If the whole world were atheist...

[Karkat Vantas]

I don't think we'd have Christianity as a major force in the world if that were the case; Christians would be treated like Scientologists. Hell, their beliefs would be just as alien to an atheist as a god named Xenu blowing up the planets and that's why we have earth. (Not an accurate analogy, but who gives a shit.)

World history would definitely be different, though. With such great technological development it's highly likely that somehow a war could change victors (the Revolutionary War seems like an obvious candidate here; Britain threatening a blockade on Boston is one thing, Britain threatening to nuke them is another).

Rapid scientific growth isn't as good as you'd think it is.

 

[Autumn]

I don't think we'd have Christianity as a major force in the world if that were the case; Christians would be treated like Scientologists. Hell, their beliefs would be just as alien to an atheist as a god named Xenu blowing up the planets and that's why we have earth. (Not an accurate analogy, but who gives a shit.)

but there wouldn't be any Christians.

 

[Karkat Vantas]

If we assumed there were some Christians in the bizarro EVERYONE IS ATHEIST universe, then they'd be treated as crazy cultists. That's all I'm saying here.

 

[Saith]

(the Revolutionary War seems like an obvious candidate here; Britain threatening a blockade on Boston is one thing, Britain threatening to nuke them is another).

Rapid scientific growth isn't as good as you'd think it is.

I don't know, that would be pretty cool.

 

[1. Luftballon]

I don't think we'd have Christianity as a major force in the world if that were the case; Christians would be treated like Scientologists. Hell, their beliefs would be just as alien to an atheist as a god named Xenu blowing up the planets and that's why we have earth. (Not an accurate analogy, but who gives a shit.)

World history would definitely be different, though. With such great technological development it's highly likely that somehow a war could change victors (the Revolutionary War seems like an obvious candidate here; Britain threatening a blockade on Boston is one thing, Britain threatening to nuke them is another).

Rapid scientific growth isn't as good as you'd think it is.

but why would the revolutionary war have happened?

there are a lot of things that a lack of religion would have caused not to happen. and probably a lot more stuff that it would cause. anything relying on specific things to happen probably... wouldn't.

 

[OrangeAipom]

where the hell did my science go!?!?

oh, right. nobody has an imagination.

 

[Dinru]

Um.

1. Science doesn't come from imagination, it comes from curiosity and trying to satisfy that curiosity through observation and logic.
2. Religion doesn't come from imagination, it comes from (depending on your point of view) mystic revelations or answering questions about the world and then passing the answers on to others.

There's no reason to believe that not having religion would also mean no imagination.

 

[OrangeAipom]

1. Science doesn't come from imagination, it comes from curiosity and trying to satisfy that curiosity through observation and logic.

what's a hypothesis?

 

[Saith]

Using the evidence at your disposal to form a prediction that you will then test.

Hearing two different sounds and assuming that, because one can be higher than the other, naturally there must be sounds even higher, out of your hearing doesn't take imagination. It takes logic.

Imagination would be thinking that some random was playing the bongos for every sound you hear, and at a certain pitch, he stops because his hands get tired.

 

[xkze]

where the hell did my science go!?!?

oh, right. nobody has an imagination.

excuse me for popping in here but

 

[Butterfree]

where the hell did my science go!?!?

oh, right. nobody has an imagination.

The tens of thousands of atheist writers out there say hi!

...in fact, why not cut out the imagination detour? Atheists are doing science in this world today. Why on Earth would they not do it if everyone else simply happened to also be atheist?

 

[Dannichu]

For better or worse, religion also sort of created Western Capitalism.

Horribly simplifying/generalising The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism:

Back in th' day, Calvinism existed, which said that only a chosen, predetermined few would get into heaven. Since this meant that nothing you did on earth would affect whether you got into heaven or not, they changed the rules a bit (changed it to Protestantism, possibly?) to say that working hard was a sign of being chosen. But under Protestantism, accumulating and displaying wealth was massively frowned upon, so people reinvested any profit into their business. So everyone's businesses grew massively and that made the Industrial Revolution happen, where a ton of the population moved from working on the land in the countryside to the big cities where there'd be work. And the workers were paid less than the people who owned the factories, so the owners got richer, allowing them to open more factories and employ more people and make more stuff. And, *ta-da!* - capitalism.

 

[Wargle]

2. Religion doesn't come from imagination,

Not to be Sacreligious or anything, that made me laugh with disbelief :D

 

[Abwayax]

If the entire world were atheist, I'd imagine it'd be like that scene in Catch-22 where the main character Yossarian (who is an atheist) and another character (who is also an atheist) argue over the nature of the God that they don't believe in. One of them says that the non-existant God is vicious and cruel while the other says He is kind and loving.

As an atheist myself, I think religion gets a bad rap sometimes. I don't quite believe religion conflicts with or impedes scientific advancement. During the Dark Ages in Europe, many scientific and mathematical advancements were being made by their Muslim neighbors. Religious regimes at times have restricted development and human rights for their own ends, but that's not a direct result of religious faith itself. Atheist regimes have done this too (North Korea, for example, is officially an atheist state, and its citizens have no religious freedom whatsoever).

If the entire world were atheist, that simply means one less thing to wage war over.

 

[Phantom]

I don't quite believe religion conflicts with or impedes scientific advancement.

Could you explain further? I can think of plenty examples where religion impedes the progress of science, or of scientific minds. Galileo being the most dicussed example. Though there are more ways in which religion bottles the progress of science; an example being in medicine. Cloning would bring some benificial results to modern medicine, though it has been met with resistance from religious organizations.

Religious regimes at times have restricted development and human rights for their own ends, but that's not a direct result of religious faith itself.

Explain please.

Atheist regimes have done this too (North Korea, for example, is officially an atheist state, and its citizens have no religious freedom whatsoever).

Am I alone in thinking that North Korea is a really bad example for this?

If the entire world were atheist, that simply means one less thing to wage war over.

Last time I checked, that'd be a good thing.

 

[Abwayax]

Could you explain further? I can think of plenty examples where religion impedes the progress of science, or of scientific minds. Galileo being the most dicussed example. Though there are more ways in which religion bottles the progress of science; an example being in medicine. Cloning would bring some benificial results to modern medicine, though it has been met with resistance from religious organizations.

There's been plenty of times where religion has been used as an excuse to suppress dissent, inhibit scientific development, wage war, and slaughter people; but it's probably not the only excuse available.

Am I alone in thinking that North Korea is a really bad example for this?

I don't see how. The argument is that religion in and of itself blocks certain developments and that removing religion would allow these developments to happen; the example demonstrates that that is not necessarily the case.

North Korea's a pretty extreme example, though. Communist China once suppressed religions, as did the USSR. It actually makes sense for such a state to reduce the peoples' freedom of religion, since religion could provide people with a power higher than the state to believe in. In fact, pretty much every dystopian novel I've read (We, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Brave New World) suggest that religion was a key opponent to a totalitarian state, and was thus the earliest thing to go once "the revolution" was complete.

Last time I checked, that'd be a good thing.

It would, but there are plenty of other things to wage war over.

 

[Pwnemon]

Could you explain further? I can think of plenty examples where religion impedes the progress of science, or of scientific minds. Galileo being the most dicussed example. Though there are more ways in which religion bottles the progress of science; an example being in medicine. Cloning would bring some benificial results to modern medicine, though it has been met with resistance from religious organizations.

But Galileo wasn't stopped because of the Catholic religion. He was stopped because of a power-hungry church that didn't want to be shown as wrong. Religion was the excuse.

 

[GameFreakerZero]

If everyone in the whole world were atheist, ultimately nothing would change except that relgious fervor would be replaced with nationalism, I think. For every standstill like the dark ages that religion created a similar standstill would be created in an atheist world by the inability to make everyone follow a certain ethic at once through the fear of god.

 

[Zero Moment]

There would be no religious wars, and there would be no religious terrorists that are bombing people/planes/very large buildings.
So in theory, it's a pretty good idea.

 

[Dannichu]

But if there were no cars, there would be no carcrashes; if there were no dogs, nobody would ever get bitten by dogs; if there were no buildings, nobody would ever have a building fall on them. You can't just focus on the negatives of everything! D: