What would be some of your ideas to achieve that?

Keeping religion out of early education would probably help.

Do you think that would be a benefit or a deficit in a community?

It can hinder "a sense of Community". That is something that Religion actually does have over us Atheists. That said, Atheists are by no means uncharitable, unfriendly, unhelpful, or uncooperative. In fact I feel they are much more genuinely so because they do so without a sense of reward in the afterlife or because they were "told to" by God. The thing is that we need to develop a sense and the social infrastructure of community.

Intriguing point.

That would make another interesting what if. What would you like to see as rules for the colonization?

If you could have a small town/city populated with the people on this site, how would you preserve the integrity?

How would you like to see the local governing body structured?

@Betty Ideally by a benevolent dictator with advice from people in fields in which they have expertise.

@Rugglesby

Oooo. I don't think I like the word "dictator" in conjunction with any kind of governing body, not even a benevolent one.

I was hoping you might have ideas for some rules and protocols to suggest as possibilities.

@Betty I know the word puts people off, A benevolent dictatorship is a form of government in which an authoritarian leader exercises absolute political power over the state but does so for the benefit of the population as a whole. People may prefer Mentor, Moderator etc. I have worked and lived with many types of leadership. I have been the benevolent Dictator twice, each time when the organization had settled I stepped down and handed over to elected groups. One I left in disgust, the 2nd became so factionalized that all sides asked me to step back in. It comes down to decision making and implementation. Who decides and who, who implements. I hate consensus decision making, I call it tyranny of the dissenter, and democracy always seems to end up with an "opposition" factor. My ideal form of government would be to have people with the knowledge making the decisions in areas of that knowledge, much like Canada appears to be doing. Plato had many thoughts on this.

@Rugglesby

It is the opportunity for corruption that puts me off on the word "dictator". Someone who is benevolent choose to be and can change their mind.

All religion/cults. Worship of a deity or person.

@Betty OK, if I go by dictionary definitions, one of them is:

6. something one believes in and follows devotedly; a point or matter of ethics or conscience.

So if you believe in getting rid of all religions you would have to get rid of that belief. (Unless you want to start making exceptions.)

@Betty OK, so religions that don't claim deities are acceptable? Buddhism, Taoism,etc?

@skado

Do we need religion to have ethics and conscience?

@Betty I would argue that if you have ethics and conscience you do have religion, to some extent. But beyond that, we can all use some training in how to counter our natural tendency to create suffering for ourselves and others. The institution historically responsible for that training has been the church. Schools aren’t doing it. “Science” isn’t doing it. And we aren’t doing a particularly good job of it ourselves without help. Even the churches have lost their way for the most part. I don’t think religion needs to be abandoned; I think it needs to be cleaned up. If you want to start a new institution and call it something other than religion, that’s fine with me. I don’t care what we call it, but the job needs to get done. Antidepressants will not suffice.

@skado

You make a good point.

@WizardBill Well, I said “…to some extent.” Ethics and conscience are a part of what religion has always been about. I think they are ultimately adaptive traits, baked into our physiology by evolution, as is “religion”. Of course religion is a lot more than that, and organized religion is a cultural phenomenon which is susceptible to corruption and drift, but religion per se is an emergent quality of human nature that is inextricably interwoven with ethics.

@skado

Do you think ethics and conscience can survive without "religion" as the principal guide?

@Betty Individuals vary of course, but in the general population, I don’t think you can make ethical concerns go away, because that’s a part of our nature. It still gets back to how we define words. If you define religion as a belief in a literal person who created the universe, then I think we could eventually learn to live without that erroneous idea without any loss of ethical capacities. Many people live that way now without any problems.

But historically, religion has been about more than that. All religions that I am aware of have had as a core purpose the reduction of suffering, both in the individual and in society. And while that’s not entirely removed from ethics, it’s a much simpler and more direct concern; nobody wants to suffer. I don’t see how we would ever be able to remove that goal, or why we would want to. We could certainly go about it in a more scientific way, but that wouldn’t really be getting rid of religion, it would just be bringing science back home to religion, from which it originally came.

By the definitions that make the most sense to me, when we exercise ethical concerns we are, in essence, practicing religion. They are inseparable, and innate to human nature.

Looking forward to it.

It does bother me but not as much as the liberals do, especially idiots like Obama and Hillary.

Would there not be a benefit of any kind?

You seem to be implying that religion is instinctual.

@bingst not at all. I'm saying if it wasn't religion, it would be something else.

@Betty no, because humans are the problem - not religion.

@WizardBill just because there would not be religious based reasons for those things...humans are selfish and greedy. Shit would still stink. You can't polish a turd.

@WizardBill herd mentality is a thing.

@WizardBill

I agree small changes can make a difference.

@WizardBill We have the ability to think critically now. Willful ignorance won't be obliterated by the end of religion.

Do you have any ideas about the running of local government?

@Betty with good education we won't need to worry about government. It isn't our educated citizens who elected Trump.

You could try...Pick one variable pro or con then you could add to it later.

Since the question included pitfalls, what would they be?

When I was working in aerospace, I tended to view the company, and it's 5K+ employee population as a kind of "city/community". We had virtually every type of individual personality in the extant world there; many, many foreign-born people from most countries of the developed world, and literally many genius-level, or close persons. You could not be, or have been a felon there because of the nature of the work. Still, we had murderers, rapists, child abusers, on down the line, in spite of the relatively strict requirements for getting hired.

@Stevil Yeah, I think I'm gonna take a pass on this whole thing. To quote the immortal Groucho Marx, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."

@Betty Basic human nature would be the greatest pitfall. I don't believe Utopia is any kind of realistic possibility. It would certainly be nice, but it's never going to happen.

@KKGator

I wasn't talking about Utopia. I was wondering about ideas of how to prevent religious take-overs and preserve the integrity of what we have here.

@Betty I'm not trying to rain on your parade, I just don't believe it's possible.

@KKGator

Okay.

@Condor5

Crime will always exist, it seems that it is part of human nature. In your example "work" was the common denominator. That didn't exclude differing religious beliefs and the conflicts that arise from it. Neither was there a consensus where everyone had input on the formulation of rules. Also, not everyone lived in a community around the complex ( different neighborhoods, different lifestyles). These things may make a difference.

No ideas?

If I had any ideas along those line, I might well present them to the Nobel Committee, claim my Nobel prize, my 1 million dollars and perhaps become one of the most famous humans in history.