Imagine no religion

ASB, as long as there have been people they have believed in higher powers as long as there are people they will believe.
 
Impossible due to this. Most (keyword here) humans are genetically inclined towards spritiualism/mysiticism. They need it in their life because without it they'd feel empty, or something to that effect. Not to sound like a glorifying atheist douchebag, but there are those who were born/learned to live without faith.
 

JoeMulk

Banned
Impossible due to this. Most (keyword here) humans are genetically inclined towards spritiualism/mysiticism. They need it in their life because without it they'd feel empty, or something to that effect. Not to sound like a glorifying atheist douchebag, but there are those who were born/learned to live without faith.

I can believe that, hell on an empericist level i'd be an atheist but on a more emotional level i'm still an agnostic because I do really sometimes really feel like I can't know for sure...
 
Impossible due to this. Most (keyword here) humans are genetically inclined towards spritiualism/mysiticism. They need it in their life because without it they'd feel empty, or something to that effect. Not to sound like a glorifying atheist douchebag, but there are those who were born/learned to live without faith.

Well there's some very happy and content atheists. Actually, I'd say most atheists are happy and content. The God Gene is also only a hypothesis.

Anyway, Patton Oswalt may be correct here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55h1FO8V_3w

I don't know how you can get rid of religion in some form, really. At least not until the world is closer to our modern era. Early man will think and try to figure out what things really are and how they work, and those things beyond what he can understand will just be brushed off as "Ok, Magic" and that if Man creates (fire, wheel, weapons, whatever), Greater, more powerful Men must be around who can create all these things in nature. And then mythology comes into being to complicate the initial ideas of the Great Magical People who made it all.

It would probably take until the age of Science and Enlightenment until a sweeping, global atheist/nontheism could come into being.
 
Nowadays there are many who believe in a god of sorts but choose not to go to a church or similar building due to their dislike of organized. I confess I am amyself a christian of sorts but refuse to go to church because i believe organized religion to be an evil of sorts.
To make a world where everyone is atheist is ASB as many people are agnostic and many who don't believe are open to the idea of something. But to kill off all organized religion is possible. Bloody hard, but possible.
 
Impossible due to this. Most (keyword here) humans are genetically inclined towards spritiualism/mysiticism. They need it in their life because without it they'd feel empty, or something to that effect. Not to sound like a glorifying atheist douchebag, but there are those who were born/learned to live without faith.
Actually, Damon Knight makes an interesting argument it's actually a survival characteristic: we're bred to believe in things we can't see. If we're told there's a tiger behind the bush, & we believe it, we don't go look & get eaten when there is, & so pass on the "belief" gene. (Same applies to the "stupid" gene in people who don't wear motorcycle helmets or seatbelts. Hopefully, they'll be killed before they have children, & so don't pass on the gene.:rolleyes:)
 
Manhattan Project scientists stolen by USSR when they try to get out of Germany. USSR gets atom bomb first (in 1943-44), US doesn't get it at all until it's too late.
When WWII (European front) ends, and the US troops aren't going to get out of Japan that (as the Soviets think) rightfully belongs to USSR, the Soviets proceed to declare war on the US and nuke the triangular heck out of them.
After that, the Soviets, without any real resistance left, proceed to convert the rest of the world to communism by 1960 and create a world-wide USSR by 1980.
I'm not going to detail what happened later on (not least because my imagination fails me there); let's just say that by 2011, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, war would've been peace if there was any of either left, and whatever was called "religion" is all classified as thoughtcrime. (Also doubleplusungood.) :D:eek:

(Yes, I realize that's all ASB. That's about the only way I could imagine to attain the OP condition with a post-1900 POD that doesn't significantly involve at least one of Edison, Tesla, and Robert Wood. ;))
 
This is a potential, borderline ASB timeline that leads to a mostly “atheist” world.

Ashoka the king of the Mauryan Empire wants to leave a lasting legacy. He realizes that this cant be done with the current system.
His solution is to institutionalize his edicts. Instead of relying on a fragile chain of vassalage he uses Buddhist monasteries as new center of of government.

From now on all taxes a recorded and taken by monastery instead of local lords. They found the army and are only obliged to follow the orders of the King and nobody else.
Now we have the fundament of a somewhat lasting welfare state. Philosophically Buddhism doesn’t need gods or souls, so the primary goal is to get a Buddhist world first.
This allows most people to develop an atheist worldview, without alienating those that want to cling to mysticism at all costs.
Live becomes a lot easier since the means for safe birth control (silpharium) are imported and cultivated in India, China and elsewhere.
Since they vedic tradition knew about microorganism and smallpox (masūrikā) and the process of Inoculation all monasteries practice this and all other medical procedures for free in their respective area.

The idea of monastic, Buddhist monarchies is adopted in China as well as in the Roman Empire.
This allows for a spread of knowledge through mutual contact between monastries .That means in practice that paper making and printing are far more common, which means a generally better education.
Education is indeed of most importance, a world without god is only conceivable with basic knowledge how the world really works.
Thanks to the monks/nun all children learn that the world is constantly changing. But more importantly they learn about Epicurus and other materialistic theorist whose theory explains very well who such a word works.
One of the most important one is Anaximander of Miletus who pretty much foresaw the theory of evolution. That humans probably developed from other animals, which came from a time when earth was wetter.

In fact the ideas of many inhabited worlds becomes not only prevalent in philosophy but a stable of fiction and storytelling. Humans aren’t particularity special.
Some other examples how humans conquer nature through understanding it, are Hero of Alexandria a pioneer in pneumatics, who builds the first hot air balloon, a Chinese man who introduces insect farming as a means to prevent famine, and some engineer who starts a proto-industrial revolution by animal-power-punk (https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/archive/index.php/t-107994.html).

That leaves one evil, namely plantation slavery. Some Indian monk who observed animal behavior, especially monkeys talks to Ashoka.
Ashoka was looking for a way to phase out slavery in OTL. Monkeys can be domesticated, over many years, thanks to the capacity a monasteries can provide.
Now you train monkeys to harvest cotton and other inedible plants in exchange for food an shelter. As a bonus native American discover stevia and cultivate it throughout the continent.
Once roman explorer find the continent they get a nice sugar substitute that prevents caries instead of causing it. No need for the horrible plantation slavery necessary for sugar cane harvesting.
They also know who to prevent the spread of some disease in the New World which should reduce the harm done through the initial contacts.

This timeline trough ridiculously unlikely to happen would be a fertile ground for the adoption an atheist world view. The least mystic form of Buddhism reigns supreme and materialistic philosophy is dominant and proven right over many generations. Human suffering is also not remotely comparable to our timeline, less people are inclined to flee to religion in their despair.
 
I don't believe in any god or anything spiritual saying we have that in our genes not true.

First off it's a hypothesis, so its neither true nor false...yet. Also just because you are an atheist doesn't mean everyone else in the world is. Last time I checked there are plenty of people who believe in deities or a system of beliefs. Common mistake atheists make all the time: the world does not revolve around them and they are not always right.
 
... Common mistake people make all the time: the world does not revolve around them and they are not always right.

Fixed it for you :p

Anyway, more on topic, I don't think it's possible to eliminate organized religion by 2011, at least not everywhere, without making history utterly unrecognizable. I suppose if we focus on Europe/the Americas, maybe have anti-clericalism more closely associated with the revolutionary movements that accompany the enlightenment? This could result in officially secular states that host a myriad of more "spiritualist"-type personal religious philosophies, though chances are very high that more than a few of them would become organized over time. Alternatively, you could have the resulting anti-clerical states actively suppress all organized religion, though that would more likely drive it underground rather than eliminate it.
 
ASB given a POD post-1900. Maybe if we have a much earlier scientific revolution that allows the pantheistic religions of Greece and Rome to be replaced by a scientific worldview without the rise of any of the monotheistic religions it could be done.

As an atheist I have to say I thing there probably is a "god gene" that is recessive in me. For while my parents weren't regular church goers they did believe in God and had me memorize some prayers and psalms, but by age 11 I was questioning the idea of god. Today I can't fathom the concept. I understand from a cultural and behavioral perspective how and why religion exists, but I have no faith.

Maybe one semi-ASB way would be to have a genetic disorder sweep through the human population that as a side effect damages the so called "god gene." Have it connected to some common disease like the 1918 flu and become apparent just after puberty. By 2011 it may be that the majority of humans in regions where the flu is common no longer have faith. Imagine the affects of that hitting the Western world.

Benjamin
 
You'd have to go back before Sapiens evolved and eliminate whatever gives us so overactive imagination. Of course, doing that would mean we'd never imagine new ways of doing things, and there would be no civilization.
 
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