Atheism -- consequences on culture and aggregate human society

[The Unknown General]

I think I understand why the OP and other religious folks fell this why, their afraid of losing their power and control.

[Phier]

I think I understand why the OP and other religious folks fell this why, their afraid of losing their power and control.

No its just that every generation thinks their society is in some sort of moral decay. They are simply looking for a reason they can blame it on.

[The Unknown General]

No its just that every generation thinks their society is in some sort of moral decay. They are simply looking for a reason they can blame it on.

Thats an resonable answer as well. However, I feel they feel threatened because there are more and more Atheists to them.

[Denny Crane!]

No its just that every generation thinks their society is in some sort of moral decay. They are simply looking for a reason they can blame it on.

Yeah its wierd, been going on for 2500 years and people still don't think hey maybe we're just repeating the same mistakes as people every other century that society has properly existed.

[irelandeb]

I'm an evolutionary biologist by training. Yes I can. Monogamy isn't natural, homosexuality is natural.

I think we are disagreeing over definitions rather than facts. I think sex with different people like you are talking about is promiscuity while I am talking about relationships or polygamy.

Perhaps I should be more clear, sometimes I forget that everyone will assume the absolute on every internet style post. I should not have said monogamy isn't natural at all. What I should have said is that monogamy is not a default state for all human behavior.

The difference here is huge. It's like saying "I shouldn't have said that heterosexuality wasn't natural at all. I should have said that it is not the default for all human behaviour".

The fact is, like the way most people are straight, most people only have a serious child-bearing relationship with one person. I don't think sexual promiscuity is polygamy, and I agree it is very common. But marriage-type relationships are mostly shared only with one other person.

We are not all that special over all. Our intelligence does allow us to make pacts that other animals do not, but human mating behavior still fits in patterns seen in other social animals. I think our natural 'state' would be longer term pair bonds with extra pair bonding matings, not dissimilar to what is seen in birds.
Let us not confuse desire with recent social pressures. We don't have an internet with 950 TERRABYTES of porn being used per day by ONE porn website because we are happy with one partner. We can't even measure how much porn is on the internet, it staggering. This is NOT the result of being a monogamous species! Its not all being used by non-mated males, thats for sure.

I think this is all promiscuity rather than polygamy.

We are artificially forced into monogamy, but a majority wants a little on the side at least.

There is probably some truth in this, although "artifical" is a bit of subjective judgement. I'm sure you'd like having two wives. But I'm sure you also care about your wife and what she thinks, and if she wasn't happy with it, I'm sure you wouldn't be either. That is circumstances common to almost all human relationships that prevent polygamy. I'm sure there is a gene in us somewhere that causes us to prefer having multiple long-term partners. I am equally sure there are more in there that make us value other things more than this, and most of the time we must choose the latter over the former rather than having both.

[Col. Tartleton]

I don't think anyone is saying that theism makes you a worse person. Though we are saying there is no correlation between theism and morality.

But some people are saying that atheism makes you a worse person. Using science fiction novel content as evidence.

This entire thread is more absurd than the Zombie Jesus thread.

[Lazarus]

Also food for thought on this wallet business.

1 of 5 wallets are returned. Okay. But - so what? That doesn't prove anything. That just proves, 1 in 5 people will return a wallet. You can't link that to Atheism. It could be some third factor - maybe 1 in 5 people who found wallets had a phone on them. Maybe 1 in 5 people who found the wallets believed in Karma. Also, what were the figures like when the Atheist population was lower? We have to have a previous statistic to compare it to. Maybe only 1 in 10 wallets were returned in the past. Saying that the Atheists were responsible for not returning wallets is like saying that they were also responsible for the credit card fraud.

[justicar5]

aah poor Sig we aren't killing people in gods name by the 10's of millions anymore, God is thirsty and his followers must shed more blood...and they need more power to do it.

[Muunokhoi]

Wow after reading this thread I think I would prefer a crazy zombie explanation in comparison to this religious troll. Several members have already put foward several very coherent and well thought arguments foward so there is little I can add other than sig needs to have a big spoon full of concrete and harden up.

[Future Filmmaker]

Every single one of those problems listed are completely unrelated to atheism. Especially considering Britain still doesn't have a very high rate of people that select "No Religion".

Perhaps its far more likely, Signifer, that the values of modern Christians are different.

[IronBrig4]

I will have to strenuously disagree with Signifer's take on comic books and sci-fi. Look at Captain America: The First Avenger. Cap's an old-fashioned, "oh golly gee whiz!" superhero straight from the Golden Age. It grossed $386.6 million worldwide. The Iron Man and Thor movies also feature superheroes who might be boozers or selfish, but in the end they do the right thing. I'm not bringing up the Hulk movies because they're not... you know... good. The upcoming Avengers film is probably going to be a huge blockbuster. Guess what it's about? A team of superheroes who are saving the world from destruction.

Comics change. Heroes change. Captain America would get boring if he punched Hitler in every issue. Batman would also quickly become tiresome if all his incarnations were like Adam West.

And regarding science-fiction, the latest Star Trek movie kinda derails your argument. It's not dark and grim. In fact, it looks like an Apple Store threw up all over the bridge.

[Blau&Gruen]

They have left the already dusty Bauhaus aesthetics behind at least now. It has been about time!

[IronBrig4]

And you want to talk about supposed immorality or unwholesomeness in today's comics? In the 50s it was common for extremely bloody murder mysteries to be on the same shelf as Superman and Archie.

Signifer needs to stop listening to The 700 Club.

[Blau&Gruen]

Lol, I had to look into wiki what club 700 is.

I mean it is a fact that the Kirk era interieurs were a bit modest.

[Tankbuster]

I didn't, and that scares me quite a bit.

[Blau&Gruen]

Why this?

[IronBrig4]

The 700 Club is typically associated with the religious right in the US, and I mean the anti-science, fire-and-brimstone fanatics with overactive "persecuted Christian" complexes.

[aqd]

But what's wrong with all these you listed??

[Lord Romanus III]

Sig, do you actually care to address these arguments that have been placed in the thread or are you simply going to troll the rest of the community and dismiss them out of hand because they disagree with you?

[Claudius Gothicus]

Yeah its wierd, been going on for 2500 years and people still don't think hey maybe we're just repeating the same mistakes as people every other century that society has properly existed.

Well, I do believe that this ''moral decay'' BS has only came to be ''mainstream'' during the modern era, past the 1850's everyone and their mothers seems to be living in the end of society as we know it.

And regarding the ''Comic-books Heroes'' argument let's face it: we live in a complex reality and in order to feel connected to these characters we need complex heroes, people that face the same everyday problems and excruciating pains that us... but in the end they do the right thing, and doing the right thing is by far much more important when one is riddled by an addiction, a difficult life or a trauma... doing the right thing as Superman is far easier than doing the right thing as Batman, and that's why people feel more connected to Batman or other heroes: because of his fallibility, his ability to overcome. Isn't that a Modern Ideal after all? overcoming and self-realizing oneself? what's the opposite, resignation? that sounds too middle-ages like.

If there's anything to be said about the changing nature of Comic Books and their heroes it's that humanity has came a long way from blind idealism and knights in shinning armor, yet in that process we have gained a lot of awareness about what makes a real hero, an everyday hero.