Would an atheistic society work?
Were Richard Dawkins to succeed in converting even the western world to atheism (which would, after all, need as a prerequisite the disestablishment of the anglican church in England), the danger is that the very next generation would be even more unruly than the present one, using (as they would) the argument “why should I obey the law? it’s only made up by the older/more powerful people to keep under their thumb the younger/less powerful people”.
That is, I fear that quite a lot of the half of the population with an IQ below 100
would be unable to accept that there is a basis for morals and ethics
that goes beyond current legislation, just as those at that level of IQ
who are devoutly religious are incapable of understanding sciences
explanations for the origins of the universe and of life!
There is a way to derive a moral system
on which to base our criminal law for a just society,
based on concepts such as that of symmetry:
“it would be wrong for you to kill Mr X because you would not want Mr X to kill you”.
In other words, general mutual social responsibility.
However this could prove to be beyond them because it is rather abstract.
Or else, it could simply leave them cold, thinking they can
get away with it if they pretend to go along with all the soft people
but they are dead hard and don't have to.
Western society is rather like that already.
Therefore, for society to succeed in convincing
those who hold to religions and to obeying the law on religious grounds,
that religion is delusion might well achieve nothing on the level of an ordered society except to
increase the numbers who commit crime as often as they can get away with it, because
there was no reawson to behave well that they could identify with beyond the need to stay out of prison.
Would it be possible to impose atheism on people? No; of course not. Apart from the ethical (yes, to me) abhorrence at trying to control what people think, the attempts in the USSR and communist China to outlaw religion quite clearly failed. Primitive people cling extremely doggedly to their beliefs, even when society at large, albeit in the form of offialdom, tells them it is merely superstition, myth and legend. Right through the Christian era people have gone on telling, and re-telling, and making art work about, the ancient Greek and Roman myths and legends. They were very picturesque, if extremely gruesome in most cases; and people love the stories even now, to judge by the success of Hollywood's Olympian outings. Therefore to try to make people give up their religions either by rational argument or by force would be utterly . futile. Most people are just too stupid, or too emotionally dependent on the spurious feeling of security their mythologies and superstitions give them, to take my path. Sorry, Professor Dawkins; you and I — and Christopher Hitchins — are on our own!