Materialism has come to eclipse all other values in life, people are judged and always encouraged by popular culture to judge others exclusively by what they posess - I have no doubt whatsoever that this is deeply psychologically harmful for the lower classes, those who are indeed, for whatever reason, irredeemably left of the bell curves of intelligence or employability and who are fully aware that they are doomed forever to a low income - enough to stay alive, perhaps even enough to live on comfortably if you're careful, but, crucially, nowhere near enough to register in material wealth compared to the middle and upper classes. With no other sense of worth afforded to them in an exclusively materialistic world, and unable to achieve equality to their neighbours in material worth by honest means, is it any wonder that frustration and anger and, of course, muggings and robberies are high amongst that class? The average religion accepts rich and poor alike, and affords them the status they crave, consciously or unconsciously, for tasks that absolutely anyone can do - typically little more than turning up once a week and loudly affirming faith, so naturally it will tend to provide a natural alternative to material self worth, even if it's entirely artificial (which, as an atheist, I of course hold it to be)

The world of material wealth production is notoriously sociopathic, and always has been. Human beings have no value whatsoever to an industrial or economic entity other than as producers of products; if more efficient ones become available elsewhere, you immediately fire the ones you've got and hire them instead. Notions of loyalty, community or simple compassion don't come into it. There is no such thing as job security at the present time, no sense that one is of any more value to one's employer than an inanimate object, and so no real sense of belonging or having found one's place in life can be gleaned from the pursuit of materialism in the form of western capitalism either. Religions, by comparison, positively excel at providing a sense of community, of loyalty, of belonging, of family. Again, when religion vanishes, any sense of security, of community, of being amongst friends, vanishes with it. This one isn't, I don't think, exclusive to the lower classes but damaging to all levels of society - take a look around, people are becoming ever more distrustful and alienated from everyone else, because there's simply nothing to bring them together. There's a current moral panic about gangs, but is it any wonder that they are forming when they provide their members with a sense of loyalty and security that they simply cannot get anywhere else? Again, the less intelligent and the uneducated are hit the worst, I believe, because the educated and the intellectual have a tendency to automatically feel a certain kinship and community with any other intelligent or educated person they meet - a glance over the logs of this board alone is a testament to that.

At first glance, you might confuse my post as an argument in favour of the return of religion to dominate life, either sincerely or as an Orwellian ruse by the upper classes to keep the lower classes in their place. It is neither. The trouble is, Serban seems to have couched his posts only in terms of what was, and what is - and expressly seems to hold that nothing better than one of the two situations can be arrived at. I disagree. Many have lamented that atheism, on its own, merely states that religions, for all their benefits as I have described above, are ultimately dangerous delusions based on frequenly insane myths and stories that do more harm than good, but offers nothing in substitute for the good aspects that would be lost along with the bad were religion to disappear; depressingly, this seems to be exactly the way much of secular Western society is headed.

Does it have to be that way, though? Atheism isn't an exclusive belief; it's a starting point for higher things. Secular humanism has been mentioned already. While current secular societies certainly, and potentially disastrously, do not offer anything like the socially stabilising effects that traditional religions do, as described above, is there any reason that they couldn't? The problem is clear: we need some new construct, some new system, to provide those beneficial aspects traditionally supplied by organised religions, but based on something sane and rational, something compatible with atheism. Fundamentalist theists love to accuse atheism of being a religion, even though it patently isn't; perhaps it could benefit, however, from acting more like one in some practical respects.

People do not want to take up the heavy "duty" to search / define meaning of lives by themselves because they are never ever enpowered to do so -- and taught by others not to trust humanity

"Kicking the Crutches Away" is a very thoughtful article I hadn't read, and it comes very close to addressing what I should have actually asked. That said, I still stand by the comments I made on this page.

Sincerely,
Serban

For example, take someone on his death bed who has no possibility of pulling through. Suppose all he wants is some reassurance that he'll get to see his dead loved ones again (his wife, his son, etc). Is atheism better than false hopes in this case?

I touched on this topic last year, in "Kicking the Crutches Away". I don't think we should preach at the bedsides of the dying - that would be rude and disrespectful. On the other hand, if the person's crisis is caused by his own faith, like a Jehovah's Witness who's refusing a blood transfusion, then I think it would be appropriate to try to persuade them to consent to lifesaving treatment.