Brahma's atheist

If you look at civilisation around the world they all have or have had gods. Many totally independent, eg Australia, America. It simply means, in general, that sentient beings will always come up with gods and sprits to explain things in times of ignorance. If there are sentient beings elsewhere in the universe I bet they'll have gods and such. Because you're never going to start from a point of having knowledge so you have to explain things supernaturally to begin with, what else is there? Then you discover the truth and learn and pass on knowledge.The power of the gods decreases.
Eventually you get us, atheists. People who realise gods and such are simply the figments of primitive and ignorant minds. I don't mean ignorant in a bad sense, just people who didn't know rather than people who could easily know but choose not to.
We are a next step in the intelectual or cultural development of humanity,you know what I mean? A step away from the past towards enlightenment or at least away from the need and institutions of gods.
Is this a bit of a grandiose statement?

Marduk

“We are a next step in the intelectual or cultural development of humanity,you know what I mean? A step away from the past towards enlightenment or at least away from the need and institutions of gods.
Is this a bit of a grandiose statement?”

Possibly, but even as an agnostic the idea that humans are the most ‘enlightened’ beings in the universe frightens and depresses me to no end. I guess it depends on how you define enlightened.

Scottyman

I think we are as enlightened as we can be from our perspective. I have always held the opinion that if travelers from another solar system came to visit us, they would be appaled by our primitivism and would probably want to observe us rather than become involved with us.

I completely agree with Marduck when it comes to the evolution of the human species and religion. We will eventually outgrow these childish belief systems and come to our senses.

What I find really scary and equally apalling is what religious fanatics do in the name of their "god". When will the wars end and when will we wake up to the fact that our leaders are waging the worst form of "weapons of mass destruction" against whole populations of fellow human beings in the name of "god"?

Isn't history rife with examples of fellow religious humans that waged crimes against humanity and the exact oposite is true about Atheists and Agnostics?

Shake

I think we should qualify the above statement by saying that we're the most enlightened beings in the Universe that we've come across so far! And I don't find it depressing, in fact it's kind of exciting!

atheist_in_foxhole

Can you imagine the wars the Xians (and Muslims) will start if we ever encounter religious aliens? Millions, possibly even billions, will die. It might even mean the end of our species.

Godbert

No, I would agree. It was only 50 years ago that noone had any clue how life worked for instance, not even the structure of DNA was known. So there were still many unexplained things in peoples daily field of view. But by now we really understand almost everything. We we don't know what was before the big bang or how exactly the brain works (although we have ideas, and once we really understand it completely there will be no room left for the soul) but that does not really leave much to do for God. And the weaker religion gets the faster it's decline will become because the possibilities for indoctrination of the young will decrease. For instance a decent education in life sciences, or at least equivalent to what students have in europe should do wonders.

long winded fool

There's nothing wrong with grandiose. If you look at past civilizations, the emergence of "atheism," (or really the collapse of organized religion) has always signified the beginning of the end of the civilization. Can a civilization survive without gods? Many have tried; none have succeeded except, so far, the American civilization. And we all know just how young the American civilization is and just how recently it has abandoned its founding religion on a large scale. (It is, in fact, actually in the process of abandoning theism.) This doesn't mean that the collapse of religion has anything to do with the death of a civilization, but it would appear to be a symptom at the very least. If atheism is the next step in intellectual development, and if atheism has existed since theism, why haven't there ever been any predominantly atheist cultures older than a hundred years or so? All of human history is nothing but the constant elimination of the supernatural. There have always been scientific explanations for various "supernatural" things and there have always been rational skeptics in every civilization. When the people of past civilizations start ignoring their priests or shamans or medicine men and start "seeing the light" of the logical, anti-religious skeptics and atheistic scientists, the civilization has always invariably collapsed. If the abandonment of religion and the embrace of reason results in the collapse of civilization, then intellectual development, it would appear, is detrimental to the survival of the human species.

Of course, just because there have never been any known civilizations of reasoning atheists doesn't mean that there can never be. But don't you think the atheists of long dead civilizations, or just those against the accepted gods of the day, thought the same thing? Didn't they feel they were too enlightened to accept the dogma of their fathers and too intelligent and technologically advanced to allow the collapse of their civilization? Didn't they feel that reason and logic alone would lead to wisdom and paradise on earth? After the wide-scale abandonment of religious dogma, civilization has always either been destroyed or abandoned. The atheists either perished, or assimilated into another religious civilization to await the reemergence of atheism and, whether they realized it or not, the end of the civilization. Religious civilizations can die too, of course, but they can also last a very long time. Atheistic civilizations can't, or at least have never been able to so far as we know. So, either the casting off of the gods of a civilization is the cause of its collapse, or it is simply a reaction to the fear of collapse, or maybe it actually is intellectual development. In any case, has always marked the end of civilization and has always been powerless to stop it. Religion seems to be an evolutionary adaptation for survival. Maybe someday it will become obsolete and we will manage to survive on our reason and intellect? Or maybe when we become "intellectually enlightened" we will lose our "claws" so to speak, just as every civilization that abandoned religion has in the past, and we too will become extinct?

winstonjen

Which would also mean the end of religion, at least for our species. Perhaps there's hope after all!

Shadowy Man

How many people do you think would convert to the aliens' religion?

winstonjen

That depends on what kind of blackmail they're using with their version of Pascal's Wager.