Giorgia

I would say that the following might result from a 90% atheist world:

1. The problem with over-population would gradually subside as there would no longer be organized church opposition to birth-control.

2. Philosophical and moral issus such as cloning human embryos or bio-engineered plants could be debated in light of pure science, economics, ethics, etc., instead of being clouded by rigid and arbitrary "belief-systems."

3. After the initial shock of adjusting to a world wherein "doing god's will" or "doing good in the name of god" no longer hung over people's heads as a motivator/intimidator, people would start enjoying being more altruistic. (Anthropologists and research psychologists who have studied heroes and heroic behavior (towards strangers) have concluded that altruism is a natural survival instinct in our species.) [And no, I am not getting in the middle of Seraphim/scombrid's debate.]

4. Many an oppressed religious populace (which remained dormant in the grip of a dictatorship because they thought they would be rewarded for their suffering in an after-life) would suddenly realize that "this is no way to live my one life" and revolt.

5. While there undoubtedly would still be ethnically motivated tribal conflicts, and land-grab wars over commodities like oil, I don't think atheists would be treat other humans as "sub-human" as often as theists have. I also don't think that soldiers who believed neither in an after-life nor in the great rewards of martyrdom would be quite so willing to be canon-fodder in an opportunistic war; thus, "defense forces" rather than agressive armies would be the norm.

6. Faith-based acts of terrorism would diminish (no, not disappear -- as the 10% still believing in gods would probably be the most fanatical).

7. With fewer children being born, less xian dogma being taught worldwide, and fewer religion-based prohibitions on women being educated, the general public on the whole would be better educated.


Sadly, logical thinking isn't learned by enough people at an early enough age, and "believers" of all stripes are so effectively over-populating the planet that, no, we will continue to drown in ignorance and rancor until some virus or climatic change rids the planet of the blight of humanity.

Seraphim

By scombrid

Before we begin, I just want to say Sorry for the long wait for my reply. I had a VERY rough weekend (you would too if you spent nearly 10 hours of been thrown around on the cement floor, hit with bokkens and locked at joints which you didn't knew it existed before ) so I was mentally and physically drained.

Having my IE hang on me a couple of times didn't help much either nor the fact that your reply (and mine) had been too long to submit a short reply.

Did I say that dogs are a "role model". I’m not basing human behavior on dogs or any animal for that matter. Maybe it’s the language barrier but it’s absurd for you to state that I’ve said or even implied such. I drew analogies between simpler animals and humans because simple animals have behavior pattern uncorrupted by culture so it’s easier to see where natural selection would develop a set of behaviors.

My reply : In another words, you're trying to find basic behavior patterns of animals in human behaviors by assuming that humans did start their early evolutional stage in such manner ... am I correct? In that case ... It is (partially anyway) acceptable.

Culture hasn’t muddled their base behaviors. It’s instructive as similar behaviors are evident in humans once you peel away the cultural noise.

My reply : And how are you going to peel away this "cultural noise"? Which one will you know is "cultural noise" and which is "natural behaviour"? How will you differentiate the both?

I have extensive education in ecology. I don’t need you to attempt to educate me on the difference between herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores.

My reply : I was stating to benefits for others who may be reading this as well ... some of them may not have an extensive education in ecology like you ... I certainly don't.

Beavers have spread throughout the North American continent after being hunted to very low numbers. By your model, they should just pile up in their original pond until it will no longer hold any more. Big cats migrated from the old world to the new along the same path as pre-historic humans. Animals do alter their environment they just haven’t developed the capacity to do so the extent that we have. Unless they stumble upon some means of passing accumulated knowledge down from one generation to the next they won’t develop our ability to alter the world. That’s irrelevant to the point.

That some behaviors are common across trophic status and intellect is instructive that the behaviors are genetically based and offer some survival advantage.

My reply : Lets look at migration patterns, shall we?
1st - Reason for migration. In animal migration, it is always search for food and better breeding grounds. In human ... the same?

2nd - There is always an distinctive pattern in migration in animals. Herbivores looks for better feeding grounds, carnivore follow their preys. How about Humans? What did they follow?
I remember hearing that scientists not very sure WHY humans across the sea from Sulu Penisula (roughly around Malaysia/Indonesia/Singapore area) to Australia 2,000 miles away while they could easily move northward (some of them actually did).

About your statement about inherited knowledge. Some animals like elephants do inherit their knowledge to the younger ones via conducts. The older ones simply shows the younger ones routes to greener patchers and the younger ones simply follow it. Another example is Apes and their tool usage. The knowledge of tools is simply shown by those who could use it to younger ones and they (younger ones) mimic it.

Yes they do. Many generations of beavers will remain in the original pond leaving a genetic lineage traceable for hundreds of years. Why then would they have managed to colonize so many new locations as the population grows? Some split of on their own while others stay. Humans do the same. Why do adolescent humans frequently rebel against parents? Might it be a common drive to split from the family unit? We often rebel against our genes by ignoring impulses. That’s where culture has muddled human animal behavior.

My reply : Maybe in your society, such thing happens but in the East, it is a different matter. Several generations in a family will live under the same roof for years to an end. Even in modern times, two different members of the same generation do attend to live with each other under the same roof or close by without resorting to rebel with each other. Maybe it is simply a "cultural" thing in the East.

Coyotes have expanded their range all the way to the east coast as the US expanded and their competitor the wolf was eliminated and land clearing created more favorable open habitat. Some birds have successfully expanded their ranges as human activities have altered habitat. Ospreys have re-expanded their range as their population rebounds in the post DDT era and day markers provide excellent nest sites. Bears keep showing up in cities adjacent to the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge as the population reaches saturation and young break out looking for new habitat. This type of range expansion predates modern man’s meddling. The fossil record tracks the movement of the big cats from old world to new over time. In all of these cases, the original population remains in place while splinter groups colonize new land.

My reply : Movements of one species due to lack of restriction from another specie OR due to a great change in their environment. What's so special about that?

Two years is adolescence for leopards. That would be roughly the time when kids desire to get away from their parents. I’ll also add that leopard populations are so small that leopards have no genetic diversity and make poor study organisms. Given a large population occupying a larger range of habitats and exhibiting greater genetic diversity I wager that you’d see some variation on the age at which leopard split. Besides, leopards are mostly SOLITARY and not a valid organism for studying social habits that’s why I didn’t bring them up and I guess that’s why you did.

My reply : OK ... you want to drop leapords from this discussion because they are solitary animals? OK by me.

Human intelligence is just another trait, like having wings. It conveys a survival advantage but doesn’t remove the underlying behavior patterns.

My reply : This is where our difference in approach lies. To you, you seems to think that humans has all the features of an animal BUT they simply overshadow it by applying culture to it (correct me if I'm wrong here).

To me, human behavior (including those animal traits) slowly developed into culture traits as humans forced to live with each other. Culture simply evolved from early human traits into a more manageable traits such as marriage (to prevent freemixing), social laws (to prevent chaos) and religion (maybe to prevent social collapse ... maybe).

Their society has rules enforced by other members of the group and not some deity just like humans. You know that there are animals where parents manipulate their offsprings’ reproductive choices and opportunities unless the offspring leave?

My reply : Dieties don't control humans ... never had, probably never will. HUMANS control other HUMANS by intelligent (or lack of intelligence). If you read through the history, you will notice that the most successful "leaders" are usually the most successful "manipulator" of issues such as religion. Some humans are simply too stupid to think for themselves.

Mind showing some example of which animal manipulate their offspring's reproductive choices?

Huh? Slow down and write in a manner that people can understand. Humans don’t breast-feed others’ children either. Natural selection punished those who wasted milk on unrelated children. relevance?

My reply : Hmmm ... you understood my writing so far ... which part of it you didn't get?

Humans do not breastfeed others' children for various reason :

1. More abundant food source in form of milk (like cow's milk).
2. Social acceptance that a mother is the one who should suckle her child.

Siblings are brothers and sisters not children. It is impossible for a child to suckle siblings. Again Relevance?

My reply : I was referring to sexually matured young ones in a group who takes turns to take care the younglings (called it being a Nanny to kids while waiting to have some yourself). Example of being Nanny is in Elephant society and cat family where the younglings were reared by every female members of the group (but the youngling usually get milk from its mother).

Pre-reproductive dogs regurgitate partially digested meat to young pack members that don’t hunt or feed on a kill but are too old to nurse. They even feed young that are only distantly related. This is an example of sharing within the group that isn’t dominance driven. Human behaviors are survival tactics as well.

My reply : Sorry, I have not heard that wild dogs nurse any members of its group which is NOT its own offspring and reached age where it can hunt for itself. What exactly do you mean by pre-reproductive dogs anyway?

Yeah, it generally only manifests in social species which range from hymenopterans to elephants. It applies to a much wider range of creatures than large herbivores and small animals. Short list: mere cats: small omnivores, African wild dogs: voracious carnivores, leaf cutter ants: fungivore.

My reply : OK ... we are both agreed to this. Any specific condition where a species could adapt such approach as Kin selection?

It’s simply an analogy between observed animal behavior (seals with harems) and observed human behavior. Some humans are cognizant of their urges and resist such animalistic behavior but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s there.

My reply : nope, they don't resist the animalistic behavior but modify the approach to such urges in form of marriage and forming family units. It is the free expression of such urgue which brings problems to a society.

I might also draw analogies between polygynous human societies and species in which one male controls many females. It’s a case of one dominant male trying to monopolize reproductive opportunities.

My reply : In such state, it is the dominant male which will be in problem because it will take a lot of energy to maintain and "satisfy" (if it is a human) ALL its female members.
In animal society, it simply of reproducing the strongest bred but it has no purpose (at least none which I see) to have one male dominating several females.

Sexual selection, so what? You have to judge the quality of prospective mates based on something.

My reply : OK. Only difference here is animal don't have such choices especially in group where the Alpha has all the actions.

So lower class or subordinate society members don’t have the same opportunity to breed with quality mates as dominant or alpha members.

My reply : OK, except lower subordinate members in an animal society do not have any opportunity to mate as long as Alphas remains - whether the mate is with quality or a dominant female.

The whole culture has nothing to do with “scoring” but everything to do with mating opportunities and selection of quality mates. Humans aren’t the only animal in which reproductive adults control the reproductive opportunities of their offspring.

My reply : Agreed to some extend. Early societies such as Mayan, Aryans and some high class society groups in China DO control their selection within their members but the reason is anything but for the quality of offsprings. Politics and other endevadours in play where in animals species, it is simply mating with the best of the group.

Human biogeography and animal biogeography operate on the same premises. They spread into any place in which they’re capable of living. One groups lives in a spot until some form of competition (this competition may be a food shortage or may be competition for mates) drives out certain members. Those members either die when they fail to find a suitable place to live or they expand the range of the species as they colonize new habitats and probably displace existing residents. This is true for agrarian humans, hunter-gatherers, bears, horses, hawks, etc… The advent of agriculture just allows any given spot to hold a greater density of people. Modern colonialism was still driven by resource competition just as was likely for the spread of humans in pre-history. The original population remains in place. I shouldn’t have had to spell this out as you obviously selected the bit of my statement that fit your premise but ignored reality of human biogeography.

My reply : OK ... acceptable. Can't find anything in history so far to say otherwise.

Beavers can live in rivers or existing lakes without building dams. However, they increase available habitat for themselves by building their own ponds. How about ants especially those neat leaf cutters that harvest fungus? Lots of animals alter habitats to suit their needs. Humans are just better at it.

My reply : Agreed. Reason is same as above.

Inbreeding depression presumably would reduce the fitness of animals that mate with close relatives. This selects for animals that have an aversion to mating with parents or siblings so we expect to see relatives avoid breeding with one another. Adolescents should vacate the family unit before breeding.

My reply : Are you telling me the reason why members in a family (at least in your society) breaks apart is because the male members couldn't poke their female members (who is most likely to be their siblings)?

It’s stupidity on your part to think I was advocating the behavior in the OT or suggesting that man should follow the animal example. The OT presumably reflects the way of life in early modern man. I was drawing a parallel between the dogma held as sacred by a huge chunk of the human population and its resemblance to animal behavior.

My reply : All the MORE reason why OT should be dumped as something outdated ....

Animals strive for nothing but a full belly and successful breeding. They do not “strive not to change anything” but fail to change anything as competition with other animals and abiotic conditions holds them in check. They alter there environments when need be as much as their abilities allow. Ever seen what happens to a marsh when the nutria population grows a little too fast? As before, human population and range expansion works just like animals. Humans just have a superior tool for moving into places that would be unsuitable. I don’t see the difference between my building a house and a muskrat building a den. With my greater intelligence I have a greater range of choices for shelter but the fact remains that we both have to build shelter to rear young as our local environment didn’t provide.

My reply : That doesn't stop the human from changing their environment, did it? Humans were lack of so many things - stronger, more agile body for hunting, natural defence against cold and heat and anything else that some animals had. ALL they had was intelligence and they manage to change the world with that.
I do see a difference between you building a house and a muskrat building a den. One is for sake of shelter and another is for sake of choice.

Those educated in science and logic do lead good lives as evidenced by their conspicuous absence from prisons. You see what you do over here because our population is largely ignorant in many areas. They benefit from science but don’t understand it. Most still believe in absurd superstition. Ask most kids over here to point out Malaysia on a map.

My reply : Hmph ... as if prison records says anything. Most went to prison in your society are from groups which has lack of resources to manage themselves ... that doesn't means they are stupid ... just that "payment" from crime is better compared to good lives.

Greed is a human nature and as long as you're a human, anyone can be greedy. Take George Soros for example - famous stockmarket dealer who brought-down economics in several countries in South East Asia around beginning of 1990s. He is not in prison, he wasn't a poor fellow and he is certainly can lead a good life ... but whether he was a good person or a theists or atheist is YET to be determined.

just because your kids cannot point Malaysia in the world map, doesn't mean it doesn't exist nor it is important to the world ... it simply means your kids are lack of General knowledge (considering that Malaysia playing various roles in International stage nowadays like the NAM meetings).

Sex is natural. We’re strongly driven to reproduce like all animals. We must suppress that drive until it’s culturally acceptable. Sex carries risks and I think those risks should be the basis for cultural norms that we see. People are largely ignorant of the risks and think that the risks are myths propagated by fundies. The fixation with sex in the west is likely a backlash against the unreasoned fundamentalism supported by the Christians. Our government uses fear and paranoia to promote its agenda among ignorant people, unfortunately one of those agendas is faith. Amercans are ridiculously credulous.

My reply : Sex IS natural, FREEMIXING IS NOT. Even most in animal society do not freemix (some like certain species of apes do).
Those risks are not propagated by anything ... it is simply facts which our (OK ... my) forefathers had seen in the past. Children been born from wedlocks to society which themselves struggling to maintain due to lack of resources (3rd world countries now), collapse of morale when activities such as marriage isn't important anymore and so much more.

But I do agree about your government and its approach toward promoting its agenda. It should concentrate in building better society by educating its people of such risks in better manner than through scaring them by religions.

Somebody else already provided stats on the rate of imprisonment of irreligious in the US. I haven't much idea how the US as a whole compares to the rest of the world. We’ve got more crime in the US than the less religious Western European countries.

My reply : which means what religion a person is doesn't makes much difference when comes to crime ... does it? If a person is greedy, he can use crime to satisfy his greed ... and religion doesn't do much to change that.

Finally. People behave like animals because they are animals. Where humans deviate from animals is in intelligence, communication, and the ability to understand the consequenses of behavior. Through understanding the results of our behavior we can resist our genes and modify our behavior to maximize our quality of life. It's plainly obvious that my body wants to breed but I haven't sired children yet. My male aggression is plainly obvious when I get angry as somebody flirts with my girlfriend.

My reply : In my opinion, humans did deviate from animals state (as agreed by various theories including Hindusm) but we had something extra - Intelligence to guide us.

Our culture is something we produce over the years of interacting with each other, trial and errors of conducts and basic understanding. Culture is not something we should over look, but define and refine to benefit our future generation otherwise we will repeat the same mistake so many human societies in the past had done and fall due to that.

My male aggression also makes me angry when I see my girlfriend getting flirted by someone else (assuming I have a Girlfriend), but my intelligence will oppress the urge to fight it out with the other male because that what makes me a human. Fight OR Flight mechanism (which all animals and humans have) is only last resort when all other approach (through intelligence) fails.

PS : I took me an hour to write this ... we definately need to cut down our "quality" time together into a smaller, manageable chunks. :P

And avalanche:ix, your statements do NOT impress me ... you want to talk ... do something about your language and choice of words first.

Jolly_Penguin

This is an interesting question. What would the world be like if it was 90% atheist instead of 90% theist. There were some good points made above in the first page or so, before Seraphim hijacked the thread.

I would just like to add that I think peoples' ideas and opinions and thus their behaviours would be less controlled by others, for better or worse. Religion is the greatest social control tool I can imagine, actually causing people to self-regulate to keep in line with the prescribed code of ethics/demands.

Now would this mean an orderly marketplace of ideas and healthy democracy, or would this mean total chaos (as seraphim originally suggested)? I'm not sure.

Johann_Kaspar

For some countries it is already not true. In France only 55% believe in one dog. There are free places.

Johann_Kaspar

Yep and the citizens of the USofA are 95% theists. I begin to think that anything else would be better.

Eudaimonist

Maybe, maybe not.

Yes, one of those. It depends on what sort of philosophies replace theisms.

Based on what I see in secular Sweden, I expect a large percentage to have fuzzy "New Age" ideas about disembodied spirits, psychic powers, and such. But this is not a firm prediction.

That's a very good question! It's nearly impossible to say for certain.

My guess is that scientific advances alone are not likely to accomplish this. If secular organizations that help fulfill "spiritual needs" are capable of providing good substitutes for what religions provide, then maybe.

kciredor reprah

First of all, I agree with an earlier poster in that the world is not made up of 90% theists. I believe we will advance toward a more Star Trek style society. Which will benefit all of humanity.


Peace

Yahzi

Sweden.

Or Norway, Finland, France... really, most of your European countries are around 30% theist, and dropping.

King Rat

What may be illuminating is to think of what the world would have been like without xtianity for example.

No Crusades
No repression of Galileo
No intellectual shackling of Newton
No Inquisition
No Mayan genocide
No Papal repression
No Nazi distortion of xtianity
No Salem witch trials
No pyre for Bruno
No destruction of Hawaiian/Polynesian society (and countless others)

I'm sure others can list more. I'd say the world would be a better place just for these reasons alone.

Newton Joseph

IF WE CAN'T MAKE THEM MORAL
WE WILL MAKE THEM CHRISTIANS
By New 10.

All would agree that we should strive for a moral society. If we are going to
have such a society as moral as humanly possible, we have to have a new
approach. 2000 years of Christianity was not the answer, obviously. There are
Christians in our society that will never ever be moral. One can preach Christianity
until they are blue in the face and it will not make a difference.
The best society possible would be that all politicians be secular humanists.
Secular humanism should be taught as the only humane philosophy for people to
follow. If children are taught the principles behind secular humanism, they would
be better citizens morally.
To test the popular notion that religion, in this case Christianity, will make
better moral citizens, I suggest this; seeing that 99.9 percent of our prison
population are Christian, knowing that Christians believe if they could preach the
love of Jesus Christ to these prisoners, they would make these men and women
moral citizens.
It would be common sense to turn over all prisons to Christian
denominations. They take in enough money to sustain the prison system.
Religious organizations would be financially responsible for their brethren who have
broken the ten commandments. It would also make sense if the prison guards are
priests and ministers. These priests and ministers will have a captive audience to
practice their sermons. They will have the opportunity to see these moral sinners
change into moral men and women who love Jesus as much as Jesus loves these
rapists, murderers and other sociopaths. They can turn these muscle bound and
tattooed jocks into choirs that will sing like the angels.
I'm sure that the ministers and priests who will be the guardians for these
convicts can scare the hell out of these fellows into good behavior when they
threaten them with the torments of hell.
What great sport for these God folk to see these convicts come forward to
confess their sins; "Please Father, forgive me for the rapes I've committed. Do you
suppose I could get into heaven? Please Father forgive me, for the murder of all
those women. Do you think I can get into Heaven? Yes, my sons, Jesus forgives
all just for saying, 1 accept Jesus into my heart'."
What better opportunity to show the world that Christianity can save bodies
as well as the soul.