Maybe someone has already asked this before, but if anyone has any knowledge of such a society, I would appreciate it if they would let me know.
If you could call Communism a culture or communist nations civilizations, then I suppose the answer would be “yes”.
Depends on what you mean by god(s).
Buddhist societies do not believe in god in any kind of western sense, and perhaps in any sense at all. And there have been societies which practice ancestor-worship, and obviously that’s a long way removed from the western concept of god as well. And Confucianism is not a theistic system, so a predominantly Confucian society would meet your criteria also.
If you ask the question “have there been any cultures or civilisations with no religion” I suspect, but I don’t know, that the answer is no, there haven’t.
The Taoists don’t believe in God, as we usually think of God; that is, a separate, omnipotent, all-knowing, more-or-less-benevolent being. They believe that all matter and all energy are God. You, me, Britney Spears, rain, wind, and even Dick Cheney are God. There’s no holier than thou, only holy as thou. There’s also no unholy. Everybody is as good as gold, and as good as mud. The light and dark sides of the yin-yang symbol are the same circle, just as the sunny and shaded sides of a river are the same river.
I have read that Mongolia has no indigenous concept of any god or religion. Can’t remember where I read it, though it was probably an atheist website.
Any Mongolian Dopers with a yah or nay on that?
“Their religion combined animism, totemism, and shamanism. Before the time of [Genghis Khan] these primitive sky-worshippers played no significant role in steppe politics and lacked unity and organization.” That’s from a Russian history textbook. I also perused a short work on the Mongol army of the time and could find nothing about religion except passing mentions of “shamanism” and “sky-worship.” So it looks like as of 800 years ago Mongolian society, so much as it even existed, was in a very early phase of religious development.
Buddhism came in at some point during Chinese control judging from these CIA World Factbook figures:
"Religions: Tibetan Buddhist Lamaism 96%, Muslim (primarily in the southwest), Shamanism, and Christian 4% (1998) "
So there were indeed no “indigenous” gods, but you’d have to apply a definition “religion” to judge whether the native sky/shamanist thing qualifies. While the faiths are not homegrown, modern Mongolia seems overwhelmingly religious in belief if not necessarily practice according to these numbers.
Good work, markdiscordia. It seems Fairblue’s source may have been making a large extrapolation from “no identifiabe indigenous organized religion” to “no indigenous concept of religion”. Different things. As has been pointed out, various Asian religious traditions dispense with the idea of “person”-type deities altogether.
Hey, where are the “Shrub is not my god” smartass remarks? Was there a sale at Pottery Barn or something? Have the Beautiful People already headed for the Island?
Alec Baldwin, we hardly knew ye… oh, yeah, you’re still…here…
-Rav
I think describing Taoism as “everything is God” is stretching matters a bit. It’s probably more accurate to describe Taoism as saying “everything is.” To a Taoism, the notion of a being or a phenomenon as being “better” or “worse” than another is as pointless as asking which color is fatter than the others.
I agree, JRDelirious, that does seem to be a bit too far to jump.
Excellent research, markdiscordia.
Communist Albania under Hoxha declared atheism the official state creed, turned mosques and churches into restaurants, etc and forbad the practice of religion. It was one of the few constructive things he ever did.
I’m not trying to score points, but it strikes me as interesting to wonder if anyone made any study of the effects of these measures? Were they successful in discouraging religious practice and (much more difficult to measure) belief? What were the practical consequences and, from a social point of view, could they be described as progressive or regressive? What’s the position regarding religious practice now in Albania.
Now I am trying to score points; I’m assuming Aldiboronti was joking when he describe the suppression of the free expression of religion as “constructive”. But let’s all take that as read, and look at the practical consequences.
Any Albanian dopers out there?
No, earlier. Buddhism had been seeping into the region for centuries ( the central Asian state of the Qara-Qitai, which was conquered in a virtually bloodless coup by Chingiz Khan’s general Jebei Noyan and from which the Mongol state took many of their administrative cues, had a largely Buddhist ruling class ). Tibetan Lamaist Buddhism became associated with the Mongols in the 15th and 16th centuries as various Mongol factions became involved in internal political/religious power struggles in Tibet. The adoption of Gelugpa ( Yellow Hat ) Buddhism by Mongolia was formalized during the reign of the powerful warlord Altan Khan ( r.1540-1582 ), who dominated Tibet politically during most of his reign. It was he who established the office of the Dalai Lama, annointing the “First” Lama as the “Third” resurrected Dalai Lama of the sect ( i.e. he was the first individual so designated, but it was claimed that he was the third incarnation in a line of holy men - that first retroactive Dalai Lama also being the first Panchen Lama - a complicated arrangement that didn’t get sorted out into separate spiritual lineages until a little later 
).
Sorry, compulsive nitpicker am I :).
UDS: Albania now guarantees frredom of religion and appears pretty tolerant overall. Here’s a state dept. report on religion and religious rights in Albania:
http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/irf/irf_rpt/1999/irf_albania99.html
- Tamerlane
Aldiboronti: It would appear you don’t perhaps appreciate the role of religion in trying to provide a code of and context for ethical conduct in world societies throughout history.
Whether or not religion is good for society and the wolrd as a whole (and most would take aview contrary to yours) is more likely a subject for a Great Debate.
UDS: Certianly the rest of Hoxa’s paranoid rule didn’t benefit Albania.
A humorous and not entirely inaccurate account of what Albania today is like can be had from PJ O’Rourke, but I don’t recall if it was in “All the Trouble in the World” or in"Eat the Rich".