Have any atheist civilizations been discovered?

Question

Has any scientist ever found an ancient culture, or a jungle tribe, or anything like that, where they had no belief in a creator or higher power?

If not, why do you suppose all cultures seem to have those types of beliefs?

Answer 1

To my knowledge, no atheist civilizations have been discovered as yet.

I'd expect this has something to do with the way humans work: we seek out explanations and are curious about how things come to be. Every effect has a cause. Think about the Aztecs (I think it's Aztecs?). For them, the sun came up in the morning because they had sacrificed someone/something at dawn. Cause, effect. While we know that the sun will come up anyway, the Aztecs associated the sacrifice with the sun rising to the extent that they could see no other cause.

My opinion is that all cultures have religious beliefs to explain the unexplainable and rationalise the world. In this age of science and logical thinking, atheism can thrive because science allows the world to make sense without invoking the supernatural. What is science but another belief system anyway? It's only putting your faith in experiments and theories rather than a god and doctrine.

Answer 2

I imagine most societies developed in the following manner...

1st person: "Where did we come from ?"

2nd person "I don't know"

3rd person "I don't know"

4th person "Errrr.... The SUN! He is our God... worship him... oh and ummm... I'm his chosen one so go get me a few virgins and make me a sandwich... " *promoted to Shaman*

Then at some point the Christians or Muslims came along and slaughtered them or gave them the Pox or something...

Answer 3

It was pretty obvious to humans that there are greater powers.  There are volcanoes, storms and all sorts of things that couldn't be controlled or understood.  It is only natural that humans would think that something must be controlling things with the sun always coming up at the same time or the stars moving through the night sky.  They had stories to explain what they couldn't understand and it became religions over time.  

We don't need religion to explain many of the details that were mysteries until science reveled many of the details.  Religion is just the best guess of society on how things work when they don't understand.  Science probably can't replace religion anytime soon because there are so many fundamental things about existence that we don't understand.    We know enough to realize that many of the creation stories are myths and we need to adjust our thinking accordingly.

Answer 4

None that I am aware of. All civilizations have acknowledged some sort of higher power. Humans seem to have a sense of spirituality. Atheists merely try to turn their's off. As far as communism, that is the logical system of government for atheists. If they all want to move to one of them I can get some money for air-fare scraped up somewhere.

Answer 5

Most advanced civilizations are essentially...atheist, just not officially.

Ya gots ta keep the peasants happy!

Answer 6

Communists.

By the way this is driven by feelings of lostness by these cultures, which had been overcompensated by the communists.

Answer 7

Confucianism (Chinese: 儒家; pinyin: Rújiā) is an ancient Chinese ethical and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of the early Chinese philosopher Confucius (Kong Fuzi/K'ung-fu-tzu, lit. "Master Kung"). It focuses on human morality and good deeds. Confucianism is a complex system of moral, social, political, philosophical, and quasi-religious thought that has had tremendous influence on the culture and history of East Asia. Some consider it to be the state religion of East Asian countries because of governmental promotion of Confucian values. One moral is to do good deeds.

The cultures most strongly influenced by Confucianism include those of China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and Vietnam, as well as various territories settled predominantly by Chinese people.

In early Ancient Greek, the adjective atheos (ἄθεος, from the privative ἀ- + θεός "god") meant "godless". The word began to indicate more-intentional, active godlessness in the 5th century BCE, acquiring definitions of "severing relations with the gods" or "denying the gods, ungodly" instead of the earlier meaning of ἀσεβής (asebēs) or "impious". Modern translations of classical texts sometimes render atheos as "atheistic". As an abstract noun, there was also ἀθεότης (atheotēs), "atheism". Cicero transliterated the Greek word into the Latin atheos. The term found frequent use in the debate between early Christians and Hellenists, with each side attributing it, in the pejorative sense, to the other.[8]

In English, the term atheism was derived from the French athéisme in about 1587.[10] The term atheist (from Fr. athée), in the sense of "one who denies or disbelieves the existence of God",[11] predates atheism in English, being first attested in about 1571.[12] Atheist as a label of practical godlessness was used at least as early as 1577.[13] Related words emerged later: deist in 1621,[14] theist in 1662;[15] theism in 1678;[16] and deism in 1682.[17] Deism and theism changed meanings slightly around 1700, due to the influence of atheism; deism was originally used as a synonym for today's theism, but came to denote a separate philosophical doctrine.[18]

Karen Armstrong writes that "During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the word 'atheist' was still reserved exclusively for polemic ... The term 'atheist' was an insult. Nobody would have dreamed of calling himself an atheist."[19] Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.[20] In the 20th century, globalization contributed to the expansion of the term to refer to disbelief in all deities, though it remains common in Western society to describe atheism as simply "disbelief in God"[21]. Most recently, there has been a push in certain philosophical circles to redefine atheism as the "absence of belief in deities", rather than as a belief in its own right; this definition has become popular in atheist communities, though its mainstream usage has been limited.[21][22][23]

A 2005 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica finds that the non-religious make up about 11.9% of the world's population, and atheists about 2.3%. This figure does not include those who follow atheistic religions, such as some Buddhists.[98] A November–December 2006 poll published in the Financial Times gives rates for the United States and five European countries. It found that Americans are more likely than Europeans to report belief in any form of god or supreme being (73%). Of the European adults surveyed, Italians are the most likely to express this belief (62%) and the French the least likely (27%). In France, 32% declared themselves atheists, and an additional 32% declared themselves agnostic.[99] An official European Union survey provides corresponding figures: 18% of the EU population do not believe in a god; 27% accept the existence of some supernatural "spiritual life force", while 52% affirm belief in a specific god. The proportion of believers rises to 65% among those who had left school by the age of fifteen; survey respondents who considered themselves to be from a strict family background were more likely to believe in god than those who felt their upbringing lacked firm rules.[100]

Answer 8

d**n shawn, good question

Answer 9

Early Buddhism was like that but has slipped into a worship of the unknown/ ghost-fearing mode since then.

Most ancient civilizations, both primitive and complex, worshipped the Sun (no real surprise!) as it rode across the sky in its flying fiery chariot to be reborn the next morning!:)

Answer 10

The first example found was the Tasaday, a stone age tribe from the Phillipines.  Then it was found to be a fraud, that local villagers were simply fooling the anthropologists so the answer is there were no societies that were truely atheist.  Even Russia had religion though it was largely underground.