God would kill you.
Regards,
Shodan
You’re going on the assumption that most people’s beliefs have anything to do with facts or evidence, that simply providing them with the right irrefutable facts will somehow change their beliefs. As we’ve seen since November 8, that’s obviously not the case. And it’s getting worse.
I think he’s going on a hypothetical that he has already convinced everyone that there is no god-it’s stated right there in the OP.
I guess it’d be really weird for a pantheist.
What if I provided proof that there was no you? An absolutely irrefutable argument that demonstrated beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt that you didn’t exist?
How would that change things for you? Would you act differently, or just think differently? How would it change your relationships with other people? Would it matter if you were the only one who didn’t exist, or would it be the same if everybody else were unreal as well? Would it matter whether they were figments of your imagination or their own?
I think you can answer these questions the same way as the question in the OP.
Not addressing this to anybody in particular.
I’m not really seeing any connection between the OP’s question and your’s.
It’s there, you just can’t see it. Trust me. And give me money.
Of course, but for many people there’s a disconnect between what they’re logically convinced is true and what they “believe in”.
Skipping the legit questions already raised about the difference between putative gods and putative afterlives and taking your question at face value …
I will answer that lack of “hell” will make the big difference in most people’s lives when they are young through middle-aged. As they get old enough (or ill enough) to seriously think about their own eventual or even impending death the influence of no “hell” will recede and the influence of no “heaven” will come to predominate.
Given that so many highly thoughtful and ethical atheists go through all life with both no “heaven” and no “hell” anywhere in their worldview it’s clear people can thrive and make a society in that worldview.
The big risk is all the folks who were conditioned as children to not only want, but *need *that worldview; they will truly be cast adrift. Some will find their bearings on their own. Most won’t. Their aimless spiritual wanderings and deep desire for somebody else to give them a comforting answer will make them vulnerable to demagoguery.
I’m reminded of a line by Spock in an original Star Trek. Somehow it stuck with me down through the years. He & Kirk are confronting some alien culture having some religious strife the details of which I’ve utterly forgotten. Kirk says something very vaguely like “Their gods/beliefs should <make this better somehow>” Then Spock delivers his zinger which is real close to: “Humans tend to think in terms of your gentle Jesus of Nazareth. Across the galaxy wrathful vengeful gods are far more common.”
Spock was right; humans (even the ones with the bumpy foreheads) desperately want a wrathful vengeful god created in their own image. Even if they have to promote a human into the role temporarily.
Nope. People will still go to church anyway. All the proofs in the world will not change the beliefs of most believers. Proofs have to do with logic and people did not come to their faith by logic. The proof won’t change their beliefs, no matter how convincing.
Just gotta say, the thread title keeps making me think of this.
If you convinced everyone on the planet there is no God, the real question might be, how long would it be before they created another one?
Let’s suppose we take the question and step up one level. Let’s suppose that we postulate a world in which all humans are of a single mind with regards to religion. One subset of that would be universal atheism. But, another would be universal acceptance of, let’s say, the local Protestant denomination, or, perhaps, whatever Osama bin Laden thought highly of.
I don’t think it would make any difference whatsoever for society as a whole. People will be good or bad; will play by the rules or disregard them utterly; will invent excuses to be rotten bastards or go long out of their ways to be kind. Religion gets the credit and takes the blame.
But, it’s really all us, folks. We get the credit and deserve the blame. We aren’t a reflection of religion. Religion is a reflection of us.
I feel like most believers would still see value in the actual practicing of their faith, the rites, rituals, prayers, hymns etc, regardless of the veracity of your proof.
Because regardless of what God they believe in, they are confident practicing their faith serves them, by helping them be a better person, or in struggles with life challenges.
I don’t think it would change a thing for believers.
I’d be very upset actually, with the thought of never seeing my grandparents again. So thank you very bloody much for your proof.
Not very long. I feel embarrassed when I see a little tiny scientist on a little tiny planet inside a great big universe proclaim he cannot find any evidence of God. I have like zero concept of what God is and what he does but I do believe a creator exists. Whether or not he knows what he has created I am not so sure about. It doesn’t make any difference to me at all. I like walking around with a belief in a loving god and an ideal to aspire to be like.
Some, yes, but I think it’s a stretch to say “most.”
There do exist “Christian atheists,” “Jewish atheists,” etc. who practice those religions but don’t believe God exists; a few Dopers have admitted to being such.
But I really think plenty of people do what they do religiously because they think God wants them to and/or because it connects them to God. If you were in a long-distance relationship, and you found out that the person you had been e-mailing and texting and talking to on the phone didn’t really exist but was just a computer simulation, would you continue the correspondence?
Even more important than the theological implications, is the fact that you have just made a philosophical breakthrough, by, for the first time ever, proving a negative.
Agree with your final bit completely. God did not make us in His image. Rather we invented all of the various Hims and Hers over history in our image.
But …
I think your logic falls down a bit farther upstream. You start with “Let’s make a huge assumption that human nature has changed” then go in to say “… and since human nature hasn’t changed, we’ll still get the same outcome.” IMO there’s a defect in that logic someplace.
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.
I tend to agree with your logic here. I consider myself to be on the compassionate end of the scale and on the generous side. At the same time I am afraid to think what I would be like If I had no belief in a higher power and I had close to absolute power. I would most likely cull out of society anything I felt was useless or bad. The thought of it really scares me.