[ExI] EP and REligious beliefs

[citta437 at aol.com]

Keith wrote:>If Religion is an antirational meme, it will behave in 
ways that
>promote its memetic survival. If there's a gene that makes people
>more likely to be fanatics, well, okay. I don't see necessarily why
>this gene can't behave in a self-promoting way anyway, although my
>knowledge of genetics is pretty poor compared to my understanding of
>meme theory. But WRT the meme, Religion is one of the strongest
>antirational memeplexes next to parenting and romance, so we're
>likely to see a lot of self-preservation behaviour from this meme.
>Memes are not dependent on genes to explain the ways they behave.

In the long run memes and genes can't be at odds.  Those that are die
out.  Look into the history of the Shaker meme."
__________________

Religious meme infects brains not trained in critical 
thinking/rationality. Such untrained brains are hosts to irrational 
memes. Without brains susceptible to memetic infection, these religious 
memes/beliefs die.

I don''t know the Shaker meme. Is it based on reason or metaphysical 
beliefs? Some metaphysical beliefs based on faith is at odds  with 
science and technology. The latter is based on the principles of 
continuous investigation on the nature of reality. The gap between 
science and religion exists due to minds attached to irrationality, a 
by- product of the "selfish gene."

Terry


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