A thought I just had. What do you want atheism to achieve? Do you hope that eventually all belief is abolished? Do you merely want to stop people/institutions from intervening in your life? Would you find yourself content if all religions were "peaceful"?

I think you see what I´m getting at. What do you think atheism can (realistically) achieve? More importantly, what do YOU want it to achieve?

Hopefully atheism does its small part in promoting critical thinking...

i think you'll get a wide range of answers.

in just my few weeks reading here - i've seen some who say

"nothing - I don't expect to get anything from it"
and I've seen others say
"I try to convert others to atheism as much as I can"

Atheism isn't "about" anything, so it isn't into achieving or failing or starting or stopping or...
It's a report on a current state of affairs, like-
I have red hair.
I am looking out the window.
I don't believe there is a God.
I don't think it's raining in spain .... well, ok, maybe on the plain.

@luckyme: It doesn´t have to be about anything in order to achieve something. Look at Dawkins, for instance: I think it´s safe to say that he wants to have a world without religion. In order to achieve this goal, he uses evolutionary proof - ergo, "promoting" atheism. Do you understand what I mean?

But that's not atheism. He promotes atheism (ie: the disbelief in God) but that's as far as it goes. There is no movement called "Atheism." Atheism has no goals.

Now, individual atheists may have the goal of getting rid of religion, or showing people that you can live a good life without religion. But that is not atheism.

You may want to rephrase the question as: What would more people becoming atheists achieve?

I hope it achieves as much as my disbelief in Superman being an existing real life character.

Or in other words, absolutely nothing.

I think it would make more sense to ask what you want "skepticism" or "empiricism" to achieve. Asking what atheism should achieve is no different from asking what "not believing in ghosts" should achieve.

I'd settle for just an end to jihad, oppression of women, and thinking our god is better than your god and if you don't agree then we'll slice off your head you heretic! It would be a start. But in a perfect world...

How about just a more secular and rational society? How about we stop letting churches get away with taking in billions of dollars without paying a penny in tax?

It would also be nice if we could stop killing people and alleviate a great deal of world suffering and over population by ceasing to tell the masses that contraception is taboo. Better to have children you can't feed and increase the spraid of AIDS and other STD's.

Or here's something I'd like to achieve... How about keeping your fairy tales out of my kid's science classroom? Maybe not YOUR fairy tales, but any fairy tale. Quit trying to dumb down another generation. A generation who will need to be competitive in tomorrow's fast paced technologically advanced world.

There are many more things to be achieved through a secular society, but that's it for now.

Like others have said atheism doesn't really have goals.

But personally i hope all the negative aspects of religion (according to me) go away.

Well, I don't expect atheism to achieve anything, but I think I know what you mean.

What bothers me, though, is that to a large proportion of the world, theism is the default choice. I have an inkling that if people recognise atheism as a choice, then they may go further and realise that it is the right choice for them, and then they might feel enlightened. I've always kinda routed for the underdog, and theism (or religion, really) has this monopoly that makes me uncomfortable.

I think its goal should be non-belief in a deity.

Mission accomplished!!!

It can send you straight to hell.

What can it achieve, i don't know. What should it achieve, nothing. It is not a moral movement, it is a group of people who don't believe in god.

i think atheists in positions of influence should dedicate themselves, as should those who excel in all fields, to identifying social and cultural elements that impede the efforts of betterment of the human race.

All right, I think we can all agree that I phrased the question wrong - however, I think everyone by now understands what I mean.

@Lestat: I agree that those can be goals. However, how could they be operationalized?

I think we have a winner.

Disagree. Such a statement still contains all the trite sentiments and wishful thinking of religious faith.

The question is the wrong way around.

It should be "What can/should achieve atheism?"

My answer is skepticism and empiricism.

world peace

atheism cant achieve anything.

but, what can rationality achieve? now there's a good question.

very much agreed.

i remember reading a book...might have been a Malcolm Gladwell book (or maybe Freakonomics?) that showed France had like 6x the organ donors that the US did.

were they just that much more charitable? is France a country of humanitarians? no...it's just the default over there. and you have to opt out. while in the US, it's the other way around.

if we can make it so that theism isn't a default for the vast majority of children, most of the work will be done. but that is a tall order in and of itself.