If everyone was atheist

[Pyrrho]

You can use "evil" as an adjective to describe something without believing in some supernatural force behind it.

I have to say nothing would really change.  Sure, there would be a lot of things for the better, but we're human beings.  We'll be a self-destructive species no matter what people believe in, so we'll find new stuff to wreak havoc with.

^^^ This ^^^

People regardless of their beliefs are, on average, still prone to irrationality and poor decision making.

God belief or religion aren't the problem - certain expressions of them are, and even the irreligious can be prone to idiocy.

The only way religion is going to die out is if people stop being so irrational.  So if religion did die out, it would necessarily mean that we would have less irrationality.  Of course, religion is not going to die out, at least not any time soon.  But that is a bad thing, not something good or even neutral.

Religion is caused by, and is also a cause of, irrationality.

[Pyrrho]

I haven't read anyone's answer yet so what I write might have already been said.

Some personality types need to believe in some authority. I dont know why. Perhaps it makes life easier for them if the rules are clear cut, black and white.

Without religion, those same people would try to find some new authority to guide them. No, I don't think the world would be a better place without religion unless we figure out how to cure people from wanting easy answers about morality.

I have heard that many times before (though not in this thread).  But I think it is false.  I think it is something that is artificially generated, that people have that and are told that they need it, so they believe that they need it.  I do not think that people inherently need any such thing.  People who thought they needed such things who lose their religion seem to not have the problems that they imagined (when they were still religious) that they would have in such a situation.

There is also a tendency in all of us to put ourselves  and others in groups. Our group is obviously the good one while other groups have different degrees of wrongness with them. Religion can be used to separate people but the same thing is true of strongly held political views. If you read comments under some news articles, you can see how people shout down each other with words like feminists, atheists, liberals, conservatives etc. Once those words are used, the writer feels that he or she can stop reading anything that the other person said because the other person belongs to one of the bad groups. If religion disappeared, people would still try to put each other into neatly defined groups so they can hate and hurt one another.

See my post above, posted shortly after your post.

[Mr Greene]

I would lament the loss of certain cultural elements, particularly those associated with tribal societies, but religion has no legitimate place in the civilised world. Certainly without the main blocs of islam and christianity a lot of antagonism and bloodshed could be spared.
There'd be a lot less blaming of natural disasters on homosexuals / exhibitionists/ random scapegoats as well and science teachers would be able to actually teach science in science classes...

[Pyrrho]

...

If religion were ended by force, I think the results would be horrific, because only a very repressive totalitarian government could manage such a thing. Political ideologies can be every bit as destructive as religion.

Religion cannot be ended by force.  If such an attempt were made, and if it had any seeming success, it would only mean that it drove religion underground.  People would still be secretly religious.  That is what happens with opposing religions in countries where there is a state religion that forbids such things.  People still believe, but hide it.  When the Catholics were torturing "heretics" in the dark ages, it did not make everyone believe Catholicism.

Unless, of course, you mean that force is used to end the entire human race.  That would end religion by force, but that is pretty much the only way that force could ever end religion.

One cannot stop people from believing nonsense by force.  At most, one gets them pretending to not believe whatever they believe.  Again, excluding just killing everyone.


Of course, you are right that it would be a very bad thing to try to end religion by force.  Just like it would be a bad thing to try to force people to believe anything, or to not believe anything.  The attempted use of force to convince people of things is itself a fallacy, and even has a name:  argumentum ad baculum or appeal to force.  Aside from being unkind, it is unreasonable as well.  And ultimately, ineffective for getting everyone to believe or not believe something.

[Twisted]

I think if everyone suddenly becomes an Atheist somehow then the world would become a disaster because most people are religious and they believe that they would do all sorts of vile stuff if God was not watching over them

if knowledge and Atheism come hand to hand then this world would become a great place,

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Like the matrix, some people are not ready to wake up.

[Pyrrho]

I think if everyone suddenly becomes an Atheist somehow then the world would become a disaster because most people are religious and they believe that they would do all sorts of vile stuff if God was not watching over them

...

People say that, and seem to sincerely believe it, but when they actually lose their religion, that is not what happens.  In other words, their prediction is wrong, just like their other beliefs were wrong.

[Catholic_Lady]

I don't care what you believe. Just leave the fucking kids alone.

Am I allowed to teach my kids Catholicism, as my parents taught me?

[Longhorn]

I don't care what you believe. Just leave the fucking kids alone.

Am I allowed to teach my kids Catholicism, as my parents taught me?

You are 'allowed'. I'm not proposing a law.

But teaching your children the conclusion instead of teaching them to think for themselves and give them a CHOICE in matters as personal as faith is, in my humble opinion, the wrong way to go about it.

If it's the truth why do you need to teach your kids about it in order for them to accept it? Religion would diminish significantly if children were not taught to believe.

[Metis]

Like the matrix, some people are not ready to wake up.

While I personally do not accept the stories, I do aknowledge the power they have in keeping a social order together for a considerable number of people.

I dislike what many of them teach as "good", but I also suspect that given a free reign without fear of consequences we'd see a far more chaotic world, at least now. I don't think the world is ready for Athiesm, nor will it come when Africa and the middle east are so caught up in poverty and strife. In that light I'm not sure it will ever come.

I think Voltaire said something to the effect that while he doesn't accept Christianity he'd much rather his servants were Christians since he'd be cheated and robbed far less often. Clearly it doesn't work in every circumstance but I do think there is a grain of truth to that. If possible, I think redirecting religion to a morality that wasn't so amoral might lead to a better world than an Athiest one. Some people are good for the sake of being good, but many who aren't may become good with the prospect of divine reward (I think late Roman Platonism is the best example of this in practice, had Christianity not swung by this may have been the religion of the middle classes).

Sounds a bit big brother ish I know, and I don't expect many to agree with me.