Make Your Time - Meme Zig Meme
Check this out from Geoff:
A meme is essentially a viral idea. A meme has some intrinsic property that charms/captures a host (i.e. someone’s mind) and encourages the host to spread it: for example, the All Your Base Are Belong To Us meme...had a core component of wonderfully wacky Engrish. Jeffrey Ray Roberts was so charmed by it he produced a song, and someone in turn produced a video. The video was a success; friend told friend of it, and (here’s the point) its spread could be compared to that of a virus. The more you were in contact with someone infected by the All Your Base meme, the more likely they’d tell you about it. Boom: exponential growth, baby....
You can probably see where I’m going with this by now: Christianity is a meme. A damn virulent one. Why? Let’s step through it.
Christianity is very effective in that it has lots of built in mechanisms to encourage people to join, and to spread the virus. Remember my four common components of a successful major religion. First, they demand evangelism. From a Darwinian point of view, the significance is obvious: a parasitic organism like a virus is more successful if it alters the host in some way that increases its spreading potential. Religions that don’t demand evangelism will not be nearly as effective.
Second, you have the tenet of helping others in need. Due to intrinsic systems of gratitude (it can be seen in lower primates), people helped by, say, a Christian, are likely to be more open to the faith.
Third, the random little rules. Jewish folk keep kosher, Christians limit their sexual activity, etc. If you look at the end benefit of these rules, they serve to keep the host alive longer (or at least used to)....
Finally, these memes have a component that encourages faith. Becoming an atheist would be equivalent to fighting off the meme, and so natural selection has again directed them to a vulnerable point....
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