the God of Abraham religions do not include this superior knowledge. Proving there is no way these holy books could be the word of God. They are far too inadequate.

However, you seem to approve of democracy and we all know, God chooses kings and we should obey without question our king whom God has chosen. So I am confused about what you belief?

[xyzer]

I think Athena is on the right track? I'm not sure that humahkind as it became tribal and more politically centralized didn't realize that there had to be a set of social rules imposed on the people or chaos would erupt! In the animal world the dominant lay down the social rules..in human society rationality prevails and humans realized blanket rules of conduct can be peacefully prescibed rarther than forced on the weaker elements..thus religion entered the picture.

As mentioned it was an awe inspired way of explaining the dangers and vagaries of natural events that humans couldn't control!. But when rules of social conduct were needed what better vehicle to use than religion and its moral prescriptions, and so called penalties, for social interaction. It thus became a recorded foundation for morality and the laws that enforced social control!

I sure agree tha most non believers(aethists included) are law abiding and certainly realize that there is a need for codified brakes on human behavior! Belief systems have little to do with societal laws now days..a fact the founders of this country believed as they provided for freedom from government approved religion, freedom to practice ones ownbelief system and a rule of law..plus equality under the law!