The Question: Has atheism ever been the foundational block of any civilization? Can atheism manifest a human civilization?
Of course. I make no mistake about it. It is a no-conviction philosophy. Every group of people need, first and foremost, a firm conviction about who they are and what they intend to become, i.e. if they wish to work collectively towards a common goal.
Building Civilization is a Collective, Common/Social, Cultivated Status. This conviction, supported by the guiding principles that maintain and prepare the people of that conviction, is what may now be loosely referred to as “Theology” and/or “Cosmogony.” You would notice that in almost all the known world religions, “God” is not so much the center, but the prophets/priests/teachers/leaders and their principles/gospels/edicts/commandments etc. “God” is mostly made present to grant these leaders the “Authority” to lead people within the conviction.
Atheists get the religious ideal wrong. They often attack the peripheral concept of “God” rather than the conviction of a people. The authority of the leader is autochthonous to the conviction, and God or the gods are descended from that conviction. This is why the most problematic reality, even worse than Atheists, is a people who adopt convictions other than those autochthonous to themselves.
Why would Black/Africans pray to a white Jesus and a white Mary – complete foolishness. It is the bottom of gross stupidity, for it is a show of their complete lack of conviction. People like that do not build civilizations, they eat from the bottom of other civilizations.
In sum, my point is not complex: Civilization is a socio-political achievement, not a biological occurrence. Which means it does not happen by accident or through serendipity. Therefore, it requires a collective idea, which is the conviction, and the plan and implementation, i.e. the marshaling of intellect, labour, and resources to the making of civilization.
Atheists cannot have conviction as they fail to comprehend that the descendant principle of God or the gods (whether it be a man in the sky or a woman seated on a throne in the center of the Earth), is what grants the authority needed to maintain and advance the conviction. There’s no better way to do it.
Narmer.
Who should black Africans pray to?
Themselves!
This stands to reason that religion and civilisation go hand in hand, so to speak. Can there be a “civilisation” without a concept of religion and/or god? What is civilisation actually? If it is the development or evolution of bigger brains that generate information(thoughts/ideas, etc) to execute “civilisation”? Can’t there be traces of biological occurrence in the trajectory of this phenomenon?
Correct: “This stands to reason that religion and civilization go hand in hand, so to speak.” I am not implying necessarily that in order to build a civilization that one requires a religion. My point is this: In order to build a civilization, a society needs to have a collective conviction. The history shows that the best intellectuals of the past in all (and I mean ALL) those African Civilizations (and their offshoots elsewhere) could not invent a better way than to have a religion that invokes, invariably, the collective conviction. There is not a better way to invoke, institute and maintain the collective conviction than religion, which ultimately is the foundational requirement of a civilization.
Instructive! On the flipside, I muse. Can “thought” replace “the deity” in the enterprise of purposeful development?
@Ibrahim Addy
Lets differentiate between “thought” and intellect. Intellect is a resource (if this is what you mean by “thought”, like land, water, labor, etc. for building anything. To build anything meaningful, you need intellect. Civilization requires the use of intellect, while Barbarism requires the abuse of intellect.
The problem we are attempting to solve, however, is not about what resources one needs to build. One might move a Society to the Water and not be able to make it Drink the Water. To drink requires the collective conviction. The Society must know that it is thirsty; it must know that it needs water; and it must understand that when it gets to the water it must begin to drink it. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink it. Conviction is the matter that makes is clear to the horse that it needs, indeed that, it requires water, to live. Without this collective conviction about what a Society is and what it intends to become, it cannot achieve or maintain a civilization.
The intellect is the resource employed in the making of the collective conviction. The intellect itself is abstract, yet the Conviction is not. The civilization it builds is not abstract, but very material.
Na uche nke m
God is another word for Fear. Therefore, fear can easily replace God.
Anything that people fear most can be used to control and manipulate them.
If Atheist leaders or an Atheist government can make the law or constitution fearsome enough, people will bow to the law or constitution. In that way, the law or constitution becomes their God.
@Gwam:
“God is another word for Fear,” or for Love. Conviction is gained and maintained through many portals. Fear is one, not the only one. Love is another. Understanding is another. Blood-bond is another. Whatever it takes to achieve a collective conviction is the way that the conviction is gained and maintained among the masses.
Now let me address the fallacy: If in an Atheist world their lawmakers institute so much Fear that the masses now worship the constitution, then the Law is their God. If the masses can debate the constitution and vote on which laws to make or break, as in the case of a democracy without religion, then they cannot fear the constitution. If they don’t fear it, they will debate and criticize it and proceed to ever want to change it to suite their appetites, and it can no longer remain a collective conviction. It will only remain as a book of disparate opinions.
Hence the point. You cannot have a Constitution that is Fearsome without invoking the Absolute Authority of the Lawmakers. Absolute Authority of Lawmakers is called a Priesthood/Prophecy/Teaching etc. That is a religion.