Whilst being oh-so-very productive at work, I had an interesting line of thought:
Science is all wonderful and explanatory, and it has that pesky tendency to do away with all the mysticism that was cause for arise in god-conjuring. Having that as an advantage, what would happen if a community was constructed with absolutely no mention of any religion or religious belief?
It makes me wonder if some dreamer in the community might concoct some form of theistic philosophy. There's a possibility, but with science demystifying all the reasons for having thought up spirits and gods in the first place, I don't think it is all that likely. Even if it did happen, I couldn't imagine the idea being treated with all that much credibility. It seems so novel an idea that no one has any thoughts of any god when we live in a world where so much is informed by theistic muddle.
What would that community be like? A nice place to live, I’d think. I’d imagine there would be a much healthier attitude about sexuality. Death would no longer be a subject that’s treated as borderline taboo. Morality would be based on empathy, and policies would be made as a result of logic with the benefit of evidence. Hey, and no more gender inequality based on sacred text supported patriarchy (that's one of my favorites).
You can’t really call it an atheistic community because there would be no theistic beliefs to be without. I do understand the problem with providing a selective heritage, but in this case, I think it would be beneficial. The biggest loss would be a whole lot of really good literature.
Although, I guess you could change the context, and teach all the religions as purely fictional. That way Paradise Lost would not need to be excluded.
This is why I’d like to be some kind of dictator, so I could set up these sorts of grand societal experiments.
(All this is tangentially connected to me having read this blog post)
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