In High School I would constantly visit The CIA World Fact Book online and read about a different country per day. Sometimes more. I'd read about the Country's imports/exports, partners in trade, past and present GDP, National language, Literacy by gender, birthrate, mortality rate, average age by gender, percentage of population by age group, military stats, Culture, ect. My favorite sections to read had to do with economic standing. It is just a wealth of knowledge and a great way to understand what makes the world turn or at least what makes or breaks a country.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/as.html
A key thing to remember in order to link the subject to the intro is that in addition to all of the stats that the CIAWFB includes, It also includes the national religion(s) and the percentage of how they are allocated throughout the population. So as I learned and learned I'd often imagine what a state of atheism would/could be like. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who has contemplated what our countries would be like if our people, if our leaders, if our cultures were free of religion.
Although I neglected to come up with a name for this theoretical country, my imagination for the details had no limit. I'll try to keep this brief. I'd imagine that the Atheist community had grown to such a size in population and wealth, that it could purchase land from another country or even perhaps claim an island that had no territorial claim. Maybe somewhere in the Pacific? I don't know.. Why not? Either way it would be a country for Atheists BY Atheists. Sounds cool right? Yeah... I've had a lot of issues making this make any sense ethically.
On the bright side of the fantasy, I'd imagine the Atheist state advancing rapidly in the fields of Physics, Technology and the Medical field including psychology. The culture would allow even ordinary citizens to value and be proficient at advanced mathematics and at least some branch of science. Moral culture would not be contingent on the psychologically child-level of the punishment&Reward system. so it would be overall better. I had imagined Esperanto would be the national language. A particularly simple language to learn. The name "Esperanto" in Esperanto actually means "the hopeful one" a concept that is ironically not atheist, but at the same time it is a constructed language that is young enough to not have so many religious sayings tied to it.. which is why I chose that. Other than that I worked out a myriad of other details, but let's move on.
Being from the U.S. I have a bias towards of the idea of freedom, but then how can religion really be kept OUT? Should humanities education include religion the same way it includes other mythology? would there have to be a building restriction to prevent churches? what about censorship of television and the internet? Travel restrictions? How can such a state have freedoms with all those restrictions? Furthermore, What countries would trade with The atheist state? Would the Atheist State ever NOT be in danger from the threat of religiously driven terrorists? Holy warriors? Vatican assassins? lol It's unclear to me at this time.
I don't claim total knowledge. But knowing what I know about international politics & how countries operate, I've concluded that in these times... The Atheist State can only exist in dreams. I'd love to hear your thoughts and Ideas.
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Islands aren't that expensive compared to some of the estates millionaires have. The average life spans for people is much higher on an island probably because its not as crazy as our busy lives. Make it so you can't teach kids about religion until a certain age if you live there. Start with brilliant scientist and doctors and call it FREFRUM cause were free from all the religious shit. don't call it frefrum but I would move there.
Thanks for commenting JamieB. I love Secular but never know how to respond to his post. There are always so interesting but I find myself at a loss to reply. Did you read the one where he went to church just to make real estate deals? So interesting and in his own way too funny.
That means a lot Mykcob4 thanks!
No I didn't read that one yet
Im a dreamer its fun.
No fossil fuels. all solar.
Did you know Las Vegas is completly solar now.
No fast food or trans fats all organic
No fossil fuels. all solar.
Did you know Las Vegas is completly solar now.
No fast food or trans fats all organic
I've seen that idea thrown around a lot, but sadly it just isn't true. Most of our (I live in Las Vegas) power comes from burning natural gas.
Good to know:) I won't be spouting that one out agin. thank u
"No fossil fuels. all solar.
Did you know Las Vegas is completly solar now.
No fast food or trans fats all organic"
Agree with you.
Kids both stand up desks and sit down ones and be encouraged to be free thinker inventors. My big sis is a principal at an elementary school. Today and she was talking about how they are not asking kids what do you want to be when you grow up any more because the jobs they will have haven't been created and over the span of their careers as there jobs will change multiple times
Those are some good Ideas JamieB. I feel like there should be a higher priority for teaching kids about financial responsibility, the way markets work and other important life necessities from young.
"Today and she was talking about how they are not asking kids what do you want to be when you grow up any more because the jobs they will have haven't been created and over the span of their careers as there jobs will change multiple times"
That's partly true. Times are changing and it is already like that for millennials. I have a slightly different point of view on that though. I feel like children should not be discouraged from any interest they take in other trades rather than just being pushed into being doctors, lawyers, & whatever. Blue collar type work like carpentry, Mechanical, Construction, HVAC, ect. we need these people.
Just my two cents.
"Blue collar type work like carpentry, Mechanical, Construction, HVAC, ect. we need these people."
I agree and thanks I'm one of those blue collar type.
It's the truth ;)
I think such a country would be even better than you realize. A political system ran by top scientists and scholars instead of the politicians we have in the US (of whom are very anti science.)
I think such a country could be possible, but unfortunately probably not within our lifetimes. Organized religion is on the decline overall, but it is moving at a slow pace. And as the religions die a slow death, they will cause a lot of damage in their desperate maneuvers to slow their demise.
The arts, music, dance are important too or us right-side brainer wouldn't thrive.
If religion, greed, hatred, ignorance etc did not get in the way, I feel science and technology could lead the way to a utopia where everyone has more than they could possibly need, and many people will pass the time, instead of working miserable jobs, by doing the arts.
I think it's possible that the arts (music, dance, film, and all the other right brain stuff) would actually rise to be a vast majority of what everyone does in this utopia, as it would be highly rewarding and wonderful way to share in a utopia, a society that had no use for the concept of "money" or wealth.
Hey, this utopia may still happen in despite of human's darker nature and tendencies the pace of technological innovation is that powerful. Although I remain pessimistic that it will happen in my lifetime :(
100% yes.
To add to that, some things would have to change in terms of what type of economy we're talking about. If everything was market this & capitalism that, just competition based.. then eventually we'd be back to the drawing board when it comes to the culture of greed in society. I'd be in favor of a socialist type economy. Better yet a socialist Culture. Cause it can't work if everyone isn't on board.. or willing.
I actually pondered on this sort of stuff quite a bit.
I watched The Matrix at a key point in my life, (Just graduated high school.)
Jumping down the rabbit hole, (hah! matrix reference!) If you take away the hollywood/graphic comic part of the story. (Evil machines using us as a source of power.) The idea of a matrix we plug our selves into creating a highly convincing reality to live in has some powerful possibilities.
In a convincing virtual world, we could create unlimited abundance in a world of infinite resources. Everyone could have their own private island (if they wanted one that day.) And conjure up out of thin "air" anything they could possibly want or need. We would only be limited by our imagination. (Hence everyone going to the arts, creating new ideas in this world to share.) Computers and machines could maintain our bodies in the best possible health while our minds roamed free of all restrictions and rules. All the limitations of the human body would be gone, disease, injury, loss of limb etc. All of our actions will seem real but have no negative effect on the planet or to others.
Certainly such a system would have issues, just like the matrix brought up, our minds may very well reject the idea of a utopia. Perhaps some people need hardship and suffering in their lives or they cannot accept the virtual reality they are in. It would help if they did not know. Combine in a form of memory suppression people could live out wonderful lives where they do not know real pain, suffering and hardship. Of course you could argue this is a sort of prison if people were not aware they were in it. But it is one I would gladly take.
If we rounded everyone up, and had the technology and plugged them into this sort of "matrix" system. Nearly every major problem people face would be solved. No more suffering, no more environmental destruction,(we could have the entire world's population in one mega city powered by cold fusion,) no more harm caused. People could be terrible to each other in this matrix, but through a clever bit of programing, the person that has the terrible thing inflicted upon them by other person could simply not experienced that event, since it is all virtual anyways. The person causing the terrible thing could in his mind and VR world be stabbing a person, while the targeted person is receiving a warm and friendly hug from that person in that person's own VR world.
Our reality is only the electrical signals processed by our brains as they come in from our senses, combined with our memories. So with advanced enough technology we could create new realities, far better ones than the one we are all in now.
Another fun part to all of this is, especially in relation to atheism: We may be in such a VR system right now and we just don't know it. There is the same amount of evidence, (none,) that we are in such a system now, as there is for any particular type of god. Yet such a system logically/reasonably is infinitely more likely than the hocus pocus that is a major religion.
I personally do not think we are in such a VR matrix like world, because logically/reasonably its far less likely than the likelihood we are in the real world, (not a vr world,) and I am aware that this idea is wishful thinking. Just like religion, it is wishful fantasy thinking that there is a heaven and god given purpose in life.
Nice one with the rabbit hole reference!
I'll tell you why I'm not for the whole VR world idea. On the Drawbacks, you and JamieB made some good points about that.
With respect to how the matrix portrays this, Consider that an inactive body catabolizes more muscle that it can anabolize. Meaning that our actual bodies would be more likely to break down rather than be as healthy as Neo was when he woke up. If we were to upload our conscious into a VR for an extended period of time, it would be at the expense of our physical health overall. A good example of my point is a movie called "Surrogates" check that out if you haven't seen it, you might like it.
Now you said "If we rounded everyone up, and had the technology and plugged them into this sort of "matrix" system. Nearly every major problem people face would be solved. No more suffering, no more environmental destruction,(we could have the entire world's population in one mega city powered by cold fusion,) no more harm caused. People could be terrible to each other in this matrix, but through a clever bit of programing, the person that has the terrible thing inflicted upon them by other person could simply not experienced that event, since it is all virtual anyways. The person causing the terrible thing could in his mind and VR world be stabbing a person, while the targeted person is receiving a warm and friendly hug from that person in that person's own VR world."
While those things can happen in theory, I am super skeptical about the idea that nearly all problems would be solved. Ignorance isn't always bliss. (As for the crime you described, I actually think this would be an effective way to deal with the more violent criminals.)
In addition to that, let's say that we had the tech to upload our conscious and completely transcend the need to have a body at all.
1) Current tech has a finite lifespan = The VR world/life has a finite lifespan
2) I'm not sure how it would be 100% secure from viruses/hackers
3) something as simple as an electrical surge can end the VR life
4) As an atheist, I could care less about the pursuit of living forever in a VR world and here's why:
You said "Certainly such a system would have issues, just like the matrix brought up, our minds may very well reject the idea of a utopia. Perhaps some people need hardship and suffering in their lives or they cannot accept the virtual reality they are in."
Agreed. Throughout history, humans have displayed an intolerance to anything in excess. Like the saying goes, "you can't enjoy the sunshine without a little rain" I can only imagine people in the VR trying to terminate themselves after a while.
In Conclusion.. I'll pass lol
Thanks for your reply. Sorry I took a few days to get back to this, the free time I have for these boards got sucked into the debate boards.
To be sure, when I discuss this matrix like idea, it is all super fantastical, purely conjecture. It relies on a bunch of things to occur that could easily never occur.
Supercomputing millions of times beyond anything we have today, the invention of fusion. The invention of a complex human brain/computer interface.
I would also throw in the invention of a device that exercises the body and feeds it in all the right ways, preventing atrophy.
The 4 points you brought up are very valid. The first 3 would have to be fixed in a satisfactory manner for this to work and that could easily be impossible.
And the 4th one we obviously both agree upon. An imperfect, non-utopia world may have to be created, and without utopia, this idea loses much of its luster.
This idea also gets infinitely more complex once we throw in memory suppression as a tool. As our reality is our sensory input, our memories, and our thought processes/thinking brain.
LogicForTW I see where you're coming from but I'm inclined to disagree with you at certain points. I'll follow a little up later though. Life just got busy out of nowhere lol.
No problem SecularSonOfaBi...
I look forward to our continued discussion when you have time and am always happy to hear about how other people disagree with my thoughts, makes for fun discussion and I may learn something :)
Ditto!
I like the matrix idea for a transfer before death so our minds could live forever in computer.But in the mean time id miss thing like Sex, Food, Human connection, pets, and more. and I wouldn't want to make someone appear to interact kindly to me if they were actually being mean hearted. Thats too close to christianity for me.
Right on. That's exactly how I would use those capabilities.
Oh yeah tons of problems with the "matrix idea" for lack of better description.
However I do think the issues of food and parts of sex (the pleasure side, not the loving side) would be solved pretty neatly in this matrix sort of idea.
Connection would be a tricky one. Can a virtual world simulate deep satisfying connection? Even if other real people were sharing the virtual world? In a pure science standpoint, with the right technology, yes. But if the people in the virtual world know they are in one, the virtual world idea will always be a barrier to the connection.
Of course this line of thought has real danger of getting very philosophical, what is love? What is connection? It can bring up real uncomfortable questions on who we are and what we want. I feel atheist are better prepared for some of these ideas then most, but it can still be real uncomfortable. It still is for me even, and I ponder and read on these subjects more than your average bear.
Secular imagines an Atheist State and then, with a blink and another twist of imagination immediately defeats it because his own indoctrination cannot resolve exclusion and inclusion in the same node of thought. Freedom to completely and utterly befuddle itself is the burden humanity plods along with in the form of its insatiable imagination to render what cannot be from what can only be.
Read the Edict of Milan, a law passed by Emperor Constantine in AD 313 declaring religious freedom for all under his rule. Then, read the Nicene Creed of AD 325 where he presides over the christian bishops at his retreat in Nicea, on the Mediterranean Sea shore, to decide if jesus is to be recorded into history as a spirit or a real man and, if a real man with a birth and death, how to resolve the Arian Controversy that he cannot be a god if he is born and dies as a mortal man, etc, etc. See what freedom of religion got him? It got him nothing but trouble and even then in that high profile meeting of all bishops clearly showing the jesus story to be a fabrication, we still have Secular's imagination at work giving it a kitchen pass even in an atheist state.
Marvelous.
But, but, but....what about the poor theists?
What about them? Total annihilation couldn't kill the pretense of theism. It would find resurgence in the imaginations of the next developing rational life forms and once again reign supreme over the species. And, yet again, it would still never require actual revelation to achieve it.
The imagination is where man strives to stay. Look at technology. Where is it taking humanity? It's taking him to where it can bilk the most money from him - to his imagination. Anyone heard of Hollywood? Disney? Apple? Microsoft? XBox and an ad nauseam host of reality techno-purges that put man squarely into the middle of his imagination? Where do you think they got their inspiration from? Religion and those who recognize its effects.
Religion takes man where it can bilk the most money from him and that's also deep within his imagination. Anything that loosens man's wallet up is a target and that is most evidently his imagination.
Secular imagines his own Atheist State and then imagines it to embrace his own sense of freedom, and then imagines that freedom to embrace theism and then imagines...what...monkeys flying out of his ass with the next odd thought from an imagination that obviously cannot be controlled?
He creates a utopia of people who denounce any metaphysical affiliations and then decries it in the same thought because it disallows people who need to embrace their metaphysical imaginations. That is complete insanity but at least he's giving us an honest peek into the human imagination that man is afflicted with and cannot logically manipulate. This is where religion comes in. It deals in the imagination and can steer it. This is where technology comes in because it does exactly the same thing.
Thank you Secular. No bad form or personal injury intended at all. You just made a point that was otherwise subliminal.
I think my questions flew right over your head like a 747 Pitar.
I asked how it can work because states do not opereate on their own. They need partners in trade. Tourism revenue benefits a lot. The Freedom questions came to mind because I grew up with the Freedoms of a US citizen? Why is that such a bad thing? Better yet WHY does that relfect that I am Indoctrinated?
We're not on the same page with this one.
The idea of an atheist state is the stopping point you needn't have expounded on any further - world co-existence in trade, etc - because there cannot be an atheist state. That's the work of your imagination and even you, after my exposing it as a complete fabrication of what cannot be from what must be, missed the error of man's continuously erring imagination. Your own thought flew over your own head and then proceeded to assemble a discussion of it as a global rejection relative to the realities of our timeline.
My point isn't to scramble your thread here into something you weren't trying to expose. My point is that your use of imagination is exactly the same use of imagination man is continuously erring by.
This is an atheist forum yet it continuously assembles arguments against theism. Why? Atheism in itself is a declaration of distancing oneself from ever treating the topic to the point of discussion again yet our imaginations sell us to do just that. Why? Because we need to entertain our imaginations and never think about the error of it.
Theists come here seeing our folly, bait it, prod it and haul our sorry asses back into discussion despite the very denouncing of it we all claim to have done. Why? Because our imaginations tells us we have something materially important that theists need to understand with our responses. Really? Theists don't give a rat's whisker about materially important things from atheists because their imaginations are belief system filtered to dismiss such prattle.
The imagination proliferates belief and non-belief system discussions, debates, battles and bloodshed. It just never ends.
Your imagination creates a thread contriving something that could never exist in reality for the sake of discussing it as an impossibility. It jumps right past a logic check just to propose an impossible scenario. Again, I'm pointing out than man continually proposes making up what cannot be from what must be. This is man's erring condition and one he succumbs to so often he doesn't recognize it as such.
I know you were mostly pointing this post towards Secular, but that part where: theist for the most part really do not care what atheist has to say, they are seeing everything through their particular rose tinted lenses. I wanted to comment on that part.
I am well aware trying to convince most life long theist that have been indoctrinated since their youth, that their god is not real, is a fool's errand. Especially the theist bold enough to come to an atheist board trying to "save us from ourselves."
There is a quote that goes something like:
"You have as much chance to convince me of taking up your religion as I do to have you take up mine" (or lack of one.)
I demand: irrefutable, testable, repeatable global proof in order to believe any particular god. I say knowing full well that will never come. If such proof existed for one of the major religions, it most certainly would be extremely well known by now. Their would not be thousands upon thousands of different variations of god, there would be only one. The particular religion that had such proof would "win" over all others including atheism.
I am aware that is a catch 22, no theist stands a chance to convince me of their god. Because such proof does not exist, and will not suddenly start existing well over 1000 years after these religions were founded.
I am aware through a different construct, for many theist, their system of beliefs and rationales are set up in a way that it is impossible to penetrate through that armor especially by someone like me. If there was a easy, well known universal, repeatable way to penetrate that particular religions armor, that religion would be wiped out in short order, especially in this modern day of the internet with light speed communication.
So far religions only really die is when they are conquered (militarily) or they fail to replace the followers as fast as they lose them to death or change of faith. Christianity as a faith has slowly been dying as they increasingly become a minority of the world population in percentage. It is dying of rot from inside out as many many supposed christians barely ever go to church or even think of this god, they stop defending their god, and more importantly they increasingly stop giving tithe.
So why do I argue with these theist? Because it is fun. I like to watch them twist themselves into pretzels when they step away from pure faith and emotion and try to attach science and reasoning to their argument.
I enjoy shooting down each new argument they try to put up to an atheist why they are right and we are wrong.
Plus in many ways theist are still a mystery to me, what makes their brain work? Maybe I am going about it the wrong way to learn about them, but at least this way I am having some fun.
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