Atheist want to create a "Universal Religion! Is it possible? Needed?

[wordy]

Atheist want to create a "Universal Religion"! Is it even possible? Is it needed? Are any atheists interested in contributing? Or will it be taken over by the most rigid fundamentalists among the religionists and become an even more dangerous religion? I guess only David Hockey and Wordy see it as even needed?

Maybe a "Universal Religion" is needed. Religion is surely here to stay so to make the least dangerous one and make that attractive enough to be universally or globally applied seems to be a very good project for altruistic atheists. But all my experience tells me that only one or two atheists out of ten thousand atheists who are users here at iidb would even feel for participating.

I admire his boldness or self-esteem or faith in his own capacity.

David Hockey who is an atheist from Canada has given a book about it for free to all of us atheists. From one atheist to all of us. Altruistic behavior indeed. Read it for free or download as pdf for free at wiki.

I'm bad at liking but here is one page to start from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Thinking_And_Moral_Problems

or here http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Category:Developing_A_Universal_Religion

David Hockey is the writer of the book and he was active here during summer 2006 so if he read this one do correct my poor linking.

I cite a short thing to get you responding to this thread.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Developing_A_Universal_Religion/2._Possible_Applications/Summary

Short quote

What was done with success in the past can be done again with success in the future. Please re-assess my contention that humanity needs a universal religion. Is it not actually quite a plausible suggestion? And would developing a religion that is consistent with our current understanding of reality actually be so difficult to do? I do not think so.

David thinks it is easy, I think it is extremely difficult and very hard sell. Very few would even want to get involved.

Antropologist Roy Rappaport has been interested in these things his whole life too and wrote a highly technical book about it. If I get Rappaport at all it is not easy and one thing that support this is all the dead religions we see around us. They got out competed by the more fervent ones.

Rappaport, R.A. (1999) Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Is it not a kind of category error that David Hockey has made?

Universal Religions are like universal help languages. They fail based on how humans are organized culturally. Both languages and religions are particular to a culture. They are not universal they are particular. They both transfer a culture.

So me very pessimistic about this atheistic joint project.

Any kind positive comments?


Longer quote from same page
If the idea of developing a universal purpose seems implausible, the idea of eventually developing a universal religion based upon this purpose must seem preposterous. How could anyone think that adding a new religion to the existing mix might simplify the situation when religions themselves often contribute to—and may even create—some of the very problems we are trying to solve?

The idea of deliberately trying to develop a new religion might have seemed nonsense when first opening this book. But, if it did so, perhaps this was because so little has been generally understood about how the founders of our various religions obtained their ideas, and why those who followed these leaders created religions. Religions are commonly thought to be based upon ideas that came from a god, but one of this book’s purposes has been to show that this may not have been what actually happened.

Religions are social tools, designed and fostered quite deliberately by human beings to ameliorate social ills. What was done with success in the past can be done again with success in the future. Please re-assess my contention that humanity needs a universal religion. Is it not actually quite a plausible suggestion? And would developing a religion that is consistent with our current understanding of reality actually be so difficult to do? I do not think so.

[rationalOne]

I don't understand the title. Do you mean to say, "Atheists wanted to (help) create a Universal Religion"? or "An atheist wants to create Universal Religion"?

[Russell's Teapot]

I have a bridge in Alaska that I'd like to sell you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge

[Downslide]

I think it's a silly concept.
religion is only here to stay if people think it is.

[wordy]

rationalOne, I guess that David Hockey being a Canadian explains it much more grammatically correct than me not fluent in english and me bad at logical structure maybe made an error in how to sequence words. Didn't me quoting him answer what my crazy title is all about :)

He wants it for sure. He has spent the last 50 years to make his proposal better and better.

He wants us atheists to Develop A Universal Religion.

That we do it together if I get him.

Russel's Teapot. A bridge could be handy in fighting religion. we blow it up when the christians try to get us :) They all drown in the wild river below.

Downslide
I think it's a silly concept.
religion is only here to stay if people think it is.

Wish I had your ability and skill to be to the point and mean and short too. :)

That so many has tried it out and totally failed maybe support your take on it as a "silly" concept.

But I certainly don't agree with your "religion is only here to stay if people think it is."

It is here to stay cause we are build that way by evolutional adaptation. It is not a direct link but religion is a byproduct but a too easily made up byproduct of what makes us social animals. It is a kind of social shortcut to political power. Like Tribalism and Clan society. Comes naturally due to parents having power over the kids when they grow up and the values of the parents get transferred even when the offspring opposes their parents values most wildly. The more effective demands the most wild protest from the children when they go into teen years. It is a very destructive phase when many die in the process and never make it to getting mature.

It is hard to know how many will remain highly religious. Paul Kurtz estimated it to around 10 % or maybe at most 20% if I remember. In one of his editorials at Free Inquiry Mag. Politically such a figure could tip the balance in voting.

So religion is here to stay for hundreds of years to come.

I don't like it either but we have to deal with facts and not go into wishful thinking about religion.

Realistically you could be right that it will be less fervent. Young folks tend to get more and more disinterested in organized religion. They need to sell their churches and gather several congregations into one to save money. So there is hope maybe.

But politically religion will be very influential for a very long time. Optimistic people say it is the last desperate efforts by the evangelists to survive they say.

Well when I look at it from a European perspective it looks like it is here to stay.

It has to do with "belonging". Refugees and emigrants and immigrants feel less at home and feeling outside or not fully welcomed they turn to traditional culture and there religion says they are welcome. Women who never though of wearing headscarf back at home when they have lived here in Sweden for a while they feel a strong urge to show what values they stand for and belong to. They get very supportive of traditional values in dress code to take a stand against "western" values. They don't feel at home here.

Religion is effective in giving them a home a way of belonging in a hostile environ. Such very deeply felt emotions don't go away with with thinking if I get it. Then nobody would use a headscarf here, their ability to think would prevent them from wearing it. It is what they feel that counts here.

In Swedish "utanförskap", not sure what that would be properly translated to. The word utanförskap is not in the dictionary!

Do you have this phenomena at your city? What is the name for it? To feel that your not a welcome participant in the main society.

[wordy]

Back to topic. Help me rephrase it if it is not grammatically correct or confusing.

The links to his book explains it all.

David Hockey is an atheist. The last 50 year he has worked on this project.

To Develop a Universal Religion to be a tool to lessen the damage made by less apt religions.

To build a "Universal" religion would thus be highly attractive if I get his pov.

My friendly criticism is that I think he is doing a category error?

The reason a "Universal" religion would totally fail is same as why a "Universal" help language would fail.

Both languages and religions are particular to a cultural traditions with ways of seeing the world and built in descriptions and prescriptions on how to live.

Example from language is Esperanto and Interlingua. To start defending them here will by me be seen as going Off Topic. Start a new thread if you think I am wrong when I say they have totally failed to get popular enough to work the way David Hockey wants his "Universal Religion" to be of help to make us get a sustainable future.

That is my goal for the thread.

So either you agree with DH or agree with me or have your own take on it.

I say we atheists need to work on it but not to build a "universal" religion but many particular religions that suite every need.

It is like music. It is almost impossible to get a Jazz gourmet to stomach Hard Rock, they don't want to. To make a "Universal" music is impossible. People stop listen if it is not within their taste of how music should be.

So my proposal is to "build" small tools that help all existing religions to be less damaging to their participants and to us outside of them. That is badly needed. Damage control. Like when an airplane crash they try to figure out what went wrong and then they build safeguards to stop it from happening again. Automatic systems that warn when planes get on collosion and such.

[wordy]

I'm too wordy. Let us start anew with his own words.

How could anyone think that adding a new religion to the existing mix might simplify the situation when religions themselves often contribute to—and may even create—some of the very problems we are trying to solve?

The idea of deliberately trying to develop a new religion might have seemed nonsense when first opening this book. But, if it did so, perhaps this was because so little has been generally understood about how the founders of our various religions obtained their ideas, and why those who followed these leaders created religions.

Religions are commonly thought to be based upon ideas that came from a god, but one of this book’s purposes has been to show that this may not have been what actually happened.

Religions are social tools, designed and fostered quite deliberately by human beings to ameliorate social ills. What was done with success in the past can be done again with success in the future.

Please re-assess my contention that humanity needs a universal religion. Is it not actually quite a plausible suggestion? And would developing a religion that is consistent with our current understanding of reality actually be so difficult to do? I do not think so. Link to whole text http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Developing_A_Universal_Religion/2._Possible_Applications/Summary

I agree that we need to do something. I am disagreeing in what to do and in how to to do it.

[ApostateAbe]

There is already a universal religion. It is a successful and ubiquitous one, and it has "universal" right in the name--"Universal Unitarianism." :) Tell David Hockey about it.

[wordy]

ApostateAbe, you have humor. I guess David will get a ROFL too. Hehe. Very funny.

It failed over here in Sweden already 1925 or so. Totally unable to compete against even such small religions as Theosophy and Antroposophy. Even Quakers got a more sustainable foothold here.

Nah UU is a failure as I get it. Maybe my best argument. UU shows how utterly difficult it is to do what David H suggests. Maybe support my take on his proposal that he is doing a category error.

Religions are more like languages, they are particular for every culture. There is no way to make them Universal.

What is an apt project is to do damage control of the existing ones.

[wordy]

Here is my wildest suggestion.

Religion at it's worst is like Booze in the 1920. To try to stop drinking created a mob or maffioso of dealers and underground network of dealers and Lords to get money out of peoples needs for escape through drugs.

1960 drug scene too created a demand of drugs that still feed criminals en masse. I am a puritanic person so my gut feeling is to forbid all kinds of drugs, even alcohol but my rational mind see the futility of war against drugs.

Humans doesn't work that way. To try to stop religion will only make it escalate into criminal version going underground. Like those who blow up Abortion Clinics. Their need for faith is so deeply felt they rather give their life to defend religion then to try to lessen the grip it has over them.

To them religion is like a drug. You see it if you look at the "Jesus Camp Movie". It is a drug that make them go totally into tears of submission. A kind of chemical surrender to the inner dependent on the feeling of high that their religion gives them.

So what is needed is damage control of destructive religions and most religions are able to hurt their participants.

[premjan]

Most religions claim to be universal, but that is a fallacy.

[whichphilosophy]

I don't understand the title. Do you mean to say, "Atheists wanted to (help) create a Universal Religion"? or "An atheist wants to create Universal Religion"?

It means more than one Atheist; Atheists.

[whichphilosophy]

Atheist want to create a "Universal Religion"! Is it even possible? Is it needed? Are any atheists interested in contributing? Or will it be taken over by the most rigid fundamentalists among the religionists and become an even more dangerous religion? I guess only David Hockey and Wordy see it as even needed?

Maybe a "Universal Religion" is needed. Religion is surely here to stay so to make the least dangerous one and make that attractive enough to be universally or globally applied seems to be a very good project for altruistic atheists. But all my experience tells me that only one or two atheists out of ten thousand atheists who are users here at iidb would even feel for participating.

I admire his boldness or self-esteem or faith in his own capacity.

David Hockey who is an atheist from Canada has given a book about it for free to all of us atheists. From one atheist to all of us. Altruistic behavior indeed. Read it for free or download as pdf for free at wiki.

I'm bad at liking but here is one page to start from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Thinking_And_Moral_Problems

or here http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Category:Developing_A_Universal_Religion

David Hockey is the writer of the book and he was active here during summer 2006 so if he read this one do correct my poor linking.

I cite a short thing to get you responding to this thread.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Developing_A_Universal_Religion/2._Possible_Applications/Summary

Short quote



David thinks it is easy, I think it is extremely difficult and very hard sell. Very few would even want to get involved.

Antropologist Roy Rappaport has been interested in these things his whole life too and wrote a highly technical book about it. If I get Rappaport at all it is not easy and one thing that support this is all the dead religions we see around us. They got out competed by the more fervent ones.

Rappaport, R.A. (1999) Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Is it not a kind of category error that David Hockey has made?

Universal Religions are like universal help languages. They fail based on how humans are organized culturally. Both languages and religions are particular to a culture. They are not universal they are particular. They both transfer a culture.

So me very pessimistic about this atheistic joint project.

Any kind positive comments?


Longer quote from same page

Certainly some Atheists could certainly put together what amounts to a religion in its basic format. Sounds a good idea which I once suggested.

Atheism and theism are both belief systems as to how we view what caused our current existant.

As with all belief systems there are a handful of atheists who would wish to wipe out religion, just as we have handfuls of religious fanatics who want to wipe out none believers.

However the majority of atheists would like theists have a certain amount of tolerence beliefs that do not approximate their own.

So I think it would be interesting to see the emergence of a new religious concept where individuals together could promote their common objectives.

[whichphilosophy]

Atheist want to create a "Universal Religion"! Is it even possible? Is it needed? Are any atheists interested in contributing? Or will it be taken over by the most rigid fundamentalists among the religionists and become an even more dangerous religion? I guess only David Hockey and Wordy see it as even needed?

Maybe a "Universal Religion" is needed. Religion is surely here to stay so to make the least dangerous one and make that attractive enough to be universally or globally applied seems to be a very good project for altruistic atheists. But all my experience tells me that only one or two atheists out of ten thousand atheists who are users here at iidb would even feel for participating.

I admire his boldness or self-esteem or faith in his own capacity.

David Hockey who is an atheist from Canada has given a book about it for free to all of us atheists. From one atheist to all of us. Altruistic behavior indeed. Read it for free or download as pdf for free at wiki.

I'm bad at liking but here is one page to start from http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Thinking_And_Moral_Problems

or here http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Category:Developing_A_Universal_Religion

David Hockey is the writer of the book and he was active here during summer 2006 so if he read this one do correct my poor linking.

I cite a short thing to get you responding to this thread.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Developing_A_Universal_Religion/2._Possible_Applications/Summary

Short quote



David thinks it is easy, I think it is extremely difficult and very hard sell. Very few would even want to get involved.

Antropologist Roy Rappaport has been interested in these things his whole life too and wrote a highly technical book about it. If I get Rappaport at all it is not easy and one thing that support this is all the dead religions we see around us. They got out competed by the more fervent ones.

Rappaport, R.A. (1999) Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Is it not a kind of category error that David Hockey has made?

Universal Religions are like universal help languages. They fail based on how humans are organized culturally. Both languages and religions are particular to a culture. They are not universal they are particular. They both transfer a culture.

So me very pessimistic about this atheistic joint project.

Any kind positive comments?


Longer quote from same page

Certainly some Atheists could certainly put together what amounts to a religion in its basic format. Sounds a good idea which I once suggested.

There has never been a universal religion however, so I doubt if Atheism could be thus. Some don't beleive in a deity and others have a disbelief in te same.

Atheism and theism are both belief systems as to how we view what caused our current existant.

As with all belief systems there are a handful of atheists who would wish to wipe out religion, just as we have handfuls of religious fanatics who want to wipe out none believers.

However the majority of atheists would like theists have a certain amount of tolerence beliefs that do not approximate their own.

So I think it would be interesting to see the emergence of a new religious concept.

[Stacey Melissa]

In Swedish "utanförskap", not sure what that would be properly translated to. The word utanförskap is not in the dictionary!

Do you have this phenomena at your city? What is the name for it? To feel that your not a welcome participant in the main society.
In a political context, the English word is "disenfranchisement" or "disfranchisement". (Non-Christians in the U.S. are disenfranchised to a significant extent, since they have little hope of holding public office.) If there is a similar word for the same idea in a social context, it's not coming to mind right now.

The way to make people from varying cultures feel welcome is not to create a "universal" religion, but to increase multicultural awareness.

[Alter]

Um, what about Secular Humanism, did we forget that? www.secularhumanism.org

[wordy]

Alter, all secular humanists I know would get very upset if Secular Humanism or Humanism as such would be seen as an "Universal Religion". Paul Kurtz and those in his camp has taken up this since 1986 or so.

AHA has Frederick Edwords, He belongs to the religious humanism fraction and Secular Humanists are very upset about them. Total clash as far as I know. Secular humanists claim that religious humanists gives our enemies an argument against us. They could sneak ID teaching into schools by claiming that SH is a religion and evolution one of SH dogmas so how crazy it sounds that is why they are totally upset about SH seen as a religion. And I don't think David has any such thing on his mind writing that book.

So I fail to get how you thought that SH here in this thread would be a good thing to propose. It is not even religious at all so how could it be a UR at all?

David Hockey has something particular in mind. Maybe my selection of quote doesn't give his views a fair chance. I am totally new to his views so I have no clue on what he is up to.

There are too much text to read for me in his book. He suggested that we first read the summaries for each chapter. I tried a few and realized me maybe not clever enough. I tried to retell his views as I got them but the reactions from several of you in this thread tells me I have failed to get through to you.

No wonder he has been at it for 50 years. He claims it is not difficult to do so I am surprised why he hasn't given it a shot then. If it is that easy why not just do it?

Thanks whichphilosophy for trying to explain my poor grammar english to rationalOne.

As I get it.

David Hockey is one Atheist.

He suggests or propose that many atheists work together to make a "Universal Religion", or at least start working together on "developing" one.

So I don't agree with whichphilosophy, it is not to use atheism as a "universal religion", as I get David H he really mean a real functional religion but one that is compatible with what we know from science.

Abe suggests that this has already been done to the extent to even include universal in the name of it. Universal Unitarians.

I've looked into UU since 1983 or so and it is not a "Universal Religion" in the meaning of it as David propose in his book.

Stacey Melissa, that could be a formally proper word but that surprise me cause I try to follow debate about segregation and if it was the best word to use then why is it so non-familiar to me.

They had today an interesting serie in our TV. Maybe those who made the serie is bad at it. Fox TV and them maybe have hidden agenda. They told us the purpose for the programs was to get while people aware of how they still show racist behavior and attitudes without even knowing it. I don't know the name for it, The swedish name was Black or White.
Again and again the assured that they wanted our prejudice to go away that their program could help us with it. This was Epi 2 in the serie of 6 programs.

The more I looked at the program the more prejudice I got. Very unfortunate effect if their true agenda was to make me less prejudiced. Could they have had a hidden agenda? You suggest that the The way to make people from varying cultures feel welcome is not to create a "universal" religion, but to increase multicultural awareness.

"increase multicultural awareness." exactly the purpose of that tv program but had opposite effect on me. I've been anti-racism now since 1953 or so. So something goes wrong if the efforts to "increase multicultural awareness." does the opposite?

I found it now.
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/sitereviews.cfm?ReleaseID=5967

Title "Black White - Black White"

they let two families switch roles to get a feeling for what whites do to blacks in US.

[wordy]

Wordy trying to get David Hockey. as I get David H he really mean a real functional religion but one that is compatible with what we know from science.

I think David makes one important error here. "a real functional religion but one that is compatible with what we know from science. "

He has not read Pascal Boyer. He explains that a functional religion must have non-intuitive views to be working. He wrote about it in Skeptical Inquirer some years ago. http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-03/religion.html
Why Is Religion Natural?

Is religious belief a mere leap into irrationality as many skeptics assume? Psychology suggests that there may be more to belief than the suspension of reason.

Pascal Boyer

People's explicitly held, consciously accessible beliefs, as in other domains of cognition, only represent a fragment of the relevant processes. Indeed, experimental tests show that people's actual religious concepts often diverge from what they believe they believe. This is why theologies, explicit dogmas, scholarly interpretations of religion cannot be taken as a reliable description of either the contents or the causes of people's beliefs. For instance, psychologist Justin Barrett showed that Christians' concept of God was much more complex than the believers themselves assumed. Most Christians would describe their notion of God in terms of transcendence and extraordinary physical and mental characteristics. God is everywhere, attends to everything at the same time. However, subtle experimental tasks reveal that, when they are not reflecting upon their own beliefs, these same people use another concept of God, as a human-like agent with a particular viewpoint, a particular position and serial attention. God considers one problem and then another. Now that concept is mostly tacit. It drives people's thoughts about particular events, episodes of interaction with God, but it is not accessible to people as "their belief." In other words, people do not believe what they believe they believe. [2]

A systematic investigation of these tacit concepts reveals that notions of religious agency, despite important cultural differences, are very similar the world over. There is a small repertoire of possible types of supernatural characters, many of whom are found in folktales and other minor cultural domains, though some of them belong to the important gods or spirits or ancestors of "religion." Most of these agents are explicitly defined as having counterintuitive physical or biological properties that violate general expectations about agents. They are sometimes undetectable, or prescient, or eternal. The way people represent such agents activates the enormous but inaccessible machinery of "theory of mind" and other mental systems that provide us with a representation of agents, their intentions and their beliefs. All this is inaccessible to conscious inspection and requires no social transmission. On the other hand, what is socially transmitted are the counterintuitive features: this one is omniscient, that one can go through walls, another one was born of a virgin, etc.

More generally, we observe that most supernatural and religious concepts belong to a short catalogue of possible types of templates, with a common structure. All these concepts are informed by very general assumptions from broad categories such as person, living thing, or man-made object. A spirit is a special kind of person, a magic wand a special kind of artifact, a talking tree a special kind of plant. Such notions combine (i) specific features that violate some default expectations for the domain with (ii) expectations held by default as true of the entire domain. For example, the familiar concept of a ghost combines (i) socially transmitted information about a physically counterintuitive person (disembodied, can go through walls, etc.), and (ii) spontaneous inferences afforded by the general person concept (the ghost perceives what happens, recalls what he or she perceived, forms beliefs on the basis of such perceptions, and intentions on the basis of beliefs).

Sorry such a long quote. Counter-intuitive is one of the most important results of the scientific experiments he has done to get knowledge about what makes religion be functional despite them making such outrageous claims.

Like many atheists I didn't know of such interpretations during some 40 years of atheistic activism. I guess the majority of all atheists even fail to see any truth in what he writes there. that text is from 2003 so it has had a long time to sink in but almost total silence from us atheists. That tells me we don't want to know, we want it to be like it feels right to us.

I used to be like that too but realize now that we have to get reliable knowledge and not keep going on with our wishful thinking what is the workings behind religion.

If one want to develop a "Universal Religion" like David Hockey has propose in his book then the more knowledge one have the better result.

The counter-intuitive part is missing in David's proposal. He wants the religion to be compatible with what we know based on science.

Yes me want that too but religions don't work that way if they want to be functional. They works best if they have the functional amount of counter-intuitive elements in them. And not any kind of such elements, there are only a few such available that works.

[davidzLA]

It's a great idea, why don't we call it the Enigma Babylon One World Faith?

Seriously -

You do know that establishment of a universal religion is one of the signs of the end times to these people, right? And

Why would athiests be acceptable as authorities on the tenets of a new religion?

It's a silly idea.

[ApostateAbe]

ApostateAbe, you have humor. I guess David will get a ROFL too. Hehe. Very funny.

It failed over here in Sweden already 1925 or so. Totally unable to compete against even such small religions as Theosophy and Antroposophy. Even Quakers got a more sustainable foothold here.

Nah UU is a failure as I get it. Maybe my best argument. UU shows how utterly difficult it is to do what David H suggests. Maybe support my take on his proposal that he is doing a category error.

Religions are more like languages, they are particular for every culture. There is no way to make them Universal.

What is an apt project is to do damage control of the existing ones. A Unitarian Universalist church is found in about every city in the United States. I don't know why it hasn't done well in Sweden. Might it be because Sweden is generally a non-religious country? If so, then why would you need a universal religion for Sweden? A better religion is for replacing the bad religions. If religion is generally unpopular, then why do you need to introduce a new one?

[wordy]

Abe, David Hockey wrote a whole book on why it is needed seen from his perspective. I see why he see it that way but I don't agree that it should be "universal" cause they tend to fail.

I wrote that one could do damage control by reforming those already popular by tweaking them enough to not be as dangerous as they are, to do damage control without changing them so much that they become non-functional.

David lives in Canada. I live in Sweden. He means it to be a Global religion obviously. So I am not sure why you ask why I want it for sweden. Every particular culture has it's own taste and preferences. What works in Korea maybe don't work for us here locally.

The damage control has to be applied to the religions at hand locally.

davidzLA, well time will tell if that one catches on then. :)

[Mister Agenda]

It's a great idea, why don't we call it the Enigma Babylon One World Faith?

Seriously -

You do know that establishment of a universal religion is one of the signs of the end times to these people, right? And


True, that. As soon as it made headway the fundies would freak and the near-fundies would start thinking that end-time stuff might not be so allegorical, and also freak.

Plus, I am really sick of hearing atheism is just another religion, so I really don't want anyone to make it literally true.

[wordy]

First things first.

I'm a poor reader myself, so sure I could have failed completely to get what David Hockey really intend with his book.

But the following is most likely not what he intend.

I am really sick of hearing atheism is just another religion, so I really don't want anyone to make it literally true.

I am really sick of hearing atheism is just another religion, yes that is my view too. Atheism is not a religion and that is not what I read into Hochey's text.

Could you cite give quotes from him wanting us to make atheism into a religion? He doesn't even wants us to make a religion for atheists either.

He wants us atheist together survive religion by making a universal religion that helps religionists to see the religious merit in a less damaging, less dangerous religion for them cause they are not able to or not wanting to leave religion.

It is like "nicotimel" or what the brand name is for the nicotine chewing gum.

Having less of the cancergenic substances it helps those totally addicted to nicotine to survive instead dying of lung cancer.

It is like when an aiplane crash. They set up a team of experts that try to get how to make the logistic to plug the holes in the security around air transport.

Religious faith is so error prone that it needs to be improved on so it becomes less damaging to those who get hooked on it.

Read him instead of putting views in his mouth that most likely was not intended by him at writing. :)

[Underseer]

I think it's a silly concept.
religion is only here to stay if people think it is.

Given the growth of nontheism over the last 200 years, I would say humanity will eventually outgrow religion barring any civilization-destroying calamities.

[wordy]

Those reading this will be dead before it happens, I have no evidence for it but my experience is that it will take hundreds of years. We still have slavery don't we? That has been with us for thousands of years. If it was that easy then it would have ended for hundreds of years already.