@Vulpis: Well, sure, the major points of a religion are to explain the unexplainable (what happens post death being a fairly critical one), and to provide an incontestable* framework on which to build a society. It’s hard to build on the laws of man, starting out, for two reasons – there isn’t any reason to obey (“Do what I say!” “why?”) and that they can be revoked by some other person, which screws with stability. Those issues go away when the rules come from a divine source, just because of the nature of divinity (“Do what I say!” “Wh-“*lightning bolt*). That’s why so many religions kill people who point out that we’re taking the word of guys who are suffering from exposure, hopped up of mind altering drugs, are shysters, and/or the occasional guy with a Good Idea (or his his best buds. several hundred years removed). Not only because it’s blasphemous, but because it struck at the core foundation of the local society, and you don’t suffer a man to dynamite your house.

*incontestable in that the rules are defined and understood, not in that people will follow them.

First, I think I can safely say that White Diamond’s ship class was not meant to be a generation ship. Most of it’s intended population is either transient (because they leave when they’re better) or not really capable of propagating society (which is why they are in a psych ward to begin with).

Short answer, this space bubble goes pop due to entropy. Being a hospital, it’s life support will be awesome. Being spec’d as a psych ward, you probably aren’t going to get too many nuts trying to blow the ship up if your AI watcher is any good at all. What you will get is, holed by a meteor, and forced stops at some sort of repair facility. Hospital ships are rarely rigged for multi-decade travel (cause that’s expensive to build), and the White Diamond ship class probably needs more extensive maintenance than it’s spec’d to provide for itself (being both expensive and denying the builder mainentance fees), and may require the occasional overhaul (which, perforce, means shutting down life supprot; everyone off the boat). You aren’t likely to produce an independently founded society in that sort of situation, (though, the longer you operate without stopping, the more likely it is to happen), but instead become a variation of the culture doing your maintenance.

Modified (with a asteroid harvester/factory), it may be viable. With a lot of planning and modding, a fleet could probably manage it just fine by taking some or all of a ships crew onto the other ships while their home ship is being overhauled, assuming at least two factories capable of making all the needed parts being present (larger ships can get around this by overhauling sectionally and building in significantly higher levels of redundancy, along with a factory to produce spares).

White Diamond, of course, can’t, because Gabe is pretty much a priest in the process of founding his own religion 😀 . Seriously, he is to the Endless what Satanists are to Christians…

@The_Rippy_One: OMGWTFBBQ! Could that space bubble be like this here White Diamond Crisis Center, or did you imagine something larger and even more long-term?

Familial morality can be just as good (and is much better at generating 5’s and 6’s), but it is comparatively inefficient (religion can teach morality to an order of magnitude more people), and depends on the parents doing a good job. Here and now, no promises there.

Schools, in general, have neither the time, the staff, the flexibility, or the resources to parent effectively. Some boarding schools at least figure out they have to try, thankfully, but consistency is a real issue. Public schools are way too underfunded to really have a chance, as an institution. There are exceptions, but that’s often due to having a critical mass of teachers/staff willing to commit emotional suicide repeatedly. Good luck there.

And that leaves…tv and the internet…right. Sesame Street can work, actually, but fails on two points – the lessons fail when a child’s circumstances can not be related to the shows involved, or are disproved by experience (mommy REALLY doesn’t love me, AND Big Bird’s a LIAR! *double shot to the gut* *dead*)
The other problem with tv programs is that there is so much else to see, that’s contradictory, and of the lowest common denominator, which is very hard to beat. Net-side, there is little interest or in producing similar educational experiences, and if the signal:noise ratio is bad on tv, the net is OMGWTFBBQ, all my feels, dammit, tits or GTFO!

That isn’t to say that you can’t run a society without religion, just that there are no controls or incentives to give any other institution the leg up it needs to try to take its place and make up for their inefficiencies.

In space, I think, that would change. The constraints on that environment mean that you can institute the kinds of policies that could produce an irreligious moral society, because failing to do so means your space bubble will either be non-viable without immigration, or will pop. Not that you necessarily would, though any priest aboard would have to wear another hat as well, probably.

@e_voyager: One can only hope that people will know better, but with all the legalese that seems to pin things together two thousand years from now, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more “religions” than people would know what to do with. 😛

There’s certainly a lot more fun to be had with stories of how the religions of Terth supposedly survived into the future (or didn’t).