# THERE IS NO GOD! I have proof! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 17, 2017, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-god-i-have-proof/782405 "2017-03-17T14:25:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DrForrester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@DrForrester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrForrester)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-god-i-have-proof/782405/41 "2017-03-18T14:23:33Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I think your logic falls down a bit farther upstream. You start with “Let’s make a huge assumption that human nature has changed” I was just trying to restate the OP’s question in a way that wouldn’t be nit-picked insufferably like it has been upstream. It’s about getting at the intent of the OP. I didn’t say it was likely or preferable or possible. > [@LSLGuy](#): > > A world with unanimity on (non-)religion would be a world of people who are more homogenous than we are now. And if non-religion was the choice, a world full of people more rational and less mystical than we are now. If nothing else, there’d be one less dimension to practice Us vs Themism. > > Those different people with different minds and different ideas about how humans make a society would in fact make a different society. One probably with less extremes of kindness and of cruelty, or selfishness or of generosity. Yeah. I’m an atheist, so, naturally have a tendency to believe things like the above are true. However, when I try to be completely impartial, I recognize that people like Trump are atheists. He’s a disaster of a human being. So, do we _really_ want to say that the world would be a paradise if religious thought went peacefully away? I’d like to think that would be the case. But, people are people. Some people are just absolutely dead set on being stupid. Given every possible opportunity to be competent, they’ll tweet something utterly insipid about wiretapping and then blame the UK Intelligence services. Therefore, my assessment, which I hoped was totally objective, that society would be pretty much the same. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-god-i-have-proof/782405/42 "2017-03-18T15:58:44Z")
Gotta agree with **DrForrester**. If religion went away, we’d still find reasons to hate each other and fight about it. The other existing causes, such as racism and nationalism would become more important, given the vacuum (so to speak) left when religion disappears. (Also, people might just fight about who had been right in their religious views, sort of the way we, here, discuss what might have happened if Aaron Burr, not Thomas Jefferson, had won the election. “Oh, yeah? I went to Mass twice a week, so you were just a sham Catholic!”) (Also, Muslims and Jews would not be in any great haste to eat pork.) ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-god-i-have-proof/782405/43 "2017-03-18T17:30:30Z")
Religion and theology do not necessarily co-exist on the same page, but nearly always do, with theology being the ultimate glue that holds the religion together. There is no selling point to religion, without a claim of consequences for unbelief. Religion, as a carrier of ethics, has value to the social organization of the species. So, man, as a social animal, needs a cohesion of behavior, codified by a religion, which is enforced by deific threat. This is not proof that there is no God, but only evidence that even a non-existent one would almost certainly be presumed in a functionally successful social order. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2017, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-god-i-have-proof/782405/44 "2017-03-18T21:38:18Z")
> [@DrForrester](#): > > … > Yeah. I’m an atheist, so, naturally have a tendency to believe things like the above are true. However, when I try to be completely impartial, I recognize that people like Trump are atheists. He’s a disaster of a human being. So, do we _really_ want to say that the world would be a paradise if religious thought went peacefully away? > … Don’t mistake my position for “atheism = good; religion = bad”. I do believe widespread atheism is / would be is an opportunity for societal improvement. But that’s not at all the point of my post. I agree jerks will continue to exist. I was simply asserting that the preconditions necessary for unanimity, _regardless of what philosophy we all agree on_, would itself require a change in human nature. Those v2 humans would be different. I posit their biggest difference would be reduced jerkiness. I may well be wrong in that. But that was what I was saying. Not some simplistic “atheism = good; religion = bad”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/there-is-no-god-i-have-proof/782405.md?page=2)