You guys are putting one heck of a model together, so I'll just add a couple of things...
'Atheism' is not a religion, but a rejection of (traditional) Gods. The belief system that I think you are refering to is Humanism - the belief that man and his works are the measure of all things. This arose with the Rationalist philosophes of the 18th century, gathered speed with the apparent ability of science to explain everything in the 19th century, and led directly to the Fundamentalist reaction in the 20th century when it turned out to be an inadequate source of happiness and moral code for individuals.
The advantage of including it is that it can be precisely included as a result of an Advance (Rational Philosophy or Age of Reason), it provides a factor to erode traditional religious Happiness boosts (an extra problem for the player, if you will) and it leads to another Advance: Fundamentalism, with a whole new set of modifiers to the Social Engineering factors of a civ that adopts it - or has it adopted.
The USSR did have a religion: Communism, in which they believed passionately although there was no physical evidence of pure communism to be seen around them. Atheism was the policy of the State to counteract the affects of the traditional Eastern Orthodox religion, which was quite powerful and, according to Communist orthodoxy, reactionary.
Therefore, include Atheism as a State Policy of persecution of religions with negative happiness modifiers, and Humanism as a 'religion' or belief system that lowers Happiness but increases Research and slowly builds up points towards the establishment of the Fundamentalist 'backlash'.
'Atheism' is not a religion, but a rejection of (traditional) Gods. The belief system that I think you are refering to is Humanism - the belief that man and his works are the measure of all things. This arose with the Rationalist philosophes of the 18th century, gathered speed with the apparent ability of science to explain everything in the 19th century, and led directly to the Fundamentalist reaction in the 20th century when it turned out to be an inadequate source of happiness and moral code for individuals.
The advantage of including it is that it can be precisely included as a result of an Advance (Rational Philosophy or Age of Reason), it provides a factor to erode traditional religious Happiness boosts (an extra problem for the player, if you will) and it leads to another Advance: Fundamentalism, with a whole new set of modifiers to the Social Engineering factors of a civ that adopts it - or has it adopted.
The USSR did have a religion: Communism, in which they believed passionately although there was no physical evidence of pure communism to be seen around them. Atheism was the policy of the State to counteract the affects of the traditional Eastern Orthodox religion, which was quite powerful and, according to Communist orthodoxy, reactionary.
Therefore, include Atheism as a State Policy of persecution of religions with negative happiness modifiers, and Humanism as a 'religion' or belief system that lowers Happiness but increases Research and slowly builds up points towards the establishment of the Fundamentalist 'backlash'.
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