People in the world will appreciating each other`s belief

Wha? Do you really think that?

Just because people don't have a belief in a god doesn't mean others won't be ridiculed for their belief in the paranormal, pseudoscience, other stupid shit. Belief is not limited to religion. If your belief can be labeled, it can be hated.

I voted yes, but my real answer is much more conditional than a simple yes or no.

I think eventually mostly everyone will become atheist, but what a lot of atheists don't seem to realize is that from an atheist perspective, being an atheist is being religious. This is because if you are atheist, god doesn't exist to you. So when you hear someone else say they believe in god, its just another belief to you. It holds the same weight as the belief that god doesn't exist (except of course that you believe your belief to be correct). The reason why people who are religious don't see atheism as a religion is because they believe that the concept of god embodies something divine and therefore more powerful than a normal belief. To them, one belief is greater than the other. I imagine that this is why the term religion was originally coined however many thousands of years ago - because when it comes down to it, religion is just a label for a special category of beliefs.

The reason some atheists don't see that, is because they are so caught up in the idea that they are better than everyone else (quite ironically just like the rest of the religions). The day religion truly dies, will be the day that people stop acknowledging it as anything but an ordinary belief - until then all the things that atheists preach to be wrong with religion will live on though atheism itself.

That being said, atheism does have an advantage over the other religions in that it is logical. Educated people will tend towards atheism, because it makes much more sense. As Ambivalent Ecstasy said above, it does seem to be the trend that educated people tend to have the capacity to appreciate other view points - but the truth is a little less black and white. Educated people tend to tolerate people with different view points, but not necessarily appreciate them. There is a big difference between toleration and appreciation.

Rbz raises probably the best point. If it can be labeled, it can be hated. But educated people, like atheism, have an advantage. Everything has to make sense to them, and if you can explain why something doesn't make sense that too becomes part of the education for future generations. In this way I think people tend to become similar to each other. As methods of communication and travel continue to improve and become more wide spread, education will become more widespread and improve as a result of that. People may never come to appreciate different view points, but they will eventually come to share the same view point.

Though... I highly doubt I will live to see that day.

??? Why suddenly the reply is about atheis is the key to people appreciating each other`s belief or not?? People do not need to be an atheis to appreciate each other`s belief. What I mean is if the one with religion can accept atheis openly. Atheis can only appreciate another atheis just cause they live in the religious oriented country. If not, it won`t nescessarily happen. Like the previous post said, just by having different prefference can lead to conflict.

edit: What I mean by belief doesn`t mean it is only faith. Sorry cause I don`t know the english for the term ideal, faith, way of life, preference, and so on. That is what I mean by believe, something that u have that create you.

I never said it was the key to anything. I'm not preaching that everyone should switch to atheism, I'm not trying to preach at all. You wanted to know if we thought people could appreciate other peoples beliefs, and I told you what I thought.

If you read the last paragraph of my post you would have seen where I said I agreed with rbz, but that I thought it was still possible for everyone to get along eventually. I still answered your question.

Edit: I can see why you would think I'm a bit off topic, but you did say that if we voted yes we should tell you how we thought people could come to appreciate each others beliefs. If we take the word appreciate literally though, no one would appreciate anything but their own beliefs - because its impossible to admire someone else's beliefs more than your own, or else your beliefs would be the same.

If you want a really really short answer, then the answer is no - because its not possible to appreciate something you don't believe in. I simply assumed that you meant tolerate rather than appreciate, because otherwise there would be no discussion.

i agree. i hope this eventually happens. this not being true is the root of some of the most disputed problems

Thats not really apperciating others belifs.

I also say voted no because hate about belief has been around for thousands of years and I just don't see an end.

fine, how about when everyones nihilistic then?

but i suppose the next thing you tell me is that empiricism, pragmatism, nominalism, conceptualism, scepticism, realism or other branches of philosophy are suddenly considered a belief too.
i mean, you can make that claim, you could probably even defend it quite well but suddenly the whole world boils down to being believe and thats a rather vacant statement.



@gin

appreciation comes in two forms, negative and positive. you can appreciate something for showing a desirable trait or you can appreciate something for lacking an objected trait.

I say no, my reason is because since beliefs are rooted in culture. Culture is what makes every different race and nationality unique and beautiful. If everybody were to be the same then we would be mindless robots who yearn to be part of the status quo.

Instead of appreciate, I would hope people could be more tolerant of each others beliefs, but then again beliefs also have a sense that everyone should confirm to their own thinking w/c creates a certain discrimination.



The power of making others feel guilty about themselves is a powerful weapon

I wish someday this could be real.
But honestly i think its impossible, cause respect other people beliefs may be difficult, for some unknow reason, for some people in the world.

But John Lennon said: "Imagine..."

I would sincerely appreciate such an event happening.
But a view of History will show you that this is very, very much close to impossible, like the line of a function ever nearing that vertical asymptote, yet it will never reach this asymptote (line from a perfect example: "we" by Yevgeny Zamyatin).

Examples: Hitler, Crusades, Stalin, Medievil Jewish Prosecution, modern day anime opinions of the 'best anime', the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Church vs Galileo, El Salvador, Palestine...
the list could go on.

So, my answer is 'no', though the world and I would like to think 'yes'.

I think the point is that people will always find things to fight about, especially ideologically.
Like that episode of South Park in which Cartman freezes himself and ends up in the future. The different factions of atheists are fighting over which phrasing is a better representation of atheist belief.
It's obviously dramatized, but it's the same point; it doesn't matter if no man on earth believes in God, it wont stop people from hating each other.
And there will never be a time in which no one believes in God. Some people need to have faith in something. To be without faith is a luxury.

Also, I agree with Static that Atheists tend to be pricks and see Atheism as a church unto itself. Atheists don't think people of faith go to hell, obviously, but they do look down their noses at all those terrible, unenlightened religious folks.
The thing about religion is that it isn't necessarily a matter of education. Religion isn't something that is just for the stupid. It's a cultural thing. There are a lot of religious people that are otherwise very intelligent. I don't think that good education will "cure" religion.

Well why not? All those things you just mentioned are in fact beliefs. Although as you say, if we take *everything* to be a belief the word loses much of its meaning, but so long as you have a label for them we wont need to take go so extreme.

As I said in my post, the day that we all share the exact same belief will be the day hate stops. This fits with what rbz said, because if we all think the same way, what need do we have for labels? But all that is sort of an untangible idea - something I think we will eventually get close to, but never quite reach.

I know what you are trying to say though, you are alluding to the belief in philosophy that everything is a belief, and that we don't truly know anything for certain. As I said before, you are right as well that if we make that assumption, there would no longer be any need for the word 'belief' - but I'm sure you realize that in order to convey ideas to each other we must make the assumption that there is such a thing as facts as well. I don't think rbz ever implied anywhere in his post that we was taking the meaning of the word belief so literally either.



Edit to dante: Perhaps, but you cannot deny that there is a correlation between atheism and education. I think people will eventually all tend towards the same set of beliefs - certainly this trend is already obvious in America. You are right about religion being cultural as well, but as communication and travel continue to become faster and more wide spread the world will gradually meld into one culture that is a combination of all of them. This has happened on gradually increasing scales throughout history. The fact that I watch anime at all is evidence of this process. It is also important to note that as education standards increase, they become part of our culture. Everything eventually blends together.

Well, it may happen though I don`t believe it will. Though my question actually having your own believe but still appreciate or respect others belief. That is the actual question, though meld into one culture is one answer but even if it is one culture it doesn`t mean u have one belief, cause like I said before it is not only about faith but other thing as well. Just like a mere console can make war though not literally. That`s why in my previous post I said I`m not actually talking about faith here but all belief in general. U can see in my previous post. About your answer about the meld into one culture actually beat the purpose of the question.

I suppose you are right about that. 98% of the scientific community are atheists. And I think a world culture may be in the future, but a lot of people will not want it, or will be afraid of it.
and many people will probably see it as a sign of the end of the world.

hmm, i dunno. i think in the future men will rather fight about the ever more scarce ressources than whether the playstation 5 is better than the xbox 1080 or has more games or less games or if consoles are for casuals altogether.
now these are not actually beliefs but rather preferences or tastes. now did that suddenly turn into a belief too? i guess so.

besides, i think we are making good progress. as mentioned by some of you, the flow of information is increasing rapidly, every corner of the world is connected to the other via the internet, most of the world is able to communicate in english and so on...

this is especially true for those that had the benefit of receiving higher education. and now with exchange students and all that this is only going to increase, albeit so far only for the few and priviliged.

this is why to solve this problem, we have to grab it at its roots and that is economic disparity.
education, even the best of it, should be free for all.

No.

History has proven this time and again.

This thread even proves it, with each person attempting to refute the others statement with their own, or concrete evidence that has no source.

according to the law of entropy, entropy must increase over time. that means everything will blend together one day and so is culture. yeah, that's it. so the day the only culture out there is the world culture will certainly come, or the second law of thermodynamics will be violated....

I addressed your question more specifically after you claimed my first post was too general. If you take the meaning of the word appreciate literally, no one will ever 'appreciate' anything other than their own beliefs. If you find yourself appreciating a different belief then chances are you are already on the way to adopting that belief as your own (which goes back to what I've been saying this entire time). But again, I already explained all this in my second post.



Actually, this thread is much more of a testiment to my argument than to yours. In the beginning we all had different view points, but now, through debate, we have adopted little parts of each others arguments. Everyone here is slowly converging on one point.

Now granted some people are very stubborn, but the people who are willing to discuss different views will eventually reach a consensus. In the scientific community this happens all the time. It is true that there will always be someone who refuses to be part of the solution - but in the end they will die eventually. It only matters what we pass on to the next generation.



This is actually what I was referring to, though I thought some might find it strange when applied to cultures and beliefs so I refrained from naming it. But yes, the law of entropy applies to everything.

Hm... u are right? But can it trully happen. Cause like I said earlier, I doubt I`d be alive the day that takes place. Cause I myself from one of the country which has many culture. All culture is different with each other eventhough they are from the same root. To meld it into one is difficult. It`s not just cause the people itself that loves it but also every tourist and countries that appreciate the great culture. It will certainly be difficult to meld it into one.

It just takes time... really, it is inevitable. You can argue about the state of that unified culture, but you cannot argue that it will be unified. Maybe I am wrong, maybe atheism wont really become predominant, maybe everyone will be agnostic (or something else entirely) - but we can be relatively sure that with enough time everyone will converge to the same point, whatever that point is.