cultural-identity, community, sociologySocial constructivism is a sociological theory of knowledge that applies the general philosophical constructionism into social settings, wherein groups construct knowledge for one another, collaboratively creating a small culture of shared artifacts with shared meanings. When one is immersed within a culture of this sort, one is learning all the time about how to be a part of that culture on many levels. (Social Constructivism)
Atheism is a relatively new grouping of knowledge when we talk about its presence as any kind of sociological construct. Societies existing today have varied backgrounds and most have a good deal of religion sewn into the fabric that holds them together. However, in the face of revolution or other circumstance where, despite the differences of all the people involved, a new society will need to be synthesized; how would one go about doing so using atheism as a sociological construct? We are accustomed to referencing the self as an organizing construct, how do we plod forward when the self is atheist?
Are there any examples of such a community, not in terms of some social group/organization, but in terms of a larger, sociological population that is constituted, if not by a majority, a substantial plurality?
Are there any sociologists who have put forward research on atheism as a sociological construct? What, if any, studies have been done on free, democratic countries with a large atheist/non-religious base that can be used as a reference for engineering a society developed around an atheist construct? What about on failed attempts at atheist states, or on the specific failings of remaining ones?
What social structures support integration of this kind of group? How can these structures be implemented without failing in the same way as the structures that supported hegemony of various religions?
How can an atheist population learn from the lessons taught by the history of theistic endeavors: the setbacks, advances, and matters for consideration to account for?
You might want to check out the Wikipedia page on Secular Humanism. This would be the thing around which you could build a society. Atheism encompasses too narrow a concept for this.
‘How can an atheist population learn from the lessons taught by the history of theistic endeavors: the setbacks, advances, and matters for consideration to account for?’
The lessons to be learned from theism are innumerable; though undoubtedly it will be impossible to systematically determine ‘all’ the reactionary elements of a religious doctrine, as they will be deeply intertwined with ‘good’ revolutionary elements, it is enough to recognize a monstrous mixture of good and bad infinities. The result is resentment (or piety); we are still pious, and this is perhaps the lesson we will be all too slow to grasp.
In a way your question is Nietzsche’s, as answering it amounts to disclosing the ‘problem’ with religion and morality. He might ask us here how to interpret us when we say we have moved ‘beyond’ religion – have you exterminated it from your unconscious, is it absent from you as a species, or are they still just a tiny minority amid furious religiosity? At any rate, his work includes a broad critique of society on the basis of the religious impulse and it strikes me as particularly appropriate here.
We all have the same motive: Avoid Loss.
How to go about that is what has powered evolution and civilization.
To quote myself:
As an atheist, I would say that life is about properly attending to all aspects of health, pleasure, and loss. Love is about sharing in each other's health, pleasure, and loss.
Sometimes we humans have a way of making things hopelessly complex. It's really not that complicated.
No, because a well-thought-out society with an absence of a religiously-minded element would not be a well-thought-out society.
EDIT
What I mean is that societies do not simply spring up from nothing. They have a history, and that history undoubtedly was religious. Moreover, religiosity is centered on the belief of things without clear evidence for it. The removal of this would require the absence of an uninformed underclass. Even if this society is powered by Robots and wants for nothing, this wouldn’t REMOVE these people. It would perhaps do the opposite.
So a society that is simply without a religious underpinning is simply not realistic. It is like a society where everyone works firing cannon at an enemy. While metaphorical, it ignores the fact that someone must feed these people, and grow that food, and weave the cloth, and so on and so on.
Now, as for the idea that one cannot be religious about science-fact. This is patently preposterous. It is only due to our recently crawling out of the primordial societal soup that our religions are all magical. What makes them religion is that the followers of it simply believe what they are told. If I were answering the Question’s Title, and not the Question itself. I could get away with not addressing this. But “Without the bounds of religions” is the problem here. Any belief system that has people who believe it because everyone else believes it, is religious in nature.
Religion is not a blanket term you apply to magic. In fact, non-conformist beliefs around magic can be both atheistic and non-religious. Religion is all about a group of people who believe in a set of beliefs and customs, and normally without questioning the authority that espouses those beliefs.
END EDIT
Additionally. Religion was a major driving force in the development of our own society. Possibly one of many factors that lead to our success. It enables people with different motives to work together for a common goal. And when you view a society as an evolving organism, the religious ones tend to dominate the secular.
This points heavily towards any society, human or otherwise, having some kind of religious faction. Until said society is able to eliminate the less intelligent among them, which is one of the facets of the few attempts in our own history that we most find distasteful.
All of this suggests that some form of religiosity will continue to be with us for a very long time. It might be a religious belief in whatever science has to say. But it will be a religious belief none-the-less.
Remember. What breaks a reasoning person away from being a religious one is not what he believes, rather how he came by those beliefs. There will always be people that follow. And the hope is they will find a more healthy and just leader.
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