Yes, silence all who point out inconvenience with a new inquisition! I Pope Vtmarxist I of the Holy Church of Monty Python and the Holy Grail call a new inquisition! I appoint Georgepatton as the head of this new cleansing!
Non Religious World
- Thread starter vtmarxist
- Start date
Yes, silence all who point out inconvenience with a new inquisition! I Pope Vtmarxist I of the Holy Church of Monty Python and the Holy Grail call a new inquisition! I appoint Georgepatton as the head of this new cleansing!
If no religion, I think ideology would end up taking its place. With the general nature of humanity, religion was one of the inevitable steps of social development. So, presuming that at some point, there is, perhaps, undeniable proof of there being no higher power, or instead due to some different social trends atheism and agnosticism take over the world, religious hierarchies would simply be replaced by ideological ones.
Case in the point: USSR tried to stamp out the religion, at least to some extent. Of course, it ended up replacing much of it with personality cult, and, later on, with communist ideology (and we all know where that went). Similar thing happened in Nazi Germany, where ideology was consistently brought to be superior to religion.
Thing is, IMO it would require fairly recent POD to accomplish this result, and still have a somewhat recognizable world. Until roughly the Renaissance, the technological level of the world was insufficient to really do away with religion on sufficient scale - sure, a state or two can try it within them, but news do not spread quickly enough, national control over their interiors is not absolute, education level in general is pretty low, and, well, how else would the feudal rulers keep serfs in line? They cannot be everywhere at once with their armies, and in effect, there is no tangible advantage in not letting the peasants (who still constitute the majority of the population) have religion. A few particularly zealous lords might go all-out anti-religion, but for the most part, by then the religious structure already exists in place, and it would require much greater effort to stamp it out than a few rulers deciding there is no God or some such. They would go against the whole old order, and without the means and the technology to do so, are very unlikely to result in no religion world.
Now, if the Renaissance results in some differing views on religion, or even if perhaps ATL-French Revolution (or an equivalent) is a lot more successful (I am talking about Robespierre's anti-religion ideas being more developed and more thoroughly implemented), there might be a chance with Industrial Age technology to spread the idea around quickly enough, and to have, over the course of several centuries, diminished effect of religion. This would require at least a continent-wide revolution to begin with, translating into a spree of conquest. Doable, but almost ASB.
In fact, I think this premise as AH should probably be considered ASB, as the social inertia of something like religion is immense, and will take centuries to fully subdue on large enough scale - and even then, it would need a certain technology level and somewhat educated population.
Case in the point: USSR tried to stamp out the religion, at least to some extent. Of course, it ended up replacing much of it with personality cult, and, later on, with communist ideology (and we all know where that went). Similar thing happened in Nazi Germany, where ideology was consistently brought to be superior to religion.
Thing is, IMO it would require fairly recent POD to accomplish this result, and still have a somewhat recognizable world. Until roughly the Renaissance, the technological level of the world was insufficient to really do away with religion on sufficient scale - sure, a state or two can try it within them, but news do not spread quickly enough, national control over their interiors is not absolute, education level in general is pretty low, and, well, how else would the feudal rulers keep serfs in line? They cannot be everywhere at once with their armies, and in effect, there is no tangible advantage in not letting the peasants (who still constitute the majority of the population) have religion. A few particularly zealous lords might go all-out anti-religion, but for the most part, by then the religious structure already exists in place, and it would require much greater effort to stamp it out than a few rulers deciding there is no God or some such. They would go against the whole old order, and without the means and the technology to do so, are very unlikely to result in no religion world.
Now, if the Renaissance results in some differing views on religion, or even if perhaps ATL-French Revolution (or an equivalent) is a lot more successful (I am talking about Robespierre's anti-religion ideas being more developed and more thoroughly implemented), there might be a chance with Industrial Age technology to spread the idea around quickly enough, and to have, over the course of several centuries, diminished effect of religion. This would require at least a continent-wide revolution to begin with, translating into a spree of conquest. Doable, but almost ASB.
In fact, I think this premise as AH should probably be considered ASB, as the social inertia of something like religion is immense, and will take centuries to fully subdue on large enough scale - and even then, it would need a certain technology level and somewhat educated population.
So, let us say there is a technological and scientific revolution during the latter part of the Renaissance and the philosophical movements during the Enlightenment lean towards Secularism and Atheism. There would need to be an organization or union of organization or something that united the scientific community and the common masses. If there was something like that, almost like a Church or something this could be plausible.
The problem is, convincing a few philosophers and "enlightened despots" is one thing. Getting entire continent on to it is another. And also there is a need to do away with existing religious power structure. In order to do that, think Thirty Years War, but much longer and bloodier.
Oh, and let's not forget that all we've done so far, even if this is successful, is basically convert a part of Europe to atheism or secularism (speaking of which, Protestantism was often taken as a secularist approach, by separating church and state - granted, it may not have been the intent, but many German princes took it as a license to do away with the church and to take church property for themselves). There is still the rest of the world - one would need to not only relegate Christianity into a footnote (going against twelve centuries of Christian dominance of civilized Europe, if we presume circa 1500 for your POD), but ALSO do something about Islam (nine centuries of religion which just happens to have a VERY strong political streak), Hinduism (which is older than Christianity and Islam combined), and numerous others.
However, here is another possibility... Buddhism. I am not extremely knowledgeable about it, but from my understanding, Buddhism is only considered a religion because this is the closest understanding of it the Westerners developed (although some aspects of it definitely take very religious angle). In fact, it is more of a philosophy that did not claim divinity in its founder(s), and as such is more compatible with a variety of different belief systems.
Perhaps a POD involving Buddhism and complete decentralization thereof (i.e. treating it as a philosophy and not as a religion) can get closer to the world you have described. Or, another possibility is to have the Chinese Confucian view (which, in my limited understanding, is more of a philosophy on how an individual should act "properly" than an actual religion) prevail worldwide. That may be possible with an earlier POD, but still, distances and lack of communication (which was not quite the case in more developed and often more centralized China) could present long-term problems for large parts of the world not to simply revert to old religions under different names.
So as an actual atheist, let me describe what I think the world would be like without religion.
1. No one would kill each other over which imaginary friend is more "real".
2. Parents wouldn't be allowed to deny their children life-saving medical care on the basis of "God wants them to be sick!"
3. No religions means no religious objections to birth control Greater access to birth control would likely reduce overpopulation and poverty.
4. Given that people would know that this is the one and only life they get, perhaps they'd spend more time trying to make this world better and less time worrying about the next world.
Humans are human, and it is in our nature to fight each other. But it's silly to think we'd kill one another over things like competing scientific theories ("Science damn you!"), because those have the advantage of being provable and verifiable, which religion, by its very nature, is not.
Now, getting down from my soapbox...
There's not too many ways I can think of where we end up with a truly secular world. A stronger trend towards science and learning during the Enlightenment would help, as would a very charasmatic atheist philospher in the early 1800's era. Someone like Marx, perhaps, only without the silliness of Marxism.
But even then all we'd likely end up is secular versions of Europe, Australia and North America. I could see reduced religion in places like Africa, Asia and South America, but I don't know if there's any real way to tweak time so you end up with a secular world by 2008.
By 2108, on the other hand... well, I can dream.
1. No one would kill each other over which imaginary friend is more "real".
2. Parents wouldn't be allowed to deny their children life-saving medical care on the basis of "God wants them to be sick!"
3. No religions means no religious objections to birth control Greater access to birth control would likely reduce overpopulation and poverty.
4. Given that people would know that this is the one and only life they get, perhaps they'd spend more time trying to make this world better and less time worrying about the next world.
Humans are human, and it is in our nature to fight each other. But it's silly to think we'd kill one another over things like competing scientific theories ("Science damn you!"), because those have the advantage of being provable and verifiable, which religion, by its very nature, is not.
Now, getting down from my soapbox...
There's not too many ways I can think of where we end up with a truly secular world. A stronger trend towards science and learning during the Enlightenment would help, as would a very charasmatic atheist philospher in the early 1800's era. Someone like Marx, perhaps, only without the silliness of Marxism.
But even then all we'd likely end up is secular versions of Europe, Australia and North America. I could see reduced religion in places like Africa, Asia and South America, but I don't know if there's any real way to tweak time so you end up with a secular world by 2008.
By 2108, on the other hand... well, I can dream.
OK, let's run with the Buddhism thing. Let's say Jesus Christ dies at the age of three in a fire, and Christianity dies with him. Also by coincidence Muhammad dies before his religious prophecies are in full form. No Christianity, no Islam. Those are the two first PODs.
So, Rome has collapsed. But the Huns are not there to soak up the party, because Buddhism has spread eastward early on between 200-450 AD. By 270 AD Buddhism has spread across the Chinese Empire and 40 years later the Emperor himself has converted. It is not long after that Buddhism has spread across Central Asia, bringing the Huns, a confederation of Central Asian tribes, under its influence. However, Buddhism evolves (or in other perspectives, devolves) into a religion that somewhat tolerates violence to spread its teachings.
The Chinese Empire invades southward into India around 570 AD spreading Buddhism by the sword and eradicating most of Hinduism in the process. The Huns arrive late in Europe around 614 AD rampaging and spreading their beliefs. Meanwhile Europe is a mix of the pagan religions of the barbarians that invaded Rome and Roman and Greek religions that survived because of the Byzantine empire. By 619 Constantinople has been sacked and by 624 Rome has been sacked also. The only places to be spared from Hun savagery are Scandinavia, Britain, and Hibernia. The Mongol tribes also are under the influence of Buddhism and they pour southwest into the Middle East and the edge of Africa.
The Chinese emperor has assumed control of the religion and the Huns and Mongols do not question this. In 665 Japan is the last of Asia to fall to Buddhism, except for Indonesia and the Western Pacific. Well, then that is my scenario. Below is my very quick Paint sketch of it.
GET THE HERETIC!!!!!!!!
Last edited:
Well, I expect that as Midgard said in an Athiest society we see people killing each other over ideology rather than religion. The Soviet Union certainly had no trouble fighting over whether Stalinism, Trotskyism, or Bukharinism was the right belief, just to name one example. There's also the old standbys of greed, ignorance, and lust for power to drive conflict as well.
Very true. But it's much harder to get large groups of people eager to slaughter those who think/believe differently without dragging religion into it. Besides, the Soviet Union was a country established on faith as much as any other; it was just faith in the State, Lennin and Communism rather than the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
I'll claim what I darn well please!
I guess my problem is that I'm too much of an optimist about human nature. I assume that religion is one of the great evils in the world, and that absent that, we'll be a better behaved species. I know it isn't necessarily true, but I can dream.
I guess my problem is that I'm too much of an optimist about human nature. I assume that religion is one of the great evils in the world, and that absent that, we'll be a better behaved species. I know it isn't necessarily true, but I can dream.
I'll claim what I darn well please!
I guess my problem is that I'm too much of an optimist about human nature. I assume that religion is one of the great evils in the world, and that absent that, we'll be a better behaved species. I know it isn't necessarily true, but I can dream.
We are all doomed to war, no matter what, even though religion is evil.
Oh, I don't know that we're doomed to war. Yeah, we've had some nasty ones over the last few thousand years, but nothing really major since World War Two. We haven't learned our lessons as well as we should, but I think we're slowly managing to get our act together.
Vietnam and Iraq? How about the Iran-Iraq war? Those don't count because they were not quite as big?!
Snake Featherston
Banned
So as an actual atheist, let me describe what I think the world would be like without religion.
1. No one would kill each other over which imaginary friend is more "real".
2. Parents wouldn't be allowed to deny their children life-saving medical care on the basis of "God wants them to be sick!"
3. No religions means no religious objections to birth control Greater access to birth control would likely reduce overpopulation and poverty.
4. Given that people would know that this is the one and only life they get, perhaps they'd spend more time trying to make this world better and less time worrying about the next world.
Humans are human, and it is in our nature to fight each other. But it's silly to think we'd kill one another over things like competing scientific theories ("Science damn you!"), because those have the advantage of being provable and verifiable, which religion, by its very nature, is not.
Now, getting down from my soapbox...
There's not too many ways I can think of where we end up with a truly secular world. A stronger trend towards science and learning during the Enlightenment would help, as would a very charasmatic atheist philospher in the early 1800's era. Someone like Marx, perhaps, only without the silliness of Marxism.
But even then all we'd likely end up is secular versions of Europe, Australia and North America. I could see reduced religion in places like Africa, Asia and South America, but I don't know if there's any real way to tweak time so you end up with a secular world by 2008.
By 2108, on the other hand... well, I can dream.
1. Oh really? Did that stop Herr Hitler's Master Race from trying to wipe out Stalin's New Soviet Man? Both were people-sized Imaginary friends of the despots. The Eastern Front was still a massively bloody conflict. Furthermore, ideology creates an entirely new imaginary friend, and meets much of the same needs religion does. Expect Crusades and Jihads to be replaced with something similar under an ideological name.
2. No, they'd probably use something else to do it, like being utter dicks. Remember that thread in PC about the guy killing a baby? Atheism is not a cure-all for human stupidity. In many cultures infanticide is normal, if the baby isn't going to live. Now, take that and allow for the utter dickness of the human race....
3. Replace religion with classism, or better yet, racism and there's the replacement justification. The new justification would be a Malthusian Social Darwinist version of boiling the Scary Brown PeopleTM in their own juice. Sorry, but religion doesn't cause every evil.
4. Yeah, right. A good chunk of the formerly religious would be so hedonistic the obesity epidemic would skyrocket. And the Communists didn't exactly focus on this world either as a secular ideology. Look how well that worked. Many evangelicals seem on the verge of outdoing Casanova without God (in their minds at least.) Want STD rates to spike through the roof? Go right ahead, cut the Fundies' security blanket away.
And as for your other points...I seem to recall a certain Mao Zedong slaughtered billions of Chinese in pursuit of atheism.
And for science being verifiable and provable...50 years ago phrenology was perfectly verifiable and provable, not a pseudoscience. There was a full-blown eugenics movement in much of the West. Neither are verifiable because society is currently against them. Imagine a world where instead of people killing each other with God as justification, imagine a revival of racism and, of course, the ever-present ape xenophobia and stronger groups looking hungrily at weaker groups. Watch the slaughter insuing.
Get that bit? Because society is currently against them. 19th Century Americans found no problem with sterilizing imbeciles. As someone who likely would have been a victim of that myself back then, I feel perfectly justified in calling you every bit as delusional as the religious you so easily despise. I'm hard-of-hearing of the sort that eugenics likely would have considered me just stupid instead of deaf. In a secular world, I'dve likely been sterilized by such secular people as Margaret Sanger and the early Progressives for the benefit of the White RaceTM.
Leave the utopian imaginations to us religious folk, you guys are supposed to be the rational ones, after all.
Snake Featherston
Banned
Yeah fucking right. That was ideology, religion's unwanted brother-in-law suing religion for ownership of the home.
Uh, huh. So, the fact that MAD was the only thing that really stopped the USA and USSR and PRC from ripping the shit out of each other had nothing to do with it, eh? War is not done as much among the Great Powers because it would be too economically and casulty-prone destructive. Now, at last count Wikipedia lists 30-odd wars ongoing. Wanna repeat that with a straight face? Want to tell the people of Chechnya and Iraq and Afghanistan (twice, no less) and Colombia and India and North Africa (Tuareg aren't exactly sedentary) and Ethiopia and Somalia that's not a real war that leaves their women and children and men and animals dead and their cities smoking ruins with corpses everywhere? Get your head out of the First World, buddy, as it ain't this nice everywhere. You are made of fail just as much as a Creationist Lahayite idiot is (no offense, the_lynzienian, I don't include you in that category).
Did you miss the part about WilyBadger's post being a parody?
Anyways, right now a smaller percentage of the world population is being victimised by warfare then probably anytime previously.
So yeah, we are getting our act together. Slowly.
Anyways, right now a smaller percentage of the world population is being victimised by warfare then probably anytime previously.
So yeah, we are getting our act together. Slowly.
I think this thread is starting to come dangerously close to causing people to want to kill each other.
Er... a parody... yeah... that's what it was... don't look into it, or anything...