If all world people turn atheists.

[Colt]

If all world people turn atheists, then what fantastic in this world will happen ?

Atheists please shed some light upon.........
............................................................................"THIS"

Defiance is what drives rebellion against God or Atheism so if all the world turned Atheist then the Atheist would rebel against atheism and search for God, create theistic religion.

 

[Windwalker]

Yes, they're considered a modern example of an imperial cult and I've seen their beliefs studied by religious scholars. It's quite fascinating, in my opinion.

Hmm, yes I suppose. Makes me wonder then if Trump gets elected and the U.S. Constitution is flushed down the toilet completely this time around, would American be a fashioned as cult? God knows MAGA is in fact a religious nationalistic cult centered around Donald the Orange at its core.

 

[ChristineM]

Defiance is what drives rebellion against God or Atheism so if all the world turned Atheist then the Atheist would rebel against atheism and search for God, create theistic religion.

Really?

And here is me thinking it was lack of evidence

 

[Ella S.]

Hmm, yes I suppose. Makes me wonder then if Trump gets elected and the U.S. Constitution is flushed down the toilet completely this time around, would American be a fashioned as cult? God knows MAGA is in fact a religious nationalistic cult centered around Donald the Orange at its core.

The US already has what's known as the "American civil religion." If you haven't heard of that before, it's another interesting concept to look into.

The concept of an American civil religion is a controversial one, but it's not completely foreign to scholarly debates. It's worth noting that Columbia, a personification of the US, is often treated as a goddess by federal institutions. There are quite a few pieces of official documentation and artwork depicting the phrase "Hail Columbia!"

Much of the art commissioned by the state depicts figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson with motifs and postures that are normally reserved in artwork for Saints, gods, and heroes.

That's not getting into the Christian nationalism you can find expressed in some strains of evangelism, fundamentalism, and Mormonism, which are often tied closely to the idea of an American civil religion.

So that's a question that might be worthy of serious discussion. To what extent could these trends be considered religious? How far would it need to go before it was considered a religion in its own right?

I wish we had a user on RF who self-identified as observing this kind of religion. I would be very interested in their perspective.

 

[RestlessSoul]

The animals on this planet - fish, birds, herds of elk - animals are atheists, they don't believe in God. Mother nature has her own laws. Walk through the forest, sit by a river, sleep under the stars - spend some time outside to see what it's like with the "atheists '.

I don’t think anything could be further from atheism than nature.

 

[Windwalker]

I don’t think anything could be further from atheism than nature.

I love this line, "Where God is also love; but without words", from the poem "Whales Weep Not", by D.H. Lawrence.

And enormous mother whales lie dreaming suckling their whale-​

tender young​

and dreaming with strange whale eyes wide open in the waters of​

the beginning and the end.​

​

And bull-whales gather their women and whale-calves in a ring​

when danger threatens, on the surface of the ceaseless flood​

and range themselves like great fierce Seraphim facing the threat​

encircling their huddled monsters of love.​

And all this happens in the sea, in the salt​

where God is also love, but without words:​

and Aphrodite is the wife of whales​

most happy, happy she!​

​

and Venus among the fishes skips and is a she-dolphin​

she is the gay, delighted porpoise sporting with love and the sea​

she is the female tunny-fish, round and happy among the males​

and dense with happy blood, dark rainbow bliss in the sea.​

​

Nature is very much connected with the Divine, 'but without words', or if you will "God concepts". "The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao". Atheism is not that however. It is not mysticism. It does not avoiding naming the Tao and accept it as it is without words. It seeks for a rational explanation of it in order to avoid mythic-literal thinking. It does not rest in Mystery, as the rest of nature does.

 

[ChristineM]

I don’t think anything could be further from atheism than nature.

Untrue, I'm atheist and love nature, it's real. And there's evidence it exists

 

[Whateverist]

And metaphor is what the world is, to we observers of and participants in it’s restless activity.

I wouldn't go so far. There is something we know as the planet we inhabit about which we can discover quite a bit which does not depend on the metaphors or myths we use to understand it and ourselves. But restricting our understanding of the world to only what we can obtain by perception and its amplifier, science greatly diminishes our understanding of our selves and our relationship to this world. It is an impoverishment.

 

[Ella S.]

I wouldn't go so far. There is something we know as the planet we inhabit about which we can discover quite a bit which does not depend on the metaphors or myths we use to understand it and ourselves. But restricting our understanding of the world to only what we can obtain by perception and its amplifier, science greatly diminishes our understanding of our selves and our relationship to this world. It is an impoverishment.

Or a purification.

 

[LuisDantas]

Defiance is what drives rebellion against God or Atheism so if all the world turned Atheist then the Atheist would rebel against atheism and search for God, create theistic religion.

Is it? I don't think that is generally true. Maybe in some very specific pockets of oppresive theism, but even there it would be mixed.

 

[LuisDantas]

I don’t think anything could be further from atheism than nature.

You are in for quite the surprise, then.

 

[blü 2]

Yes, you’ve explained this before. To me it seems a very rigid and formulaic way of thinking about the world. The divisions you impose, between the self and the world external to the self, and between imagination and direct perception, are somewhat arbitrary, are they not?

On the contrary, I'd say they were true of all sentient critters ─ there's the self, and then there's everything else.

And even if there is only one reality, there must surely be more than one way of understanding that reality, and more ways of knowing about the world, than can be explained by formal linguistic or mathematical models?

Yes, there are various ways proposed for understanding reality, so the question ─ at least as I see it ─ is which one is best at finding out what's true. I choose the path of reasoned enquiry because when it comes to exploring, describing and seeking to explain reality, its track record has no serious rival.

And of course reality includes understanding ourselves and our fellow humans, and reasoned enquiry can also find you the best restaurants, movies, books, sports, and so on.

I think religion is a cultural artifact, an inherited tribal custom. It was why I was sent to Pisco Sunday school, for instance. I even got confirmed at age 14 because I thought that would make me an insider and then I'd have answers to all the questions that were routinely fobbed off, not least the nature of the afterlife ('read your catechism', 'we'll come to that later' and so on). So in fairly short order I drifted away, and left them to it. However, I still have good friends and dear relatives who are believers, and we solve the question by never mentioning it.

 

[Whateverist]

Or a purification.

That's fair but I'd still question whether the purification resulted in greater clarity or to more distortion by too greatly restricting the frame of interest.

 

[Ella S.]

That's fair but I'd still question whether the purification resulted in greater clarity or to more distortion by too greatly restricting the frame of interest.

Rarely have I seen clarity removed by restricting what we're confident in asserting. Much more often, I've seen unfounded assertions blow up in people's faces. Science is temperant in its assertions. I think that's only wise. Fear might be a vice, but caution isn't.

 

[ppp]

I don’t think anything could be further from atheism than nature.

Nothing could be further from nature than the people who value the natural world above some other puported domain? How does that make sense?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Nothing could be further from nature than the people who value the natural world above some other puported domain? How does that make sense?

To reduce nature to that which can be calibrated, quantified and defined by human reason, is to reduce the dimensions of the world within and without us. To contemplate nature without reverence is to insist on monochrome, refusing even to acknowledge the possibility of colour.

 

[ppp]

To reduce nature to that which can be calibrated, quantified and defined by human reason, is to reduce the dimensions of the world within and without us. To contemplate nature without reverence is to insist on monochrome, refusing even to acknowledge the possibility of colour.

Your "reverence" is an egotistical facade. The appreciation of what nature is, it's measure and the beauty of that measure is the actual appreciation of that beauty. What you appreciate is the narrative that you have built around nature
.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I wouldn't go so far. There is something we know as the planet we inhabit about which we can discover quite a bit which does not depend on the metaphors or myths we use to understand it and ourselves. But restricting our understanding of the world to only what we can obtain by perception and its amplifier, science greatly diminishes our understanding of our selves and our relationship to this world. It is an impoverishment.

Even the laws of science and of nature (which are of course, laws attributed to nature by humans) are metaphors for "something deeply hidden"*. Newton's force of attraction between two massive objects, and Einstein's geometry of spacetime, speak to a fundamental underlying reality which we experience as gravity.

*Einstein's words.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Your "reverence" is an egotistical facade. The appreciation of what nature is, it's measure and the beauty of that measure is the actual appreciation of that beauty. What you appreciate is the narrative that you have built around nature
.

The difference being, that I can appreciate and acknowledge more than one narrative, while the naive materialist is fully invested in what he considers to be the dictates of reason.

A state of reverence, incidentally, necessitates the total abandonment of ego.

 

[Whateverist]

Even the laws of science and of nature (which are of course, laws attributed to nature by humans) are metaphors for "something deeply hidden"*

Yes they are useful approximations by virtue of their simplicity. Excellent when you have something to do where such utility is sought. But real understanding isn’t equivalent to that. Poetry will often shed more light where non empirical matters are concerned.

To understand what is deeply hidden it is better to ride the part of your mind capable of taking you there. For what can be readily inspected a utilitarian response may suffice.