AgnosticAntitheist
New Member
This is an idea I am working on. It is not done yet, but it would be great if you could help me finish it by commenting. When it is done I will post it as a video on my youtube channel. (http://www.youtube.com/agnosticantitheist)
Here is the text so far: This video is largely based on Richard Dawkins' book "The selfish gene" and particularly on his idea of memes as the new replicators. In the book Prof. Dawkins describes how genes are selfish in the way that all they 'care' about in an unconscious way is to make copys of them selves, simply because only those that did so survived. He also brings up the idea that the same could today be applied to parts of human society and culture. He calls these replicators "memes". In this video I want to develop this point by adressing religion in particular.
Religous ideas get passed from one person to another. They thus make copies of them selves. In the process they can however be altered. There are thus mutations. So what kind of mutations would you expect to be selected for? The answer is anything that ensures that lots of copies of the idea are planted into other people. For example all major religions have holy books. Books are one of the best ways to pass ideas to other people, so this was very useful for religious ideas to replicate them selves. This already imposes a problem. Once a book is written down it is hard to change it. The morals and social values taught in the book are thus fixed and do not change with the zeitgeist. People who follow this book will thus be backwards in this way. However books are relativley harmless compared to other things that can and have evolved in religion. Quite common, even today, are threats of eternal torture after death. There is a for rational people not too obvious advantage of this. People, particularly children, are more likely to adobt a belief if you threaten them that they will be punished if they don't. This can cause serious psychological harm, particularly in children. Another example of an adaption is in religions who preach to have many children. For example many religious groups oppose the use of condoms and abortion. The advantage of this is that children usually adopt their parents religious views and it is thus of an advantage for a religion if its followers have many children.
A challange for this selfish meme theory comes from one particular religious belief still shared by many conservetive people today. It is the belief that children before marriage or even sex is unacceptable. You would think that this is rather a bad thing, since many people might not want to adopt the belief because they want to have sex and because it would result in less children which the meme can infest. However if you think about it the selfish meme theory can explain this without trouble. People with such funamentalist religious views generally tend to belief in old family values. They are thus more likely to adopt a religion that teaches these in all forms.
What about religions that teach good moral values? These religions have simply adapted to a changing moral zeitgeist. Many people would not accept a religion anymore that teaches them that smashing children against rocks is great fun. (Psalm 137:9) So some religious views have adopted to fit people's new moral ideas. The same is true for religions that now accept modern scientific theories such as evolution. Many people are simply rational and have to belief in evolution due to the massive amout of evidence for it. So religion adapted inorder to allow this.
It is however important to notice that religion did not cause people to hold any of these moral values or scientific ideas. The selfish meme has no interesst in doing so. It however does have an interesst in spreading ideas such as hell.
Even moderate religions have been subject to this form of evolution and can thus have such negative influence. Even if they don't there is still a danger that they will evolve in such a way.
If a person starts of with having a moderate religious belief you would also expect the person to be more likely to adopt a more fundamentalist religious view than one that previously was an atheist.
I can however think of now situation in which religion would evolve something that benefits for society or individuals. It is very much like a virus, exploiting its host without caring about the well-being of its carrier.
Here is the text so far: This video is largely based on Richard Dawkins' book "The selfish gene" and particularly on his idea of memes as the new replicators. In the book Prof. Dawkins describes how genes are selfish in the way that all they 'care' about in an unconscious way is to make copys of them selves, simply because only those that did so survived. He also brings up the idea that the same could today be applied to parts of human society and culture. He calls these replicators "memes". In this video I want to develop this point by adressing religion in particular.
Religous ideas get passed from one person to another. They thus make copies of them selves. In the process they can however be altered. There are thus mutations. So what kind of mutations would you expect to be selected for? The answer is anything that ensures that lots of copies of the idea are planted into other people. For example all major religions have holy books. Books are one of the best ways to pass ideas to other people, so this was very useful for religious ideas to replicate them selves. This already imposes a problem. Once a book is written down it is hard to change it. The morals and social values taught in the book are thus fixed and do not change with the zeitgeist. People who follow this book will thus be backwards in this way. However books are relativley harmless compared to other things that can and have evolved in religion. Quite common, even today, are threats of eternal torture after death. There is a for rational people not too obvious advantage of this. People, particularly children, are more likely to adobt a belief if you threaten them that they will be punished if they don't. This can cause serious psychological harm, particularly in children. Another example of an adaption is in religions who preach to have many children. For example many religious groups oppose the use of condoms and abortion. The advantage of this is that children usually adopt their parents religious views and it is thus of an advantage for a religion if its followers have many children.
A challange for this selfish meme theory comes from one particular religious belief still shared by many conservetive people today. It is the belief that children before marriage or even sex is unacceptable. You would think that this is rather a bad thing, since many people might not want to adopt the belief because they want to have sex and because it would result in less children which the meme can infest. However if you think about it the selfish meme theory can explain this without trouble. People with such funamentalist religious views generally tend to belief in old family values. They are thus more likely to adopt a religion that teaches these in all forms.
What about religions that teach good moral values? These religions have simply adapted to a changing moral zeitgeist. Many people would not accept a religion anymore that teaches them that smashing children against rocks is great fun. (Psalm 137:9) So some religious views have adopted to fit people's new moral ideas. The same is true for religions that now accept modern scientific theories such as evolution. Many people are simply rational and have to belief in evolution due to the massive amout of evidence for it. So religion adapted inorder to allow this.
It is however important to notice that religion did not cause people to hold any of these moral values or scientific ideas. The selfish meme has no interesst in doing so. It however does have an interesst in spreading ideas such as hell.
Even moderate religions have been subject to this form of evolution and can thus have such negative influence. Even if they don't there is still a danger that they will evolve in such a way.
If a person starts of with having a moderate religious belief you would also expect the person to be more likely to adopt a more fundamentalist religious view than one that previously was an atheist.
I can however think of now situation in which religion would evolve something that benefits for society or individuals. It is very much like a virus, exploiting its host without caring about the well-being of its carrier.