"Atheistic Societies"?

Here's a question from Lee Anne at such small hands:
"I would like to know what basis an atheist has for excusing (or not excusing) the crimes of atheistic societies?"

That's an odd question. What is an "atheistic society"?

Is it a society where most people are atheists? Sorry, but that has never happened. Atheists have never comprised more than a small percentage of any population.

Is it a society where the leaders are atheists? This maybe has happened, but most leaders who don't follow traditional religion still subscribe to some warped, quasi-religious and/or pseudo-historical mythology (e.g., Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, or any of the military dictators in small, otherwise insignificant nations around the world). That doesn't qualify as atheism, because it just removes traditional theology and replaces it with a leader-theology. Atheism isn't about replacing theology, but about doing away with it altogether.

Or is an atheistic society simply a society that does not derive its power and sovereignty from a theological system?

In my opinion, all Americans are living in an atheistic society. We are a constitutional republican democracy whose constitution derives its sovereignty from the citizens, not from any god(s). Read it again. Now let's compare.

Here is the preamble to the Constitution of the United States:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Here is the opening of the Ten Commandments:

"I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments..."

Which one is the atheistic society? Well, the first one derives all its authority from the people and their pragmatic concerns. The second one derives its authority from a show of power by a god named Yahweh--"Hey, I saved your butts! Now listen to me!" You decide.

The United States is explicitly built on a non-theological system. For my money, that makes it an "atheistic society." However, atheists themselves still comprise only a small percentage of the population. Most Americans are religious. In fact, the United States is generally understood to be one of the most religious modernized societies in the world--something many people see as an aberration. But American religiosity is split among an astounding proliferation of conflicting sects, and it has always been this way. Right from the beginning, this land was colonized by competing versions of Christianity, including Puritans, Mennonites, Quakers, Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists, Huguenots, Baptists, Moravians, and probably more I'm not remembering at the moment. How were all these people to get along and "form a more perfect union"? By removing religion from the official framework that bound them together in that union. That was the only way to retain religious freedom for all those competing groups. If they had made the Constitution into a theological document (as some wanted to do), the ensuing theological disagreement would have made the Union impossible. Many of these people came from places where their religious consciences were violated by state established religions, or religiously established states. They did not want to repeat the mistakes of the European nations from whence they came; they wanted to continue being religious according to their consciences.

(Perhaps not surprisingly, during this period of national formation the biggest proponents of an established state religion were members of those sects who expected to receive financial support from the taxpayers. I.e., they wanted an established religion because they wanted to be the established religion.)

Since the United States was not formed according to theological unity, the only other common factors were "justice," "domestic tranquility," "common defense," "general welfare," and "liberty." Notice that each of these is quite pragmatic and earthbound, especially in the way that Americans have since interpreted them. We are quite happy to allow diversity and disagreement, so long as no one's rights are infringed by anyone else's. As my grandpa says, "Your right to throw a punch stops at the end of my nose." Or, as Thomas Jefferson said, religious belief is just fine "so long as it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket." This is self-interest at its best, when we all get together and say that, for the sake of each individual conscience, we will refrain from imposing a religion on each other. How do we mediate our disputes then? On the neutral ground of our a-theistic (and hence, uncontroversial and religiously neutral) judicial system. Unfortunately, however, many modern Christians in the United States have come to see a lack of active support for their particular religion as an infringement of their right to believe.

Yes, there are more "Christians" (if you count all the different sects) in the United States than members of any other religion. But the ground upon which all the different religions and diverse Christian sects are allowed to coexist is itself, by necessity, irreligious. I.e., atheistic.

Now that I have spent so much time ruminating on the terms of that question up there, I must unfortunately put off the rest of my answer until later. Life awaits.