What...and you think I was just hoping nobody would notice?

IOW, not only did you quote mine and you admit it, but now you are insisting that your quote mine is the correct meaning of the thoughts conveyed, even though the full quote shows differently and the author himself has corrected you. I think we've gone beyond lazy straight to dishonest or complete incompetence with the English language.

Do you honestly expect us to believe that the re-appearance of religion can be prevented in an atheist utopia...

Wow, I'm leaning towards dishonesty, especially considering you've once again brought up Hitchens and utopias even after this has been explained to you before.

"never mind about the disappearance of $ billions in religious charity.

Much religious charity is self serving and proselytizing. Anyway what makes you think you have to be religious to give to charity? Plenty of non-religious people donate without that coercion

What...and you think I was just hoping nobody would notice?

"Rational discussion: how the fuck does it work?"

And the real kicker is this.
"Oh well thats how things will just be. We just wont have religion any more. We will go from "religion is OK" to "no religion" by clicking our heels 3 times."

Do you honestly expect us to believe that the re-appearance of religion can be prevented in an atheist utopia without "a hierarchy of obedience where one person always stands in the relationship of authority"? You are happy to call God an imaginary friend but I say there is something entirely "imaginary" about the dont worry, it's for your own good, "genuine love and friendship" offered by smiling atheists who want to take away God and replace religion with atheism.

"There would be... no rituals...however, there could well be rituals..."
Which is it? Religious woo or secular woo? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck......

There would be no prayers, no sacred texts, and no rituals invested with beliefs in magic. However, there could well be rituals, in a secular sense and without extraneous supernaturalism, to commemorate and celebrate milestones in the lives of community members...

Quote-mining is lazy and dishonest at the best of times, but it's especially moronic to do it in a comment thread immediately below the original post where everyone can see the context you're removing.

But...........

"There would be... no rituals...however, there could well be rituals..."
Which is it? Religious woo or secular woo? If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck......

"Holidays based on "dates of seasonal significance such as the solstices and equinoxes" ???
Right. Just like Stonehenge.

"...the harm that supernatural belief has wrought..."?
It hasnt harmed me. Last time I checked, religion confers an evolutionary survival advantage. Or has that been purged from the Book Of Atheology?

"...Yet I have seen relatively few atheist works that attempt to envision our ultimate goal, a world without religion..."
Yep. I agree Ebonmuse. Same here. Still true in Jan 2011. Mr Hitchens was recently asked what an atheist utopia would look like and he tanked.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2010/s3069457.htm

"Although religion provides its members with some social services...."
Some? Talk about understatement. Care to put a dollar sign in there? Its OK. Just pick one single country. Religous schools, hospitals, homeless shelters, orphanages (for the babies who arent aborted).

"... it [religion] makes people feel as if they are involved in something larger and more significant.."
"...This is a basic human desire.."
You got that right Ebonmuse! Something BIGGER. The word "transcendent" works just as well. No wonder atheism fails to inspire.

"...genuine spirituality..."
Show me the atheist who accepts that we are spirits in the material world and let me ask them if they think we are the only spirits in the universe/multiverse.
I too can envision a world of groups that speak to this sense with genuine spirituality - its called the world we live in TODAY.

Lion (IRC)

Religion in the past told people how they should think of themselves and what makes you worst and what makes you better. Religion has told people how to relate to the world around you and what can damage that and what you can do to improve it.

It surely has. Unfortunately it has got it spectacularly wrong to the extent that it has contributed to the enslavement of races, the debasement of women, the denial of sexuality, the repression of truth and the promulgation of division. Even if we didn't have the the light of reason at our disposal to take us forward, the death of religion leaves no hole worth filling.

'channelized thought'? What does that mean? Religion in the past told people how they should think of themselves and what makes you worst and what makes you better.

You answered that well enough.

Religion has told people how to relate to the world around you and what can damage that and what you can do to improve it.

Actually, most religions attempt to tell us how the Universe was made, why we should tithe, and what we should do to avoid damnation and/or annihilation.

In terms how to interact with the world, I'd say you're wrong, given the accommodations all religions have had to make with the advance of science. Religions cannot even describe the world accurately; any attempt to prescribe behaviors based on it don't tend to fare well, and are generally ignored by the masses of people in their private actions.

I doubt too many people on this forum will agree with what religion has attempted to teach us but in general religion was an attempt to explain YOU and the rest of the world. What will replace those explanations? What has been replacing those explanations?

I would replace it with a rationally-derived morality, and an epistemology (sorry for the philosospeak) based on reason rather than faith.

The role religion has filled is that of a channel; it has channelized thought, such that when we think of its absence, we wonder what will hold the flood.