[ExI] The mosque at Ground Zero

[John Clark]

On Aug 5, 2010, at 11:09 AM, Keith Henson wrote:

> Islam is a meme set that affects humans

Agreed.

> the same as every other religious meme set.

All religious meme sets are stupid and destructive, but some are more stupid and destructive than others.

> The current xenophobic nature of it to be expected since the majority of its holders are facing a bleak future. The same goes for the fundamentalist sects in the US for exactly the same reason.  A majority of them were members of the middle class, now much shrunken.

I have no problem with any of those explanations, except that I don't see what it has to do with what we were talking about. Explaining the complex environmental social and genetic factors that came together to produce a tangible object in the real world, an asshole for example, does not prove the asshole in question does not in fact exist; rather it is yet more confirmation, not that such is needed, that the physical property of existence is possessed by the aforementioned asshole. 
 
> 
> Between fundamentalist Islam in Arab countries and fundamentalist Christianity in the US, can you really make a judgment call as to which is worse?

I don't see why judging which turd stinks worse is necessary, but if you insist I would say fundamentalist Islam because as seriously as Christians take their religion they don't take it as seriously as Islam takes theirs. Yes that means Christians are more hypocritical, but in this case hypocrisy is a good thing. I'll take a hypocritical Christian who says he believes everything in the Bible but doesn't act that way over a sincere Muslim who says he believes everything in the Quran and actually does act that way.

> Unless economic conditions get substantially better, wired in human
> psychological mechanisms from the stone age will make memes like those
> of John increasingly common and eventually lead to wars.

Then I guess economic conditions need to get substantially better, but that's easier said than done. And yes some (perhaps most) of my likes and dislikes are wired in, but unless you are of a different species than me much the same could be said about you.

> Without some wild card such as nanotech, AI or other aspects of the
> singularity, the odds are that John's attitude will eventually become
> dominate in the US.  

The trend seems to be going in the opposite direction, yet more people in the west making lame excuses for Islam, or assuming that if you can explain why Islam became destructive and stupid that means it's not destructive and stupid anymore.

> It is relatively easy to understand such things as the current direction of
> Islamic memes or the meme set that has captured John, but it doesn't
> suggest courses of action that are sensible or acceptable.

It's true that I don't have a solution to the problem, but at least I know there is a problem that needs a solution. By the way, do you have a sensible or acceptable course of action?

  John K Clark







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