Question of the Day #15: Memetics
TV's Mr. Neil Permalink
20 comments
Could there ever be a meme that defeats religious thinking? For example, could there ever be a meme that forces a Christian to recognize his own fallacious arguments, thus causing him to stop using them?
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20 Comments:
Spoken like a true asshole.
I ask these questions out of personal interest; not as a free speech forum for dumbasses. I expect serious responses to these questions. I don't need apologist clowns disrupting my posts.
Memes don't thrive on logic. Logic and critical thinking is acid to them.
I think the Christian memeplex may have one of the highest levels of fitness, period. It had a few centuries to select out competing variations on the meme, and has been gradually altering itself to become more resistant since then.
Although it is interesting to see that the memeplex is much more prevalent in America than in Europe, for example. What is the competing memeplex that causes this phenomenon?
Zach : my guess is socialism.
That might be an interesting topic for a future meme-themed blog entry.
Hint, hint.
Huh ? Are you hinting at me ?
It's not socialism, it's the kind of education, combined with exposure to different cultures. In Europe and the UK, unless children live in VERY rural areas, they are very likely to see people from different countries and cultures on a regular basis, exposing them to different religions (and to no religion), and to learn not only tolerance, but acceptance. Most education systems outside of the US are stronger in critical thinking, science, literature, etc. Here in the US, children, especially in the Bible Belt, are unlikely to be exposed to any culture than their own, and if such exposure does happen, their parents and community have already embedded a deep distrust of other cultures and belief systems. The US education system has also been dumbed down to accommodate the lowest common denominator (which is often pretty low!) rather than to foster a love of learning and to challenge gifted, or even average students.
In Europe and the UK, where religion is losing importance and power, children learn to respect intelligence and education. In the US, children (again, especially in the Bible Belt) are taught that intellectuals are to be sneered at and derided. Being a good football player or cheerleader is more important than getting good grades. Following NASCAR is more important than reading a book. Aspiring to a career in the military is preferred to going to college and becoming a teacher, business manager, or doctor.
Only when a meme "evolves" that makes intelligence and education more important than who's playing footbal on Sunday after church will a meme defeat religion, and I don't think that's possible. As zachary said, the christian memeplex (or the religious memeplex in general) is extremely "fit" and has mechanisms in place that virtually guarantee it's survival-early indoctrination, exile/castigation/suspicion of non-believers, etc.
If you could get some kind of science-based meme, then yes. But I dont see how thats possible.
Science is virtually its own language, and its alot harder to learn than Christian memes are. Its funny that you brought this up because just last night on Cosmos, Carl Sagan was talking about how science is the one universal language.
See, with science you have to think, but with Christianity all you have to do is surrender your thinking.
Oh Maureen, I forgot to tell you.
All the hottest women are atheists. And they fuck way better than any Christian girls. Trust me, I know.
mathyoo-
Is it possible that the American Christian memeplex has evolved differently than the European Christian memeplex?
What I mean is, does American Christianity also include xenophobia and intellectual inbreeding as a way to protect it from the cultural forces weakening European Chrsitianity?
Aaron-
Second that.
Maureen:
Sexy hot non-pasty Christian Men?
And these are generally NOT candid:
Randall Terry
Dobson
Santorum
Pat Robertson
Now THAT's HOT!!
Hot atheist men:
Lance Armstrong
Ira Glass (YUM)
Bruce Lee
Keanu Reeves
Trent Reznor
(Female) Angelina Jolie--pasty?
Anyway, of course it's pointless. Many people are ugly. SOme of them happen to be as ugly as you are. But Christians FAR from corner the market on beauty. And since we are not shallow, we do not consider beauty to be the measure of a man, unlike you, Maureen, who is as shallow as you are dense.
Maureen has a blog entitled "Dying in Christ" and she likes to post Bible verses with the word "sodomite" in red.
I think Maureen is a deity-necrophiliac and prefers anal sex to vaginal sex.
If a female prefers it up the ass, does that count as gay? I mean, it IS still sodomy.
Maureen, you're presupposing the wrong beliefs. The correct religion is obviously Hinduism, has noone told you when you were growing up?
Maureen-
Wow. With Christians like you, who needs atheists?
"mathyoo-
Is it possible that the American Christian memeplex has evolved differently than the European Christian memeplex?
What I mean is, does American Christianity also include xenophobia and intellectual inbreeding as a way to protect it from the cultural forces weakening European Chrsitianity?"
I think you're on to something Zachary. The christian meme definitely contains an element of xenophobia (and a strong one at that, if you read the old testament), but in Europe, it's tougher to remain isolated in your own little community. Even if you yourself never really leave your area, people from other nations and other backgrounds travel all over europe, even in the rural areas, so you, as well as the people around you, would be exposed to different points of view. Those conditions would cause the meme to evolve differently, since xenophobia would not be a desirable trait and thus harder to pass on to your children. Same with the intellectual inbreeding.
"All the hottest women are atheists. And they fuck way better than any Christian girls. Trust me, I know."
Aaron, you're forgetting about Catholic schoolgirls...
Mathyoo-
Interesting. I wonder if the modern religious culture of America would have been more European if it had been colonized by Christian, Muslim, and Jewish countries instead of just by Christian countries.
Zachary
That's quite possible. I think that the economics of the early US had a lot to play in the matter too, especially in the deep south and the midwest. The plantation/slavery culture of the south, with the economy resting so heavily on slave labor, and using religion to help control the slaves, surely has had a deep and lasting impact on that region. The Civil War, while having many good outcomes (like eliminating slavery) just deepened the "Us vs. Them" mentality so inherent in fundamentalist religions. That meme is a very difficult one to counteract.
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