An island risen from beneath the Pacific? Surely you meant to ask how long the society would last before Cthulhu awoke in his tomb in the center of it and ate them all…
What they should do if they want to stay atheist is adopt an atheist version of the Israeli law of return- a law that allows any atheist from anywhere in the world (with the exception of dangerous criminals) to immigrate without jumping through the hoops that you have to jump through to immigrate to most countries. There’s no waiting period and no citizenship exam that you have to pass, unlike for immigration to most countries under most circumstances. That would encourage a steady flow of new atheist immigrants, at least if the economy is decent.
Interesting survey, Anne. Glad to say the Dinsdales are doing their part for the (non) cause, batting 3 for 3 so far.
That’s pretty impractical though. I mean, there’s ways to check if someone’s Jewish (genealogy or an affidavit by a rabbi). Atheism is much harder to prove.
Plus, Atheism is only a single metaphysical point. I would assume that our Atheonians are trying for a more specific philosophy.
I’m an atheist, but I’m also in favor of freedom of religion. If we didn’t have freedom of religion in this country, I’d be in jail right about now, or more probably, I’d just keep my atheism secret.
It is absolutely unacceptable to me to compromise freedom of religion, even if doing so would privilige atheism. So any atheist society that didn’t include freedom of religion would be unacceptable. And therefore, any society that only allowed atheists to immigrate, or discriminated against a-atheists would be unacceptable.
I don’t say this because I’m so generous and enlightened, rather because I realize that when we criminalize certain beliefs, it’s pretty likely that very soon I’m going to end up in the crosshairs. I don’t particularly care about religious freedom for YOU, it’s just that it turns out that in order to secure my own religious freedom the best method is to advocate for religious freedom for everyone, including you. This has the advantage that other people, not just myself, will agree with me. A constitutional amendment that guarantees freedom of speech and religious freedom for Lemur866 and screw everyone else is likely to be of limited appeal.
And so, an atheist-only country is only going to last until the first a-atheist wants to enter the country, which will probably be in about five minutes. Since religious tests for citizenship are unacceptable, we will let them in, and the atheist-only society will be over.
I don’t see what the problem would be. Most Western European countries are basically atheist-- religion is like a cultural anachronism that people keep around more out of custom than actual belief.
Now, if you mean that religion or religious people would not be allowed into the society, then it might not last very long. It would be hard to be tolerant of everything except religion, and I suspect it would quickly become a not so pleasant place even for atheists to live.
I believe I wrote “majority atheist,” not “100 percent atheist.”
Indeed. Or the Netherlands. We have been a majorly atheistic country for about fifty years now, and we’re doing fine. If Holland is an social experiment, the conclusion can be that the population being majorly atheist or majorly religious doesn’t really make any difference…
Skald, that is a really strange question in your OP. What are your ideas about an “atheistic society” that prompted your OP?
I can’t see how it would be any different. If such a society were aware that religious societies existed elsewhere, then a good percentage of their resources would be spent on sending missionaries out to chastise and convert the believers. That would be their downfall, just like religious socieities.
Who said I had any? Despite the current forum, I opened the thread to solicit opinions and thoughts, not to propound any thesis of my own, and certainly not to witness. That said, being living in the American South (where there’s both a common assumption that everyone is a Christian and a considerable pressure to be one), I do sometimes wonder how much of that tendency is cultural and how much is evolutionary.
Why, yes, I am annoyed by the thread being moved to Great Debates. Why do you ask?
What would Nigel Powers say?
Right, just after they finish building cathedrals to the Flying Spaghetti Monster and banning heterosexual marriage.
(And, which societies met their downfall to exporting missionaries, again?)
It’s not strange here in America. It’s pretty common belief here that without religion society will collapse and we’ll all be running naked in the streets robbing and raping and killing.
In my opinion, without a bar to immigration the society won’t stay atheist long. They’ll just be turned into a minority by religious immigrants. It’s a matter of numbers, not religion, really. It would be the same for left handers or vegetarians the disparity in numbers is large enough that you don’t even need to postulate a deliberate attempt to swamp them for it to happen.
Now if you were talking about, say, a space colony where they wouldn’t face immigration for a long time if ever, and even if they did would have had time to breed a large population and establish a society, I’d say indefinitely. There’s a fair amount of evidence that religiosity has a genetic component; the population would be both genetically and culturally prone to atheism. Given time to establish itself as a separate gene pool it could easily stay atheist forever.
Thanks for the explanation. Do these people not know that Japan, and most European countries are perfectly civilized places without a majority of people being religious?
If Skald is wondering about the existence of a “God Gene”, looking at the Netherlands might be of interest.
For centuries, the Dutch were religious, in some periods in history more then others. Fifty years ago, the Church as an institution lost about 90 percent of its power. And nowadays, about 50 % of Dutch population will list “none” when polled about their religion, 35 % will vaguely say they believe in “something”. (That group includes new-age, but they generally don’t go to any church or belong to any organized religious group). Only 15 % will state clearly being Catholic, some form of Protestant, or Other (Muslim, Hindu, etc).
So depending on how you rate the big Somethingism group, I’d say as a society Holland proves that if all cultural pressure to be religious is taken away, less then say 20 % of the population will be really religious of their own accord. The rest will be lukewarm, not interested, and the energies that go into religion will probably be channeled into some other constructive endeavour.
Either they don’t know, or they claim that those places are religious but lying about it ( the claim is that atheists don’t exist because everyone knows there is a God ), or they claim that those places are all horrible and evil, or they just ignore that little contradiction.
Has anyone ever told you that you have a really bizarre definition of atheism?
All of them that have done it. But I see our definitions of “downfall” differ. I didn’t mean “demise.”
There is a strange desire to evangelize among all groups. Some people see “outsiders” as a danger and feel a need to change them. And I see the first action against an outsider as the moment-of-corruption in any society.
That’s better.
That was not an arrow flying over your head. It was a whoosh.
Aside from everybody being atheists, would atheism still be something that would be interwoven into every aspect of the society? Would there be constant reminders and instructions about the falsity of theism to make sure nobody backslides gets hooked on the “opiate of the masses”? Are agnostics allowed?
In any case, I could see different varieties of atheism developing within the society. Even when apparently united over a common belief or disbelief, never underestimate the ability of human beings to factionalize over it. For example, aside from their basic disbelief, Marxist atheists wouldn’t have a lot in common with free market objectionist atheists. I’m also guessing that neither of these groups probably would care too much for the nihilists.
This is, more or less, what I came in here to post.
Religion happens for a reason. Not necessarily a good one or an accurate one, but for a reason…
Not seriously. 
Sooo…you define ‘downfall’ as “having sent out missionaries”, and then conclude that every country that has sent out missionaries has met their downfall?
Well, I can’t argue with your logic…*
Also, have all those predominanly atheistic western european countries (and japan) that are largely nonreligious spent “a good percentage of their resources” on “sending missionaries out to chastise and convert the believers”? Have you been turning away legions of angry swedes going door to door with “believe nothing” pamphlets or something?
- Has anyone ever told you that you have a really bizarre definition of ‘downfall’?