Do atheist have a goal in common or just a common set of disbelieves?

Question

If I were an atheist...what would I win with an increasing atheist populations? what would happen in a world were no one would care about the after life? which would be the limits? if there were no limits...would order exist?

Answer 1

I am not atheist, however I am agnostic. I think it would be nice to have a heaven, however I don't depend on it. As John Lennon sang,

"Imagine there's no heaven,
it's easy if you try,
no hell below us,
above us only sky.
Imagine all the people,
living for today."

And I believe that is so important, that people live for the now not later. People should make this life a heaven, not hope for a heaven in the next.

All people of all beliefs share a common goal. People all have to realize there are no difference between us in our purpose in life. religious poeople and non religious people are all on the same path to find the meaning to their lives. No matter what road they take, we are all on this planet together.

Answer 2

1. No common goal, just a common rejection of gods existence.
2. Logic would increase exponentially resulting in a Utopian earth.
3. Everybody cares about the afterlife, that is why so many people are afraid of dying. Nobody knows anything about the after life, so why concern yourself with it?
4. Limits are made by societal law, not religious doctrine.
5. Order exists because people want to have families and be safe. Robert G. Ingresoll once said, and I am para phasing, so long as man objects to being murdered, there will be laws against murder.

Answer 3

Interesting questions :) You presume a lot about atheists but...lets try this.

With increasing atheist population - you "win" a society that values *this* life and not the next one. Also, presumably, a culture that values science hightly.

"Which would be the limits?" The limits of what? I'm assuming you mean moral behavior? Pretty much the same that they are now. As an atheist, I don't think rape and murder are *good* things. The same standards that most societies believe in are held up by atheists. They just don't use the threat of the hereafter to acheive those goals.

Yes, order would exist. Our short life on earth is precious - to have a disordered and amoral society sounds as horrible to atheists as it sounds to you. We just value order *because* life is precious. We don't value it because a god told us to.

Answer 4

The only thing atheists *must* have in common is the lack of belief in a deity: "a"=no, "theism"=god.

The rest of your question seems to deal with the potential for morality in a secular and thus atheist society. Religion did not create and is not solely in possession of morality. Order exists because humans need it and create it, not because somebody/something "bigger" magically made it so. The world will be just fine when/if the majority of people are atheist or agnostic.

Answer 5

Atheists have no desire to make converts or to band together. They don't care if someone else beleives as they do, They simply resent have religious morons try to force feed them nonsense.
There is not afterlife, whether you choose to beleive in it or not. Whether anyone cares or not is irrelevant, doesn't alter the outcome.
As long as humanity has to work together toward a common goal, in america's case life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, there will be order, either at the family, tribe or nationality level. Humans are pack animals, like wolves, dogs and hyenas.

Answer 6

relax, atheist do not have an agenda...I've never met an atheist that was looking to convert others. Only certain religions look to convert and usually to increase membership in their church. Atheist have no church and no reason to convert.

Its more of a shared belief that their is no supreme being. We use science to explain the unexplained.

That would hardly result in chaos. DOn't worry aitheism does not spell the end of religion as we know it. Religion is a necessary part of society

Answer 7

In a world where no one cared about the afterlife we would be more apt to make the most of the *one* life we are given.

We would not tell other people they are condemned to an afterlife in hell for believing differently than we do.

.

Answer 8

All atheists have in common is a disbelief in any God or spirit. Apart from that, there would be limits; it's simply that justifications wouldn't be based on "what God says."

Answer 9

I would like to see a common goal for us; that of keeping religion out of government.

Answer 10

The idea that religion is what gives the world its moral order is one of the most common misconceptions out there. People somehow think that because Atheists believe that there is no god that we have no morals, on either a personal or societal level.

Aside from the fact that many of the most moral people I know are atheists and agnostics, this just isn't true. There are many reasons why an atheist society would would not only survive in an orderly fashion but would actually thrive. Likewise, there are many ways in which a religious society is held back from advancement and is not always best for the people.

I'll begin with my first claim. You are operating on the presumption that the reason we have laws and order is because of religion, because there are certain things that God tells us we should not do, and so we listen. This in itself is not true. We have laws because we all recognize that although they may hold us back, they also protect us. Laws are for the betterment of society in a way that has nothing to do with god. Consider: perhaps an atheist isn't against murder. Now, I've never known this to be true, but I'm using it as an example. That atheist may want to murder someone simply because he or she doesn't like that person, and because they don't believe it will have any consequences in the long run. However, this also means that someone could murder that atheist with no consequences, and this is not advantageous in any way. Therefore, the atheist relinquishes his right to murder someone for the protection of a law against murder. I've just proven that laws can exist based simply on the relations between men with no "god" figure involved. Think about it on a smaller scale: stealing/thievery. Back when civilization was much less developed, things like looting and stealing were much bigger problems than they are today; in many cases they were necessary for survival. However, what was better for survival was the formation of laws which would protect people's things. Perhaps they no longer had the option of legally stealing from others if they could physically do it, but now they themselves had some measure of protection. Let's look at this a different way now: do Christians or do they not believe that even someone who has murdered another human being can be forgiven by God if only they ask for forgiveness and are truly sorry? And so, why is it so difficult to believe that someone who believes in god may murder someone else, knowing that they can be forgiven if they truly wish to be? How does the idea of an afterlife stop them from performing misdeeds if they know they can be forgiven and it will have no effect on their life after death? It seems to me that the "atheistic" society has a much better chance of maintaining order than the religious one. If you don't believe me, look at European societies whose governments are incredibly more secular than America's. They have some of the lowest crime rates in the world. Then look at a societies like in the Middle East. Now tell me you would rather live in a very religious society than a nonreligious one.

Now, onto my second point: the fact that Christians nations don't always do what's best for the people. Perhaps that one has really stumped you. In that case, let me begin for a moment: do you believe in treating disease? Let's say a woman in your life got breast cancer. Would you want her to have surgery to remove the tumors and chemotherapy to kill off any remaining malignant cells? Or would you want her to takes her chances that she will magically be cured? I don't think I really even have to ask. Yet Christians would deny people with a whole range of diseases/handicaps from Parkinsons's, to paralysis, from diabetes to muscular dystrophy the chance to be cured once and for all, simply because stem cell research is wrong. My guess is that most people who disagree with this research don't even know the facts about stem cells. Most people say that it's wrong to kill these embryos (which, alternatively are frozen for years, and will undoubtably be flushed away into nonexistence some day far in the future when no one will notice). In order to say that this is wrong, they must believe that these embryos are each a human life. In order to believe that, the embryos must have a soul, correct? I went through this whole proof because many Christians, when faced with the direct question like this will say that no, they don't believe the soul enters the body at the moment of conception. But as I just proved above, if you're Christian, then you believe that it takes a soul to be alive, so in order for the embryos to be alive, they must have souls. Now I'm going to present a few questions which, so far, no one has been able to answer for me: What happens when identical twins form? This can happens for days after conception (up to seven, a week, if I'm correct). So what's the deal with that? Where does the extra soul come from? Likewise, what happens when two eggs which have been fertilized separately fuse together and one baby is born? What happens to the extra soul? Besides the fact that you're harming people alive *right now* (and why is the "life" of a small collection of cells more important than actual living human beings -- many of them with the same religion as you?), there isn't even a good moral argument behind it. That, of course, is only one of the ways in which a religious society would be less beneficial to the people than a nonreligious one. What about the fact that Christians missionaries give some African peoples the only education they will have, and then tell them it's a sin to use any kind of birth control, including condoms. Is that really more important than the lives of every one of them who contracts HIV and dies of AIDS, surely more than half? Is it more important than the children who will be born with HIV or the children who will be orphaned by the thousands, left to raise themselves or starve to death? And the problem isn't just over in Africa: one of the leaders of the CDC, which is supposed to *control* disease, actually said he would oppose a vaccine to HIV because it encouraged pre-marital sex. Would you rather your child die from AIDS, or have sex before they're married? And just think of all the other people -- nurses, doctors, researchers -- who are exposed to the virus because they're trying to help others. Are their lives worth preserving the idea of no sex before marriage?

I was going to add additional data about how religious societies are usually the least advanced, especially technologically but also governmentally and societally, but I'm tired and frankly, I think I've made my point fairly well. Anyone who disagrees should, of course, let me know. I would be happy to explain it all out.