If in the next hour, everybody alive became an atheist, what would happen?

[bilby]

She may still have the prejudice, or she may not. She'd just no longer stand on scripture to support her position, whatever it may be.

This is in conflict with the Op scenario.
All religious prejudice and belief would disappear from the moral/political landscape.
Are you saying there might still be some atheists left who think it's immoral to offend someone else's religious sensitivities?

There are now; Why would that change?

 

[bilby]

Apologists who claim we have an inner moral compass assert that God put it there.
Those apologists would now be atheists with no basis to continue with that proposition.

They currently have no basis for that. But they do it anyway.

When a lawmaker is said to be needed for every law, the result is an endless series, since someone must be the lawmaker of the lawmaker's laws. Because such a series is uncomfortable to moral philosophers and theologians, at some point they declare that "the buck stops here." They argue for an ultimate lawmaker, one who has no one who makes laws for him. And how is that done? The point is made that the buck has to stop somewhere, and a supernatural god is thought to be as good a stopping place as any.

But still the question can be asked: "From where does God get his (or her) moral values?" If God gets them from a still higher source, the buck hasn't stopped, and we are back to our endless series. If they originate with God, then God's morals are made up and hence arbitrary. If analogy is to be used to establish God as a source of morals because all morals need an intelligent moral source, then, unfortunately for the theist, the same analogy must be used to show that, if God makes morals up "out of the blue," God is being just as arbitrary as are human beings who do the same thing. As a result, we gain no advantage and hence are no more compelled philosophically to obey God's arbitrary morals than we are to obey the morals established by our best friend or even our worst enemy. Arbitrary is arbitrary, and the arbitrariness is in no way removed by making the arbitrary moralizer supernatural, all-powerful, incomprehensible, mysterious, or anything else usually attributed to God. So, in this case, if God exists, God's values are just God's opinions and need not necessarily concern us.

While this first assumption — the need for a lawmaker — fails to solve the problem which it was intended to solve, the second assumption — that the source of moral values must lie outside of human beings — actually stands in the way of finding the answer. The second assumption is based upon the superficial awareness that laws seem to be imposed upon us from without. And from this it follows that there needs to be an external imposer of morality. But what is so often forgotten is that those human laws that appear externally imposed are actually, at least in the Western world, the product of a democratic process. They are the laws of the governed. And, if it is possible for people to develop laws and impose those laws upon themselves, then it is possible to do the same with morality. As in law, so in morals; the governed are capable of rule.

Source.

 

[Underseer]

Not very damn much would change if I could wave a magic wand and make religion disappear overnight.

Most atheists get this wrong. They think that religion causes sloppy thinking, and if we get rid of religion, everyone in the world would magically become logical thinkers who never use fallacious arguments nor succumb to biases, as if becoming atheist somehow makes people smarter and more reasoned.

Obviously, I think this is bullshit. Frothy bullshit. Religion isn't the disease, it's a symptom. Religion isn't the cause of sloppy thinking, it is the result of sloppy thinking. Get rid of religion and human beings would still be sloppy thinkers. We would still make bad decisions. We would certainly make different rationalizations for our bad decisions and we might even make different bad decisions, but we would still make bad decisions.

The goal should not ever be to get rid of religion, it should be to get rid of the sloppy thinking that makes religion possible in the first place. The focus should be on teaching critical thinking, not deconverting people from religion.

If we are right about atheism, then teaching people to think better will probably reduce the number of theists in the world. Not that I think it matters all that much. Humans have a remarkable capacity for compartmentalization, and it's very possible that you could teach critical thinking to everyone, and a large number of people would continue to use bad reasoning solely on the topic of religion just so that they can cling to their religion. Goodness knows there are plenty of very intelligent, highly educated theists who demonstrate this each and every day.

And if that's how things turned out, I would be OK with that. Really.

Even if people continued to use sloppy thinking on the topic of religion, if we teach them how to think better, then at least they would use better logic and reason when making decisions on topics other than religion, which would still result in an overall improvement in the quality of decisions made by humans, which would still result in making the world a slightly better place.

By contrast, deconverting everyone would have (at least in my opinion) minimal effect on how good or bad humanity is.

I argue with theists about apologetics not because I want to change their minds and turn them into atheists, but because I know their passion for the topic will keep them engaged and allow me to sneak in lessons about logic, reason, evidence evaluation, etc., etc.

 

[Underseer]

The morality therefore god argument fails on so many levels that it is obvious most theists don't bother arguing with non-theists about this topic.

Seriously, the Euthyphro dilemma was originally offered thousands of years ago. People who bothered paying attention have known for thousands of years that the morality-based arguments for religion are completely baseless. You can't get morality from an authority. It doesn't matter if the authority is Yaweh, the nature of Yaweh, Zeus, Vishnu, forest spirits, a magic hiking boot, the government, sentient spatulas, the police, garden gnomes, or ethics professors, you can't get morality from any authority. At all. Ever.

How do you know that the authority is moral? In order to answer that, you have to develop a definition of morality independent of the authority, but the moment you do that, the definition is the source of your morality, not the authority. Thus an authority can only demand obedience, not provide authority. That is ultimately an arbitrary standard of morality based on the whims of the authority and the ultimate and most incoherent form of moral relativism imaginable.

 

[Angry Floof]

I don't completely agree with that, U. It works both ways; all manner of stupidity exists in human minds, and ideology preys on that. Stupidity and ignorance in a highly social animal spread the ideology, which in turn acts on human minds further.

Religion IS a disease and not just a symptom. It is created directly out of fear and ignorance, which are not any religion's fault, but much of religion is codified stupidity. It's not just the viral nature of ideas, but also how those ideas impinge back on us to create a new iteration of stupid groupthink.

Religious tenets include specific concepts and stories that are not at all arbitrary. Things like human sacrifice, saved vs. going to hell, Satan is responsible for all bad things, humans are inherently unworthy of anything but eternal torture, believers are magically protected from evil as well as from accountability, etc.

These and other very specific tenets and ideas have very specific and very destructive effects on human minds and groups.

Ordinary ignorance is not good or bad. I like comparing it to soil. You can grow anything in it, any old religious or conspiracy theory superweed will grow in it. Education, accountability, debunking bullshit, and a wider secular community to restrain zealotry and counter-cultivate peaceful behaviors, are some of the things that can do the job of weeding out religious and other irrational ideas from taking root in our cognitive pitfalls.

 

[Brian63]

Religion isn't the disease, it's a symptom. Religion isn't the cause of sloppy thinking, it is the result of sloppy thinking.

They are both a cause and an effect of each other, in a positive feedback cycle. Similar to how the anti-homosexuality views that some fundamentalist theists have fuel their religious views, but also their religious views fuel their anti-homosexuality. So it is important and helpful when those of us who are more nontheist can dispel their religious views as well.

Get rid of religion and human beings would still be sloppy thinkers. We would still make bad decisions. We would certainly make different rationalizations for our bad decisions and we might even make different bad decisions, but we would still make bad decisions.

True, but it should be noted that the bad decisions would not be made *to the same extent* and may not have the harmful results to the same degree as before either. You seem to be phrasing the alternatives as either having all of one or the other. Really though, we function in having *degrees* of both. So getting rid of religion, for instance, might help there be *less* sloppy thinkers than before and those sloppy thinkers would not have as harmful beliefs as they had before on specific issues like gay rights, evolution/creationism, political views, etc.

The goal should not ever be to get rid of religion, it should be to get rid of the sloppy thinking that makes religion possible in the first place. The focus should be on teaching critical thinking, not deconverting people from religion.

The goal should actually be for both, to whatever extent we can achieve. Even if we never achieve complete success, every little bit will likely still help some.

Brian

P.S. hylidae has it stated well just above.

 

[Metaphor]

This is in conflict with the Op scenario.

No, it isn't.

All religious prejudice and belief would disappear from the moral/political landscape.

Actually, that's the question: how long would it take religious prejudice and belief to disappear from the political landscape?

Are you saying there might still be some atheists left who think it's immoral to offend someone else's religious sensitivities?

There are atheists right now who think it's immoral to offend someone else's religious sensitivities.

 

[untermensche]

What would happen if everybody suddenly grew gills?

Worthless scenarios that will never happen can teach us nothing.

 

[Metaphor]

What would happen if everybody suddenly grew gills?

Worthless scenarios that will never happen can teach us nothing.

Thanks for your input into the thought experiment.

 

[untermensche]

What would happen if everybody suddenly grew gills?

Worthless scenarios that will never happen can teach us nothing.

Thanks for your input into the thought experiment.

What about mine?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Thanks for your input into the thought experiment.

What about mine?

I think i grew gills when i lived in Florida, but now I'm in Massachusetts, i think they've dried out.

We'd sell a lot more water, but people would care less about the flavor and more about the salinity.

 

[Underseer]

I don't completely agree with that, U. It works both ways; all manner of stupidity exists in human minds, and ideology preys on that. Stupidity and ignorance in a highly social animal spread the ideology, which in turn acts on human minds further.

Religion IS a disease and not just a symptom. It is created directly out of fear and ignorance, which are not any religion's fault, but much of religion is codified stupidity. It's not just the viral nature of ideas, but also how those ideas impinge back on us to create a new iteration of stupid groupthink.

Religious tenets include specific concepts and stories that are not at all arbitrary. Things like human sacrifice, saved vs. going to hell, Satan is responsible for all bad things, humans are inherently unworthy of anything but eternal torture, believers are magically protected from evil as well as from accountability, etc.

These and other very specific tenets and ideas have very specific and very destructive effects on human minds and groups.

Ordinary ignorance is not good or bad. I like comparing it to soil. You can grow anything in it, any old religious or conspiracy theory superweed will grow in it. Education, accountability, debunking bullshit, and a wider secular community to restrain zealotry and counter-cultivate peaceful behaviors, are some of the things that can do the job of weeding out religious and other irrational ideas from taking root in our cognitive pitfalls.

It is a two-way street to a degree in that religion encourages followers to accept bad arguments, then makes them emotionally attached to certain conclusions so that they want to accept bad arguments and will reject good arguments.

And yes, there are a number of horrible social ills that correlate with the religiosity of a population, but I can't say to what effect that correlation is due to education level, which also affects the likelihood that one accept religious conclusions.

I'll be honest that I have no empirical evidence I can point to in order to demonstrate that the benefits of losing religion in a society would be relatively small, but have you noticed that as the hold religion has on society wanes, we find more and more nutty non-religious beliefs springing up in their place? Take UFO visitation or the expanding Earth hypothesis as examples. Russia was taken over by the communists, who immediately turned an economic theory into a state religion and started abusing it in all the ways religion traditionally abused power when joined at the hip to the state.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I have you noticed that as the hold religion has on society wanes, we find more and more nutty non-religious beliefs springing up in their place?

I'd say that's mainly due to the lack of an education system which cultivates critical thinking and equips the populace with the tools with which they can examine their beliefs. Of course we're not going to get anything like that any time soon.

 

[Underseer]

I have you noticed that as the hold religion has on society wanes, we find more and more nutty non-religious beliefs springing up in their place?

I'd say that's mainly due to the lack of an education system which cultivates critical thinking and equips the populace with the tools with which they can examine their beliefs. Of course we're not going to get anything like that any time soon.

But that's exactly my point. The problem is not religion, but lack of critical thinking skills. Removing religion does not inherently solve that problem.

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At best it reduces a roadblock to solving the problem.