My relief at leaving Christianity was probably partly a relief at not being told what to do What were you told to do that you didn't like?
I almost wrote "What were you told to think that you didn't like?", but you didn't say that...
Was it StAG telling you what to do that you didn't like, that you thought God was (or might be) telling you to do something, or just anyone telling you to do something?
If God (by which I suppose I'm interested in 'god' in the general sense as well as Yahweh) was real and wanted you to do (i.e. act) in a certain way how would you respond?
We can call Christianity a symbiote instead if you like. Religions behave a bit like organisms (although there's no science to "memetics", so I'm not going to argue about that). The choice of organism for the analogy reflects the writer's prejudices about the religion, to some extent. I think memetics is helpful in the weaker sense. It's obviously pseudoscience if you try to push it to far.
So I'd agree that Christianity is a meme in the same way that atheism, science, Labour party political views, and so on are.
I think arguing that religion is a mind virus is a bit of a cheap shot tbh.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-05-22 01:19 pm (UTC)What were you told to do that you didn't like?
I almost wrote "What were you told to think that you didn't like?", but you didn't say that...
Was it StAG telling you what to do that you didn't like, that you thought God was (or might be) telling you to do something, or just anyone telling you to do something?
If God (by which I suppose I'm interested in 'god' in the general sense as well as Yahweh) was real and wanted you to do (i.e. act) in a certain way how would you respond?
We can call Christianity a symbiote instead if you like. Religions behave a bit like organisms (although there's no science to "memetics", so I'm not going to argue about that). The choice of organism for the analogy reflects the writer's prejudices about the religion, to some extent.
I think memetics is helpful in the weaker sense. It's obviously pseudoscience if you try to push it to far.
So I'd agree that Christianity is a meme in the same way that atheism, science, Labour party political views, and so on are.
I think arguing that religion is a mind virus is a bit of a cheap shot tbh.