[QUOTE=Miller;16720828
I’ve never noticed a lack of morality on behalf of atheists. Or a particular surplus of it on behalf of theists.[/QUOTE]
Atheists tend to stay married longer; I think that can very well translate into if Atheists ruled the world, people would stay married longer, there is evidence enough to make a strong case for that. And that is an example of what I am asking in this thread.
All those churches do occupy a lot of valuable real estate…
Religion doesn’t rule the world now. If you’re offering a hypothetical choice between an all-theistic world and an all-atheistic world, I’ll go with the latter just because theism is a waste of time.
And where might we find this evidence that atheists stay married longer? I’ve never heard this before.
So why are most of the people in the world wasting their time?
On some level, I think that we have been cheated, deeply. We’ve been promised an afterlife, so we don’t think it’s worth it to fix this world. In fact, we consider suffering as part of this world.
This is what many religions teach.
If we all knew, or 85-90% of us knew, that there was no afterlife, would we try to make this world better? Would we try to make this world heaven? I don’t know. But if anything that is the best I can think of if the majority of the world was atheist - that we would work harder to make this world the best there was.
There’d still be wars and disagreements, blood and death, but maybe if so many people weren’t convinced a better world was waiting for them and knew that this was it, maybe they would reconsider.
I think that’s the most insidious and evil thing that religion has given to us - the idea that this world doesn’t matter.
Thank you.
I certainly understand this, and I see the point clearly. I think that may well make a difference and more people would try to make best with what we have. Religion does indeed focus on the next life; and I don’t think that is evil within itself, its hope; but IF a religious person allows their motivation to make this world better to be negatively affected, that is a problem, but it is not evil.
Maybe a bit more empathy when we realize that we are going o the same place no matter who we are or what we do.
And none of us are chosen, or blessed with divine authority.
The problem with this discussion is the assumption by the OP that atheism attempts to exist as a belief system similar to religion.
Religious belief centers on the acceptance as real the existence of divine agents, their involvement in the world and the idea that the morality of actions is to be judged as moral only in so far as they adhere to the obligations laid out by the religion they follow. They tend to be broad, codified systems.
Atheist belief centers only on a single point – the acceptance that divine agents do not exist.
It’s fairly obvious that for those worldviews centered on religious belief the question then becomes what do atheist believe in? The answer is of course many things.
An atheist most likely would frame their understanding of the world on empirical evidence and the ideas of logical positivism – only natural laws and forces exist. There can be others frameworks used of course. The only need, if you can call it that, being that there are no divine agents required by the framework.
Morality, without a divine provider, then becomes a question of determining what is right to do as opposed to what is right to obey. The categorical imperative, Mill’s consequentialism or Rawl’s veil of ignorance might all be used by atheists when they build their ethical worldview.
I think its a serious error for Atheists to assume that Theist are not reasonable, not logical, and not positive people , and assume that all Atheist naturally are. Atheist have not cornered the market on logic and reason. And in order to take a hypethectical look at a world of Atheists rule, we do not need to put down Theist.
It turns out we have a lot of time to waste. Once your basic survival needs are met, you can come up with all kinds of ways to kill time. Personally, I’d rather have people sitting quietly in a church than, say, going on a celebratory rampage because the local sports team won a championship. The latter activity may be secular, but it’s not better.
You haven’t defined what a “world run by Atheist” means, so give us some guidelines and we can discuss them.
Who here has made these assumptions?
No. I want no guidelines; I want free open discussion with no boundrys. I am not trying to " Guide Atheists through this", I am trying to open the Atheists mind to get them to open up to what a world ruled by them would be like.
I don’t assume that, or at least not in general. On the specific topic of theism, a theist is irrational because theism is irrational. On other topics, including governance and economics and science, a theist might be perfectly rational.
I’m okay with putting down theism. We don’t need it any more.
Fine, it would be a utopia where everyone would live forever and unicorns would operate a 24-hour pizza delivery service.
Okay, I’ll be the represenative of the majority of the world, which is Theist; now, explain to me, in a reasonable manner, why we don’t need to be as we are?
Why are you using myths to explain a real theory of situation? Explain to me why you accuse Theist of using myths, and your doing the same thing?