Eventually, all the atheists would figure out some other way to annilate one another…mmmm 50 years would just about do it I think.
Based on this, I think it’s safe to conclude that no heavily christian society has survived longer than 45 years.
Unless you have some actual reason to make such a ridiculous claim?
I dunno… If you allowed freedom of religion in an atheist society, is it REALLY an atheist society anymore? I’d say no, myself, but I’m willing to be persuaded. (I thought that’s what the OP was asking - how long it’d be before religion wormed its way into the society, thus completely annihilating its reason to exist in the first place.)
Why would we want to? We’ve been watching you religionists try to “annilate” each other(and us) for over three thousand years, and we know what comes of it.
Wise men learn from their mistakes.
Wiser men learn from the mistakes of others.
Uh, it would take atheists 50 years to come up with another way to annihilate ourselves? Wouldn’t that tend to imply we… don’t already have such a way, while non-atheists do?
I’d agree with those so far who say this is silly, but to me it kinda looks like you just said atheists didn’t do any annihilating. Would you care to restate your thought? 
If such a society did education correctly, I don’t see why there ever needs to be a reprisal of religiosity.
The biggest reason for such a return would be a political one. Someone angling for power by forming a religious faction.
I think, in such a society, it’d be very hard for the first few a-apostates to get started - without a ready community of like-minded people for support I don’t personally think the first backsliders will sustain their newfound belief.
I’m assuming that atheism is thoroughly woven into the fabric of society at the start i.e. no religious programming on TV & radio, Bibles, Korans and other religious texts shelved under “Fiction” in bookstores and libraries, atheist-biased teaching of history and civics in schools, no tax breaks for religions and their institutions nor any public money for it. No religious schooling. Theist immigrants would need business and entertainment licenses for their temples, and these would be taxed like any business. Proselytizing would fall under public disorder and harassment laws.
And in my ideal society, children would be prevented from being educated in religion by their parents, in the child’s best interests. Kind of from the same wellspring as the European naming laws - parents have rights to religious freedom, but children have rights too, one of which is freedom from indoctrination. Those children are free to become religious after they’re adults, but society has to protect them before that.
That goes for circumcision too.
It’d get along just fine - until assorted superstitions took hold and people began fighting over them.
Why ? Unlike the religious, who believe in souls, they wouldn’t consider dying to be a good thing. That makes people avoid courses of action that lead to self annihilation. And, unlike the religious, they won’t have God and souls as an excuse for evil and stupidity; one can expect better moral and practical judgment from the atheist than from the believer. And the lack of religion gives them one less reason to kill each other. And so on.
I thought the root of atheism is rationality, therefore wouldn’t it be actually quite unlikely that superstition would takehold in such a way?
Also, we’re not talking about bronze-age goat herders, but 21st century people with a reasonable and modern education.
In my experience the number of people in any society that can be considered educated is actually very low. As far as science goes most people are about on a par with a bronze age goat-herder.
Otherwise self-evidently nonsensical superstition would have died out a long time ago instead of being the sacred cow any politician has to bow to.
The world is full of ‘educated’ people who cling to superstition.
Josef Stalin and his mass executions were an example of moral and practical judgment? They occurred under an officially atheist government.
I hate to bring that up but I can’t resist it, given what you’ve just written.
Again, it might be interesting how Holland, a modern 21’st century atheist country, handles the examples you gave in actual practice.
No religious programming on TV. We have about 12 national Dutch TV channels. Nine of these are purely commercial; they would be free to broadcast religious programs, but they almost never do, because these don’t draw enough viewers to interest paying commercials. They would braodcast "the last temptation of Christ"but they wouldn’t broadcast televised sermons, for that reason.
On the three remaining national Government subsidized channels, broadcasting time is divided according to how many members the broadcasting companies (bettere described as organizations) have. There are about 7 major broadcasting organizations in the Netherlands. Two of these are religious. They broadcast a mix of “clean” sitcoms, regional and cultural documentaries, nature documentaries and often talkshows about religion. They also often broadcast church music, big choirs singing. Even they hardly ever broadcast sermons or fundraising for any particular church.
Bibles, Korans and other religious texts shelved under “Fiction” in bookstores and libraries. In Holland, such books are shelved under “religion” or “philosophy”, which is usually next to the far bigger and more popular section of “psychology”. 
Atheist-biased teaching of history and civics in schools. That’s us. The role of religion is certainly told, but in elementary teaching religion in mainstream schools is far more often referred to as a force leading to war and suppression of enlighted science, then as a force for good, or as a source of morality.
There are also special Christian elementary schools. I imagine these are more like American schools. They are normal schools, but there’s also prayer and teaching of psalms and bible stories.
Evolution is taught in high school, and a teacher might mention that there is also a creationist view, which is, of course’, sadly misguided. The less then 10 % Christian highschools differ only in that there will be 2-3 hours of religion schooling on the curriculum.
*No tax breaks for religions and their institutions nor any public money for it. * Somewhat true. Churches are treated as normal organizations when it comes to tax, AFAIK. They are certainly not exempt from paying taxes. Churches can apply for government grants, and if they are considered beneficial organizations, they will get those grants. Sometimes they don’t: for instance, the Pentecostal Political Party was denied a government grant all other political parties got, on the grounds that they discriminated, as they didn’t allow women to take a seat in the party’s boards.
immigrants would need business and entertainment licenses for their temples, and these would be taxed like any business. Yes, but if they play by the rules, such a license will be granted. Schools might receive government support, see above.
Proselytizing would fall under public disorder and harassment laws. More true then not true. A proselytizing group on the streets would need the same permits a commercial or political demonstration needed, mainly to ensure that public traffic wouldn’t be hindered and that it wouldn’t happen too often.
People proselytizing on the job would be regarded as boring and weird. If they persisted, their boss might ask them sternly to cut it out.
*Dutch parents have the right to raise their children in the same religion * they hold, but they have to do it in their own time, on their own dime and in their own organizations.
Circumcision, when not medically indicated, is not performed in Dutch hospitals. Parents who want their sons circumsized have to arrange a ceremony and a doctor of their own.
Now, how scary does Holland, as an existing atheist country, sound?
This thread is teh stupid.
There’s several majority atheist countries in the world. They’re no different from any other country and there’s no large clammoring to try and find an ultimate meaning to life or an official book of morality. People aren’t atheists in these countries due to introspection, but because they were raised without religion. Some percentage does pick up religion, of course, but most don’t and like any country with religion, it’s most likely that the status quo will stay unless the country is over-run.
Why anyone would think there’s something magical about atheism that would somehow warp people to not follow statistical norms for humans, I can’t fathom.
I think that there’s something about religion where if you oppress it, if you try to ban it, the faith just grows stronger. Especially religions that value martyrdom. Any member of the faith who’s killed in defense of it will rouse hundreds more to fight for it - or if they don’t have the power to fight for it, as in the case of the Jews in Spain during the Inquisition, they’ll just take it underground and practice in secret, even more hardcore than before.
If an atheist society tried suppressing the few religious among it, I think they’d just become martyrs to other religious people. Kill them, and others will take their place. Hell, some atheists just might look at them, admire their conviction and their bravery in standing up for their religion, and decide to join them. What are you going to do then? Start exterminating all the atheists in camps?
Edit: With regards to Sage Rat’s post, those majority-atheist countries won’t stay that way for long if waves of religious immigrants come to them. Which might happen. What are they going to do then - kick them all out? Put land mines on the borders?
I thought that we were starting with a population of atheists, not a random sample of the general public.
Yeah, and Christian countries won’t last when they’re overrrun by Scientologists either. There’s nothing inherent in atheism that’s going to cause the country to be more or less likely to have insanely high immigration. Japan has near zero immigration and will likely continue on its merry way wherever its going sociologically without interference. The Netherland countries could potentially switch Muslim if they get too many emigrees, but that’s a political issue of loose immigration laws not an atheism-based issue.
So again, why anyone would think that the laws of human nature will change in an athiest nation, I have no idea.
There aren’t millions of Scientologists fleeing warfare in the Middle East and Africa and seeking a home in Christian countries.
The situation with Muslim immigration to European nations is very real. Like you say, it’s an issue of immigration laws, not atheism. Therefore, any atheist country wishing to stay that way would have to have very strict immigration laws if it was faced with this issue.
By very strict, I mean land mines and sniper towers.
If even a few immigrants get in who are practicing a religion, they would very likely start large families and maybe even convert others.
Just how brutal is this hypothetical atheist country willing to be in order to preserve its atheism?
Let’s not forget that in this globalised age there are many more threads of interference and influence between nations. What with trade, immigration, communications, international law and so on, it becomes less of a standalone petri-dish experiment and more difficult to discern the effects of an officially atheist country.
That said, it would probably be, or quickly end up as, a more progressive version of current Western states. Gay ‘marriages’ would likely be routine, as would gay adoptions, although there might not be as many unwanted babies due to high levels of abortion and higher use of contraceptives through sex education that doesn’t suck. There might be key scientific breakthroughs in medicine because of a lack of religious objections to controversial topics like stem cells and cloning, although that’s not to say that there would be no consideration of ethics. There would also likely be increased levels of organ donation and a greater supply of cadavers for med students.
Superstition would struggle to take root to the degree it already has. There’d be higher skepticism of pseudo-scientific pursuits such as astrology, alternative medicine and lesser scams that involve wishy-washy spiritual thinking. A proper separation of church and state - the latter won’t fund or endorse the former, no God on currency.
There will still be some element of religion, but in mainstream culture will be about as pertinent as your favourite colour.
In short, Atheiopia would not be too dissimilar from some European states.