I don't see it happening. People have a way of fucking things up.
As for religion, the key to turning a religion into fundamentalism is that religion's dominance in a region. You meet any Muslims here in the US and they're usually pretty nice people; no sign of the middle east Ji'had frenzy you see on the news all the time. If you were to go find Christians in the middle east, though, they would be nice, calm, friendly people. I don't think atheism is free from that, either. I can very easily see people being extremely intolerant and using atheism to defend it. Burning churches and religious works of art, killing people for believing in a religion, forced public mockery of religion... I can see all those happening in a region that has atheism installed as the long term religion of choice.
Honestly, the two things that help build a good society is education and money. Those are the people who want to maintain a society; the people who have something to lose if that society collapses. The less people have to lose by that society's collapse, the less they're going to be interested in maintaining that society.
As for religion, the key to turning a religion into fundamentalism is that religion's dominance in a region. You meet any Muslims here in the US and they're usually pretty nice people; no sign of the middle east Ji'had frenzy you see on the news all the time. If you were to go find Christians in the middle east, though, they would be nice, calm, friendly people. I don't think atheism is free from that, either. I can very easily see people being extremely intolerant and using atheism to defend it. Burning churches and religious works of art, killing people for believing in a religion, forced public mockery of religion... I can see all those happening in a region that has atheism installed as the long term religion of choice.
Honestly, the two things that help build a good society is education and money. Those are the people who want to maintain a society; the people who have something to lose if that society collapses. The less people have to lose by that society's collapse, the less they're going to be interested in maintaining that society.
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"If you cling to something as the absolute truth and you are caught in it, when the truth comes in person to knock on your door you will refuse to let it in." ~ Siddhartha Gautama
"If you cling to something as the absolute truth and you are caught in it, when the truth comes in person to knock on your door you will refuse to let it in." ~ Siddhartha Gautama
