4 ms·

I think this is a common reaction that I used to agree with but no longer. I think religion tends to capture something essential about reality that atheism excl

I think this is a common reaction that I used to agree with but no longer. I think religion tends to capture something essential about reality that atheism excluded by definition. There's a reason no atheist society has historically arisen and thrived in the way that you are suggesting. If it was possible why hasn't it happened. The idea of atheism is ancient - why has it not worked?

tock 6mo ago
Large sections of China, Japan, etc are atheists. Why do you think it hasn't worked?
- xyzelement 6mo ago
  Well for one obvious example is both of those societies are only recently atheist (<100 years) and that they both have an absolute dismal birth rate that makes it hard to imagine how they will look like a hundred years from now.
  - tock 6mo ago
    Every society has had gods at some point in the past. Why didn't every society improve then? And China's growth has been very recent(after the 80s). And birth rates have absolutely collapsed across the world. It's not some unique Chinese/Japanese situation. Before their silly 1 child policy change China had insane population growth. As non religious people. Almost like these aren't really connected at all.
    - xyzelement 6mo ago
      This is your second post in this thread insisting things are unconnected which is of course a commendable attempt to validate the atheist religious belief that everything is random and pointless. I don't subscribe to your religion. I'll give you one data point about birth rate collapse. In the US atheists have fertility rate of 1.2 (half of replacement) somewhat religious people have the rate of 3.3 and "orthodox" closer to 6. So you can for example visit a neighborhood on Brooklyn that suffers from a fertility crisis and then cross the road onto a neighborhood that doesn't. Across incomes and education levels - religion and lack thereof correlate almost perfectly with birth rate. So if you told me China is atheist and suffering demographic collapse - I would say of course. If you told me there are demographic groups within China that are more religious and manage to have more kids that wouldn't surprise me as well although I don't know China well enough. I do see that exact pattern in the US both anecdotally among my vast peer group and in the stats I cited. PS: I just looked it up. In China religious groups (eg Muslim uighurs, tibetan Buddhists and Christians are obviously prosecuted minorities that manage to have 2x the kids vs national average. Completely predictable in my framework, completely "not connected" in yours.
      - tock 6mo ago
        > This is your second post in this thread insisting things are unconnected which is of course a commendable attempt to validate the atheist religious belief that everything is random and pointless. I don't subscribe to your religion. I am not an atheist. Nor do I think everything is random and pointless. You have 11 comments on this topic. Discussion is the point of this forum. > religion and lack thereof correlate almost perfectly with birth rate No arguments there. More religious people absolutely do have more kids. I want to point out that poverty/development and lack thereof also correlate almost perfectly with birth rate. Check out the countries who still have very high TFR. But I was pointing out that non religious countries still had tons of kids before. Birth control and more choice for women have certainly brought down birth rates. India's birth rate is down to 1.9; And its a very religious country. There has been incredible progress in women's rights and they choose to not have 6 kids. "There's a reason no atheist society has historically arisen and thrived in the way that you are suggesting. If it was possible why hasn't it happened. The idea of atheism is ancient - why has it not worked?" Your words. I am saying its not connected to society being great. The population being religious isn't why America or Europe grew to be super powers. If your entire argument is that population is correlated with religion then I agree. I disagree that happiness and the state of a country is tied to that. > I'll give you one data point about birth rate collapse. In the US atheists have fertility rate of 1.2 (half of replacement) somewhat religious people have the rate of 3.3 and "orthodox" closer to 6. PS. can you post your sources for those TFR numbers? Because they seem wildly exaggerated. Maybe I am looking at the wrong sources? "Data on religious fertility differentials for the 2020-2025 period in Pew Research Center projections shows a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 1.9 for Christian women, 1.6 for religiously unaffiliated women, and 2.0 for women of other religions."
      - kelnos 6mo ago
        > In the US atheists have fertility rate of 1.2 (half of replacement) somewhat religious people have the rate of 3.3 and "orthodox" closer to 6. Other main drivers of birthrate are education and access to contraceptives. Give people more education and better access to contraceptives, and they tend to have fewer children. The numbers you've quoted may be correct (a quick search suggests they aren't, but whatever), but they don't mean all that you think they mean. Religiosity is certainly a factor, but there are many factors (more than the two I mentioned) when it comes to birthrate. > This is your second post in this thread insisting things are unconnected which is of course a commendable attempt to validate the atheist religious belief that everything is random and pointless. Maybe think a little more critically instead of throwing around unfounded bullshit. Atheism isn't a "religious belief". It's a lack of religious beliefs. And we don't believe that everything is random and pointless. That's a straw man you seem to have chosen to attack for some reason.
  - saltcured 6mo ago
    Buddhism is an atheist philosophy. It has been around longer than Christianity. It has hundreds of millions of adherents. Do you disregard it because you don't think they are successful, or numerous enough?
    - anthk 6mo ago
      Technically with Buddhism I'd say god itself it's the Tao, which perfectly maps to the concept of Logos in the Western world.
    - TFNA 6mo ago
      "Buddhism is an atheist philosophy" Not in the way it is actually practiced by many Asian societies where believers turn their devotion to what are basically deities: Amitabha in the Pure Land, Avalokiteshvara/Kuanyin, etc. Tibetan Buddhism is chock full of the supernatural.
riversflow 6mo ago
I mean we have academia, which is essentially secular study. Moreover Atheist don't need to go to church together to indoctrinate their beliefs, that happens every day when no miracles happen and the world continues to be kill or be killed anywhere animal intelligence has not overcome that reality in some small pocket. Atheist also tend to understand that their is no forgiveness and they have to sit with their actions for the rest of their limited days, so it's not a great idea to go out and do terrible things for treasure.
- hunterpayne 6mo ago
  "I mean we have academia, which is essentially secular study." It should be, but is it? If this is the case, why has the reproducibility of papers fallen off by so much? In the past, this wasn't the case but it also wasn't the case that society was so secular. In fact, secularism and inability to publish reproducible papers is positively correlated. While I'm not a believer, it does seem to me that somehow without religion, ethics at a society wide level falls off a cliff. I think those non-reproducible papers come from people with no real ethical or moral grounding. In the past I think this grounding was provided by religion. I don't have to like it to be honest enough to see it is how humans actually work. I'm not sure why anyone who is being honest would think that's weird or wrong.
  - kelnos 6mo ago
    > secularism and inability to publish reproducible papers is positively correlated. It's annoying that I need to say this, but: correlation is not causation.
  - wat10000 6mo ago
    Are you blaming the replication crisis on atheism? If you want to play the "lack of piracy is correlated with global warming," consider that secularism is negatively correlated with things like child mortality and firebombing civilians. If we're going to blame atheism for anything that has gotten worse in the past few decades then we also need to credit it for everything that has improved.
wat10000 6mo ago
I think you've got this backwards. People are inherently religious. We evolved to see intent behind everything. Post hoc ergo propter hoc is psychologically powerful. "Why has it not worked?" suggests that atheistic societies have arisen and they've failed. That's not the case. Atheism has just been historically very unpopular. It's only recently that science has advanced enough to put the "god of the gaps" in a sufficiently small box for atheism to arise on a large scale. I think, given the knowledge available to us now, religion is obviously fiction. The only difference between worshipping Jesus and worshipping Harry Potter is that the former's authors are very long dead.
kelnos 6mo ago
Because atheism isn't a club like an organized religion is. You don't need to join a specific community or church or organization in order to be an atheist. You just stop believing in religion, and there you are. We don't need a "society"; having one would be counter-productive, and would even probably be more like a religion. > I think religion tends to capture something essential about reality I think you have this backwards; religion tends to capture people who want to believe that reality is something other than it is.

tock 6mo ago

Large sections of China, Japan, etc are atheists. Why do you think it hasn't worked?

xyzelement 6mo ago
Well for one obvious example is both of those societies are only recently atheist (<100 years) and that they both have an absolute dismal birth rate that makes it hard to imagine how they will look like a hundred years from now.
- tock 6mo ago
  Every society has had gods at some point in the past. Why didn't every society improve then? And China's growth has been very recent(after the 80s). And birth rates have absolutely collapsed across the world. It's not some unique Chinese/Japanese situation. Before their silly 1 child policy change China had insane population growth. As non religious people. Almost like these aren't really connected at all.
  - xyzelement 6mo ago
    This is your second post in this thread insisting things are unconnected which is of course a commendable attempt to validate the atheist religious belief that everything is random and pointless. I don't subscribe to your religion. I'll give you one data point about birth rate collapse. In the US atheists have fertility rate of 1.2 (half of replacement) somewhat religious people have the rate of 3.3 and "orthodox" closer to 6. So you can for example visit a neighborhood on Brooklyn that suffers from a fertility crisis and then cross the road onto a neighborhood that doesn't. Across incomes and education levels - religion and lack thereof correlate almost perfectly with birth rate. So if you told me China is atheist and suffering demographic collapse - I would say of course. If you told me there are demographic groups within China that are more religious and manage to have more kids that wouldn't surprise me as well although I don't know China well enough. I do see that exact pattern in the US both anecdotally among my vast peer group and in the stats I cited. PS: I just looked it up. In China religious groups (eg Muslim uighurs, tibetan Buddhists and Christians are obviously prosecuted minorities that manage to have 2x the kids vs national average. Completely predictable in my framework, completely "not connected" in yours.
    - tock 6mo ago
      > This is your second post in this thread insisting things are unconnected which is of course a commendable attempt to validate the atheist religious belief that everything is random and pointless. I don't subscribe to your religion. I am not an atheist. Nor do I think everything is random and pointless. You have 11 comments on this topic. Discussion is the point of this forum. > religion and lack thereof correlate almost perfectly with birth rate No arguments there. More religious people absolutely do have more kids. I want to point out that poverty/development and lack thereof also correlate almost perfectly with birth rate. Check out the countries who still have very high TFR. But I was pointing out that non religious countries still had tons of kids before. Birth control and more choice for women have certainly brought down birth rates. India's birth rate is down to 1.9; And its a very religious country. There has been incredible progress in women's rights and they choose to not have 6 kids. "There's a reason no atheist society has historically arisen and thrived in the way that you are suggesting. If it was possible why hasn't it happened. The idea of atheism is ancient - why has it not worked?" Your words. I am saying its not connected to society being great. The population being religious isn't why America or Europe grew to be super powers. If your entire argument is that population is correlated with religion then I agree. I disagree that happiness and the state of a country is tied to that. > I'll give you one data point about birth rate collapse. In the US atheists have fertility rate of 1.2 (half of replacement) somewhat religious people have the rate of 3.3 and "orthodox" closer to 6. PS. can you post your sources for those TFR numbers? Because they seem wildly exaggerated. Maybe I am looking at the wrong sources? "Data on religious fertility differentials for the 2020-2025 period in Pew Research Center projections shows a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 1.9 for Christian women, 1.6 for religiously unaffiliated women, and 2.0 for women of other religions."
    - kelnos 6mo ago
      > In the US atheists have fertility rate of 1.2 (half of replacement) somewhat religious people have the rate of 3.3 and "orthodox" closer to 6. Other main drivers of birthrate are education and access to contraceptives. Give people more education and better access to contraceptives, and they tend to have fewer children. The numbers you've quoted may be correct (a quick search suggests they aren't, but whatever), but they don't mean all that you think they mean. Religiosity is certainly a factor, but there are many factors (more than the two I mentioned) when it comes to birthrate. > This is your second post in this thread insisting things are unconnected which is of course a commendable attempt to validate the atheist religious belief that everything is random and pointless. Maybe think a little more critically instead of throwing around unfounded bullshit. Atheism isn't a "religious belief". It's a lack of religious beliefs. And we don't believe that everything is random and pointless. That's a straw man you seem to have chosen to attack for some reason.
- saltcured 6mo ago
  Buddhism is an atheist philosophy. It has been around longer than Christianity. It has hundreds of millions of adherents. Do you disregard it because you don't think they are successful, or numerous enough?
  - anthk 6mo ago
    Technically with Buddhism I'd say god itself it's the Tao, which perfectly maps to the concept of Logos in the Western world.
  - TFNA 6mo ago
    "Buddhism is an atheist philosophy" Not in the way it is actually practiced by many Asian societies where believers turn their devotion to what are basically deities: Amitabha in the Pure Land, Avalokiteshvara/Kuanyin, etc. Tibetan Buddhism is chock full of the supernatural.

riversflow 6mo ago

I mean we have academia, which is essentially secular study. Moreover Atheist don't need to go to church together to indoctrinate their beliefs, that happens every day when no miracles happen and the world continues to be kill or be killed anywhere animal intelligence has not overcome that reality in some small pocket. Atheist also tend to understand that their is no forgiveness and they have to sit with their actions for the rest of their limited days, so it's not a great idea to go out and do terrible things for treasure.

hunterpayne 6mo ago
"I mean we have academia, which is essentially secular study." It should be, but is it? If this is the case, why has the reproducibility of papers fallen off by so much? In the past, this wasn't the case but it also wasn't the case that society was so secular. In fact, secularism and inability to publish reproducible papers is positively correlated. While I'm not a believer, it does seem to me that somehow without religion, ethics at a society wide level falls off a cliff. I think those non-reproducible papers come from people with no real ethical or moral grounding. In the past I think this grounding was provided by religion. I don't have to like it to be honest enough to see it is how humans actually work. I'm not sure why anyone who is being honest would think that's weird or wrong.
- kelnos 6mo ago
  > secularism and inability to publish reproducible papers is positively correlated. It's annoying that I need to say this, but: correlation is not causation.
- wat10000 6mo ago
  Are you blaming the replication crisis on atheism? If you want to play the "lack of piracy is correlated with global warming," consider that secularism is negatively correlated with things like child mortality and firebombing civilians. If we're going to blame atheism for anything that has gotten worse in the past few decades then we also need to credit it for everything that has improved.

wat10000 6mo ago

I think you've got this backwards. People are inherently religious. We evolved to see intent behind everything. Post hoc ergo propter hoc is psychologically powerful. "Why has it not worked?" suggests that atheistic societies have arisen and they've failed. That's not the case. Atheism has just been historically very unpopular. It's only recently that science has advanced enough to put the "god of the gaps" in a sufficiently small box for atheism to arise on a large scale. I think, given the knowledge available to us now, religion is obviously fiction. The only difference between worshipping Jesus and worshipping Harry Potter is that the former's authors are very long dead.

kelnos 6mo ago

Because atheism isn't a club like an organized religion is. You don't need to join a specific community or church or organization in order to be an atheist. You just stop believing in religion, and there you are. We don't need a "society"; having one would be counter-productive, and would even probably be more like a religion. > I think religion tends to capture something essential about reality I think you have this backwards; religion tends to capture people who want to believe that reality is something other than it is.