When you hold a life stance like Humanism in a world full of religious extremism, violence, intolerance, and a general lack of respect for human rights and dignity, it can be easy to focus on the negative and what needs to be changed.  This is only na…

As already suggested, the important thing is not to be an atheist per se, but an adogmatist; to reject not just religious dogmas, but all other forms of dogmas: communist, nationalist, racist etc.

Yes, American society would probably move in the direction of Western Europe. Not paradise on earth by any means, but a little bit healthier all round.

This however is pure scare-mongering:

I think there would ultimately be a push to start restricting religion in unethical ways. As much as we may like some of our friends who are religious, it seems to me that almost every outspoken atheist has a complete hatred for religion.

As frequently pointed out, trying to organise atheists is like herding cats. Once atheists are no longer under threat, atheist organisations will simply disintegrate. In the Netherlands I know of just one tiny atheist organisation; atheist organisations aren’t needed.

In the 25 years I have lived in the Netherlands I have yet to hear a single attempt to “start restricting religion in unethical ways”. True, American society does tend to produce more hot-heads, so it wouldn’t surprise me if a few people did try to pull that sort of stunt – but I think the chance of them succeeding would, in a adogmatist society, be essentially nil.

The nearest anything has come to restricting religion, was with the SGP – the fundamentalist Christian political party. This does not allow women to stand as candidates for parliament and in fact does not allow them full membership of the party. It was decided two years ago that this meant they were excluded from receiving government subsidies until they stopped discriminating. Hardly unethical.

All those old churches would make good night clubs though.

Yes, American society would probably move in the direction of Western Europe. Not paradise on earth by any means, but a little bit healthier all round.

This however is pure scare-mongering:

I think there would ultimately be a push to start restricting religion in unethical ways. As much as we may like some of our friends who are religious, it seems to me that almost every outspoken atheist has a complete hatred for religion.

As frequently pointed out, trying to organise atheists is like herding cats. Once atheists are no longer under threat, atheist organisations will simply disintegrate. In the Netherlands I know of just one tiny atheist organisation; atheist organisations aren’t needed.

In the 25 years I have lived in the Netherlands I have yet to hear a single attempt to “start restricting religion in unethical ways”. True, American society does tend to produce more hot-heads, so it wouldn’t surprise me if a few people did try to pull that sort of stunt – but I think the chance of them succeeding would, in a adogmatist society, be essentially nil.

The nearest anything here has come to restricting religion, was with the SGP – the fundamentalist Christian political party. This does not allow women to stand as candidates for parliament and in fact does not allow them full membership of the party. It was decided two years ago that this meant they were excluded from receiving government subsidies until they stopped discriminating. Hardly unethical.

It would probably be like Western Europe.

I hope so. If that’s how it was, that would be a great thing I think. If that is the type of atheist majority it would be very good. However if it was a very anti-theist (I do think there is a difference between atheist and anti-theist) majority, I would worry about it going too far the other way and not treating theists as equals. I think the first one would be much more likely though-and that’s a good thing.

I don’t think that an atheist society would necessarily be a better one. A better society would come about from a more rational people (and atheism would just be a happy side effect). Of course, it’s likely that it would be an improvement in some areas (a president who said that God told him to invade other countries would get laughed out of office, for example). But unless people were rational and acted in logical and sensible ways, they would possess a shallow atheism, the kind where they never question being brought up atheist. And atheism on its own wouldn’t mean no wacky beliefs in homeopathic medicine and other New Age tripe.

I agree. I would add though that not everything about homeopathy is bad. Of course it should never be used totally in place of known science, and stuff like faith healing is nonsense (as well as plenty of other stuff in it). But there is stuff that helps (like some herbs)-other cultures do use them. My own illness for example, is marginalized by some docs so I’ve found that some homeopathic herbs in addition to standard treatment have helped me. I think the biggest problem with it is it needs to be tested-if we could do that, we could figure out more what is worth keeping and what is not. They are doing this in Europe, which is pretty secular. So I’d like to hope if we became more secular here we’d do the same thing.

The country would definitely be very libertarian. I have no qualms about saying that most conservatism (in both democrats and republicans) is fueled by religion and dislike of “different” ideas or people.

The religious will definitely feel oppressed at first even if they are treated equally, as they will be subject to taxes (as the deserve to be) and will not have the opportunity to do as much indoctrination and conversion as they usually do.

I think there would ultimately be a push to start restricting religion in unethical ways. As much as we may like some of our friends who are religious, it seems to me that almost every outspoken atheist has a complete hatred for religion. And because it is very easy to sway the masses with extreme claims, I have no doubt that people will eventually end up like today’s Evangelicals (with the exception that they believe in logical things).

The problem is that Americans take a lot of pride in the groups they are a part of. Especially a group that was once oppressed (or felt oppressed). It’s human nature. Many religious people think little of their religion, because they assume everyone else believes in the majority religion unless told otherwise(1), when almost every Atheist I’ve known (including myself) wants to be some sort of activist.

It’s no secret that the masses are stupid. We, as part of the masses, are also stupid, and hide it to keep our personal pride high. And only when the majority of individuals realize that they are just as stupid as the bad driver in front of them, the asshole that holds up the line, or the lazy bastard at work, will society truly act in a sensible manner.

And I admit it, I am a stupid human… just like the other 6 or so billion people on this planet.

You make excellent points, especially about the “unethical push”. It seems whenever there is a majority group, some members want to persecute a minority-no matter how rational other members of that group may be. The Christians started out as a small, persecuted minority. Then when they got into power, look what they became. Same with Muslims…….it just seems to be a human thing that too often too many members of a majority group get stuck on power. Maybe though, if society was more rational and reasonable overall-this could be prevented?

I would hope that a “let’s see the evidence first, then decide” or “my belief or support of a prospect is in direct proportion to the amount of evidence” type of worldview would be a positive step whether or not it resulted in a majority atheist society.

I agree with you. It may not result in a more fully atheistic society, but it should definitely be a more rational society that thinks things out more.

People who want power will still try to scare voters into electing them – religion or not, that will not change. If the only result were that people were even a little more likely to vote for lawmakers who would represent the people governed instead of their own religious viewpoints, because (as atheists) the voters were a bit harder to convince/manipulate/herd, that alone would make for a better society.

that makes a lot of sense

I don’t know. While I would love to see religious extremist disappear, I think a more Humanistic society would be far better. I, of course, am not saying I’m against the idea of the majority being atheists, on the contrary, but I think having Religious Humanist (I’m including Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Humanism), along with Secular, Ethical, and Cultural Humanism would be the best thing that could happen. In effect, the majority would be atheists, but there would be more to it than just atheism alone. I do hope that makes sense.

yeah it does, and I think it’s a good idea. I have to say I like a lot of things about humanism

What we need desperately is not more atheists as much as less nonsense. I’m just hoping for public education that really does educate. I’d be happy in a world of tolerant, moderate faithful that, like Jimmy Carter, believe in science, reason, and making peace not war. Look at the jackass in the White House–there’s what we’ve got to offer the world.

good point. the jackass in the white house almost makes me want to move to Canada-luckily he’ll be out in a year and then maybe, just maybe, things might start to get better. I’ve heard the evangelicals are divided over the republican candidates-not united like last time, so hopefully they will be too fragmented to vote as a unit again.

How would society be different if atheists were in the majority?

It would probably be like Western Europe.