Peace On Earth Through Atheism?

[stromboli]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/06/peace-on-earth-atheism

The quiet truth behind the inescapable headlines about man’s inhumanity to man is that the world is actually becoming a more peaceful place. Deaths from war and conflict have been declining for decades â€" and, if current trends continue, we can make them rarer still.

What mysterious force is sowing peace among humankind? One possible reason is that there are more atheists and nonbelievers than ever before.

In America, millennials are the largest and least religious generation in the country’s history. The trend toward secularization in the US mirrors the movement in Europe and throughout the developed world. And poll after poll have shown that the nonreligious also lean more progressive and more pacifist on a wide variety of issues relating to violence: torture, the death penalty, corporal punishment, military adventurism and more.

A Pew poll from 2009, well before the Senate released its devastating torture report last month, asked whether torturing suspected terrorists could be justified found that the non-religious were most opposed to torture, with a combined 55% saying that it could rarely or never be justified. Gallup has also found that people with no religious preference are less supportive of the death penalty than any group of Christians. The non-religious are also among the most likely to say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. The religiously unaffiliated are also less likely than Christians to believe that the US is superior to all other countries in the world, a hyper-patriotic attitude that’s hardly conducive to careful reflection about the use of American military power.

Religion’s violent tendencies also tend to be reflected in its adherents’ personal lives. The social scientists Christopher Ellison and Darren Sherkat found that conservative Protestants disproportionately support the use of corporal punishment, such as spanking or whipping, for children. The researchers speculate that this stems from theology: Christians who promote a literal interpretation of the Bible tend to believe that human nature is inherently evil, and that sin demands severe punishment. What’s more, the Bible itself (among its many other bloody verses) specifically calls for beating children in verses such as Proverbs 13:24. (By contrast, freethinkers like the famous American orator Robert Ingersoll recognized the cruelty of corporal punishment as early as 1877.)

As long as humanity was in thrall to the violent morality of religious texts, our societies were warlike and cruel. As the American revolutionary Thomas Paine said, belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man. It’s only in the last few decades, as we’ve begun to cast these beliefs off, that we’re making real moral progress.

The influence of the non-religious shows is also evident on an international scale. The nonprofit group Vision of Humanity publishes an annual Global Peace Index, which ranks countries on a broad spectrum of indicators, including violent crime, incarceration rates, weapon ownership, and military spending. Sociologist Phil Zuckerman summarizes their results in his new book Living the Secular Life:

...according to their most recent rankings, among the top ten most peaceful nations on earth, all are among the least God-believing â€" in fact, eight of the ten are specifically among the least theistic nations on earth. Conversely, of the bottom ten â€" the least peaceful nations â€" most of them are extremely religious.

Of course, not every atheist is peaceful and not every religious person is violent. Avowedly pacifist faiths like the Quakers or Unitarian Universalists have played an important role in peace movements and, in the other direction, there are lamentably prominent atheists like Sam Harris or the late Christopher Hitchens who’ve been entirely too cavalier about imperialism and military aggression. But in general, the trend is that, as the world becomes less religious, we can expect it to become even more peaceful.

I had two responses from this. First was "no shit Sherlock, you just figured that out?" But the other response deals with the article's grand generalization of topic. As the sole commenter pointed out, people such as Napoleon- who was no friend of religion- was nonetheless an able conqueror.

In terms of current conflicts in the Middle East-the headline grabbers- you can say the article is correct. But I'd be disinclined personally to make a blanket statement that atheism leads directly to peace.

There is, however, a corollary; Atheists embrace science by a much greater percentage than theists. We have seen plenty of examples of that on the forum. The science of Particle Physics and Astrophysics has an international forum that transcends governmental restrictions as much as anything I have personally witnessed. The LHC in Bern is a good example, where scientists from many countries contribute and learn from the results.

What works is what encourages cooperation. Global warming certainly is reason enough. Science is the one thing that does bring nations together (International Space Station, LHC in Bern- there are many other examples) So; rather than tout atheism as a direct cause of peacemaking, though it contributes, is not by itself the  answer. I don't know if embracing science leads to atheism or vice versa, but the two are, in my mind, effectively linked.

I've said before that what we are seeing now in the world is one in the throes of transition, from a religious driven mindset to a secular one. Atheism overall will contribute to international cooperation- as we have also demonstrated on here, atheists seem less likely to be ardent nationalists than the religious. Whatever. Carry on.

[Baruch]

Secularism would take one aspect of human conflict out of the equation.  Others remain of course.

[aitm]

People with agenda's will find a place to point when the reality is that everything has changed exponentially just over the last 100 years. Let me suggest some points:

The soldier from WW1,2 Korea, Vietnam is far removed from the soldiers of the Middle eastern "wars". In the last 50 years the landscape of the US has changed dramatically in the shift of population from country to city. Boys who grew up very accustomed to the a country life where blood and guts were a daily routine are now boys in a city or suburbs who have never so much as seen a squirrel squished on the highway. They think they want to fight…until they see it.
In general the flight from farm life to metropolitan removes everyday people from day to day combat with animals and removes any and all animosity towards them. People are more forgiving of animals, they tend to love animals and living things more than our ancestors who merely saw a good stew.

Women were asked to join the war effort in 1 and 2 and were so damn good that it opened the whole fucking book. Then "we" tried to say thank you now go back to the kitchen and women said, "fuck you". Women have proven they can be our equal in many things.

With the laws demanding education for all, secularism is a natural culmination. This is pretty easy to follow, education promotes curiosity, curiosity promotes skepticism, skepticism promotes heresy, heresy promotes secularism.

Modern technology produced more efficient farming, which produced more food which reduced hunger which improves the welfare which improves education which improves compassion which enhances secularism which enhances compassion.

We are a more compassioned people for lots of reasons, but the obvious one is because we are getting better at being human.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

Definitely more to do with secular thought than atheism itself. Several important figures in the French Revolution were atheists, and had they still been in power during the Reign of Terror you can bet that a lot of Christian heads would have been flying from the guillotine.

[Baruch]

Not that I approve or disapprove ... but the ordinary people in the countryside ... went around shooting priests and nuns.  Part of the whole peasant revolt thing.  Maybe the priests and nuns had been ... abusive?  It might not have been about atheism, but something more recently in the news.  It was only the big wigs in the cities who got chopped.

[Sal1981]

It will only take one generation of ignorance and lack of education to topple this over though.

[Baruch]

It will only take one generation of ignorance and lack of education to topple this over though.

Entropy is constantly sucking society back toward the Stone Age ... and with brief diversions, entropy always wins.  As in Planet of the Apes original, humans will become pre-literate and even pre-vocal.

[Sal1981]

A good example of that is Iran's devolution in the 70'ies.

[Baruch]

A good example of that is Iran's devolution in the 70'ies.

Aided by France and the USSR.  Sometimes entropy needs help.