Is religion a memetic disease?

[Turtle]

I am not so sure i get the recreational aspect really. I mean, what does that mean? when i was a punk, i did drugs. Not because it was fun, althought at times it was, but because i was seeking an escape. When i matured, I stopped that nonsense. You know, that situation with my kid was drug related. And his being subjected to religious nutters getting him high and the subsequent attack on his life, has bred such a religious delusion that "god" has told him not to eat, drink or listen to his mom. So i dunno if i have a war on drugs, would have preferred that my adult child had chosen otherwise. But the real "evil" here as you put it, is an insidious brainwashing that is destroying the bond between a mother and son. :(

 

by recreational i mean not medically indicated, nothwithstanding that the same drug may be medically indicated in one set of circumstances and used recreationally in others.

 

i am offended everytime i see a religion discussion here and as i now have a splitting headache from this one i might justifiably say it makes me sick. but hey, who gives a rat's *** about what ruins my day or harms or injures me.

Edited March 30, 2012 by Turtle

[JMJones0424]

It may be as simple as the belief in the right to believe or disbelieve. It may be the belief that all evolved through abiogenesis, thus without intelligence in the design. It may be the belief that black is white. A religion is a belief or set of beliefs, thus the phrase "doing something religiously." a meme, on the other hand, is a tradition or a teaching or practice, that, of itself, is not a disease. It could be memetic to infect others with a disease, for example a tribe of herpes sufferers might require all its members to incur the disease. Religion could hardly be a diseas.

 

No. A religion is a specific set of beliefs involving the supernatural, not any collected set of beliefs. Whether or not you conclude that religion is a memetic disease, there is no support for the conclusion that atheism is a religion.

 

Since I provided the context from which you cherry-picked your quote, it seems to me that you intentionally continue to misrepresent the court's position.

The Supreme Court has said that a religion, for purposes of the First Amendment, is distinct from a “way of life,” even if that way of life is inspired by philosophical beliefs or other secular concerns. See Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 215-16 (1972). A religion need not be based on a belief in the existence of a supreme being (or beings, for polytheistic faiths)...

 

It is clear to me that they are saying that the Establishment Clause prohibits the state from promoting the expression of religious beliefs while preventing the expression of non-religious beliefs.

 

This is really a simple distinction to make. Atheism is no more a religion than not collecting stamps is a hobby.

[7DSUSYstrings]

This is really a simple distinction to make. Atheism is no more a religion than not collecting stamps is a hobby.

 

 

I believe it is bad luck to collect stamps to the point where I've made a hobby of cutting any non-memorabilia type stamp into small pieces and dispersing them as soon as I can. I've been considering using them for fuel though... :)

 

This still is not the point of the thread. A religion cannot be transmitted by any disease we know of. A disease could potentially harbor a delusion about a religion, but the disease would not be a religion. In any stretch of the imagination, a memmetic disease is an oxymoron. A memetic requirement to have a disease is not.

[7DSUSYstrings]

I am lying.

[Moontanman]

I have no idea if there is a god or not. I do know that religion is real, religion is as real as syphilis and almost as contagious. I have delved into several mainstream as well as non mainstream religions and found them all to be lacking. What they are lacking is over sight by god, religion can be used for good, outrageously good behavior, behavior that makes most of us look like selfish assholes by comparison. But if you look very closely you will find that even the the most altruistic religious behavior is in actuality selfish. Food and medicine for the impoverished? When is it given without a sermon? Right now in Africa Christian evangelicals are giving out food and medicine with a large dose of religion aimed at killing homosexuals, i am not kidding, they preach openly that homosexuals should be killed because they are out to get your children...

 

Is it religion that causes this...I don't think so, i think it's men that use religion as a way to influence people. Are all religious people this way, hell no, most are regular people who want or need to believe in something bigger and better than themselves. I have shown so many religious people what their good book actually says i often wonder if any of them ever read it as anything but small blurbs given to them by their leaders.

 

I think it is something like 5% of the population that are psychopaths and I cannot assert for certain that these people are attracted to religion but if you look at the leaders of religious movements a great many of them are obviously... it's difficult to find a word that accurately describes them, i would say used car salesmen but that is unfair to used car salesmen. one thing these "men of god" share is the ability to justify anything that puts money in their pockets.

 

They get up on stage and claim divine revelation or revealed truths when what they really mean is **** i made up last night to help fleece the marks. They ignore the stuff that is obviously horse feathers, like wearing cloth made of different threads as being an abomination or unruly children but close in on homosexuality.

 

The main thing that makes me not believe in god is the obvious truth that god is not policing his spokesmen. The power of religion comes from the group dynamic, the feeling of belonging to something more powerful than ones self. If you attend a church service, especially a revival or an evangelical type service the feeling of power is almost overwhelming. In those services you could assert almost anything and the people would still believe it.

 

Belief is a powerful thing, it can be used to make other wise normal moral people think that killing someone who does not believe is a good thing to do. Belief is a meme, religious belief is a very powerful meme and it is contagious, it's not necessarily bad but it can be used to make other wise good people think that bad things are good.

 

Children are especially vulnerable, it's no mistake that religion asserts that children should be taken to church and made to believe.

[Turtle]

It may be as simple as the belief in the right to believe or disbelieve. It may be the belief that all evolved through abiogenesis, thus without intelligence in the design. It may be the belief that black is white. A religion is a belief or set of beliefs, thus the phrase "doing something religiously." a meme, on the other hand, is a tradition or a teaching or practice, that, of itself, is not a disease. It could be memetic to infect others with a disease, for example a tribe of herpes sufferers might require all its members to incur the disease. Religion could hardly be a diseas.

 

your first sentence is little more than wordplay and your definition of "disease" is narrower than common usage. the phrase 'memetic disease' is perfectly acceptable and applicable to religion in the 2nd sense as defined in this dictionary. no matter that religion may be considered 'normal', or traditional if you like, it does do harm.

 

disease

1. A pathological condition of a part, organ, or system of an organism resulting from various causes, such as infection, genetic defect, or environmental stress, and characterized by an identifiable group of signs or symptoms.

2. A condition or tendency, as of society, regarded as abnormal and harmful.

3. Obsolete Lack of ease; trouble.

 

what's more, per my earlier characterization of religionists and/or believers as troublemakers -both here and at large- the third sense of disease is applicable as well. as i alluded to in one of our conversations elsewhere, i am not inclined to indulge troublmakers. :naughty:

 

the theme, yet again, of this site is science for everyone, not religion for anyone.

[modest]

I'm not one to think that religion in general is evil. I think it can be good or evil like Eudoxus was just saying.

It seems there is no use reasoning here. So, religion is the actual cause of evil?

I think you misrepresent slightly what I said.

 

In my experience anti-theists rather like this quote by Steven Weinberg,

 

With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

 

It is a witty saying that is certainly false. Non-religious ideologies have every opportunity to convince good people to do evil things. So, of course, religion is not the root of all evil.

 

However, this doesn't excuse the point Turtle put such a fine edge on recently...

 

just because people can be evil without religion does not discount that people are evil because of it.

 

Excuses for evil acts can be found in a lot of ideologies (Stalin was a master at deriving them from Marxism-Leninism for example), but this doesn't excuse religious ideologies in which actions widely considered atrocious are actively advocated—and that is the real issue distilled lately in this thread. I haven't seen anyone here say that religion is the cause of all evil, despite such a strong showing of that strawman in the quote above. I have, on the other hand, seen two things: I've seen people here (like Turtle, Eudoxus, and myself) deny that religion is the only evil and nothing but evil, and I've seen people (like Qfwfq and Bravox) deny religion's culpability in the atrocities for which it is directly responsible.

 

It wouldn't be bad if religion were just a convenient excuse for terrible crimes against people and society. The excuse of serial killer David Berkowitz, after all, was that his neighbor's dog told him to kill. If religion were no more culpable than Berkowitz' neighbor's dog then nobody would blame religion. We don't blame the dog. We don't say that the dog is a source of evil. But, religion is not just an excuse.

 

I remember someone saying, but I can't remember who: "Look anywhere you want for the justification of slavery—for the serfage of women and the burning and flogging of dissidents—for anti-semitism, genocide, and child abuse—for any of those things look no further than the sacred books on every pulpit and in every synagogue and in every mosque."

 

Many, if not most, religions do call for acts of extreme immorality, and they collectively rule the moral lives of billions of people. So religion is much more than an excuse to act out evil thoughts.

 

Religion isn't the cause of all evil and it isn't just an excuse for people who are bent toward immorality anyway. The truth is more complicated and lies somewhere between.

 

~modest

[Qfwfq]

This thread is so full of yada yada, it's impossible to make a point.

 

Who cares about Wisconsin, anyway? If some person worships crow droppings and collects them whenever they fall within their reach, keeping them all in reliquiaries, then it is that person's religion. Dirac hasn't been the only one who's religion was atheism, but this doesn't make all atheists religious. No doubt some of them are though, and both Dawkins and Hitchens, put together, have plenty of followers. Fortunately, many other atheists simply disbelieve but don't give a damn.

 

I've seen people (like Qfwfq and Bravox) deny religion's culpability in the atrocities for which it is directly responsible.

Actually he and I did something more subtle than that. We were talking about religion. You are talking about religions.

 

Even in the case of Islam, it has so many sects, with so many interpretations and outside of it there are so many misconceptions that it makes no sense to bundle. BTW reading Surah 9 again did not support your contention, it even put some of your points under strain. The only argument by which you might say it instructs anybody to kill you and me is that we can vote for our politicians and hence might be culpable for them, which is a mighty stretch and presumes neglecting the differences between us, now, and the times and places where that was preached. Sane Muslims don't make such a stretch, the ones that do are either insane... or simply doing what Moon described here; they are worse than used car salesmen.

 

I remember someone saying, but I can't remember who: "Look anywhere you want for the justification of slavery—for the serfage of women and the burning and flogging of dissidents—for anti-semitism, genocide, and child abuse—for any of those things look no further than the sacred books on every pulpit and in every synagogue and in every mosque."

This is in contradiction with what you had recognized even in that same post. So, do you agree with that quote? Is or is not religion the only root of all evil?

[JMJones0424]

This thread is so full of yada yada, it's impossible to make a point.

Then stop yada-ing?

 

Who cares about Wisconsin, anyway?

Did you not read the beginning of that diversion? 7D made the claim that atheism had been ruled a religion, and therefore, we could likely more appropriately describe atheism as a disease. CraigD asked for clarification, 7D provided a link that he felt supported that statement, but on closer examination, is a court ruling reaffirming the Establishment Clause as it relates to gatherings of atheists in Wisconsin prisons that allow religious gatherings.

 

If some person worships crow droppings and collects them whenever they fall within their reach, keeping them all in reliquiaries, then it is that person's religion.

That's all good and well. However, if I choose not to worship a pile of crap, then don't insist that my non-worship is a religion. That's ludicrous.

 

Is or is not religion the only root of all evil?

After reading Modest's last post, how could his response even be in doubt?

[7DSUSYstrings]

your first sentence is little more than wordplay and your definition of "disease" is narrower than common usage. the phrase 'memetic disease' is perfectly acceptable and applicable to religion in the 2nd sense as defined in this dictionary. no matter that religion may be considered 'normal', or traditional if you like, it does do harm.

 

disease

 

 

what's more, per my earlier characterization of religionists and/or believers as troublemakers -both here and at large- the third sense of disease is applicable as well. as i alluded to in one of our conversations elsewhere, i am not inclined to indulge troublmakers. :naughty:

 

the theme, yet again, of this site is science for everyone, not religion for anyone.

 

Only someone from another galaxy would interpret your first quote from my post as word play. I'll give you the 2nd, somewhat vague, definition, since my own hardcopy dictionary offers "an evil state of affairs," but I didn't start this thread; I only gave my opinion. I do agree that a science forum is no place for religion, or a religion about the absence of a diety. The term I amalgamated to describe how I feel these science forums should operate is neither theist or atheist but theoanaesthetic, meaning devoid of either perspective.

[7DSUSYstrings]

My second post was a paradox of logic:

 

"I am lying."

 

 

It's called "The Liar Paradox." It is quite relative to the nature of this as an endless, meaningless discussion. Thus you could not appropriately call me a troublemaker, rather a trouble ender.

[sman]

I’m quite timid with memetics. I don’t like the language, tbh. I guess I feel that it piggybacks on the very strong paradigm of biological evolution & automatically receives a lot of support by association - but is itself, as far as I can tell, very weak in terms of either explanatory or predictive power.

 

All that being said, I don’t see any dilemma discussing whether religion is well described this way. I certainly don’t think it’s necessary to preamble such discussions with discussions of whether its necessary or prudent to have such discussions.

[Turtle]

Only someone from another galaxy would interpret your first quote from my post as word play. I'll give you the 2nd, somewhat vague, definition, since my own hardcopy dictionary offers "an evil state of affairs," but I didn't start this thread; I only gave my opinion. I do agree that a science forum is no place for religion, or a religion about the absence of a diety. The term I amalgamated to describe how I feel these science forums should operate is neither theist or atheist but theoanaesthetic, meaning devoid of either perspective.

 

so you have knowledge of life outside the galaxy then? you folk that think mentioning a paradox is an argument ender are just spinning in circles and getting nowhere fast. ( i say 'you folk' because the starter of this thread does the same thing.) your claim that atheism is a religion is without merit, as jm has elucidated. we all know perfectly well what we are talking about here when we say religion, i.e. the historical organized supernatural believers on this planet. to try and muddle the works by implying other definitions apply, such a a person who "religiously" puts out their trash on tuesday, is nothing more than a dissembling ploy.

[bravox]

[the] claim that atheism is a religion is without merit, as jm has elucidated.

Jumping in... even though I don't side with many atheists in other issues, I do agree that atheism shouldn't be called a religion. That said...

 

we all know perfectly well what we are talking about here when we say religion, i.e. the historical organized supernatural believers on this planet.

Actually not everyone knows perfectly well what we are talking about when we use the word 'religion'. This discussion is proof of the ambiguity of the concept.

 

Atheism certainly shares a lot with religion. For one thing, atheists constantly talk about God (or 'god' as they prefer it, disregarding the fact that it is a proper noun). I have an atheist friend who talks about God far more than any of my religious friends. He is as obnoxious as the most fanatic believer. I don't know where the obsession comes from but I really don't see much difference between the two forms of fanaticism.

 

I’m quite timid with memetics. I don’t like the language, tbh. I guess I feel that it piggybacks on the very strong paradigm of biological evolution & automatically receives a lot of support by association - but is itself, as far as I can tell, very weak in terms of either explanatory or predictive power.

It is, as far as I can tell, just one of those fashionable ideas that eventually disappear without leaving a trace. A concept that gains merit based almost exclusively on the popularity of those promoting it or the semantic similarity with well-established ideas.

 

Like him or not, Dawkins is a pretty smart guy, he's quite good with propaganda. We'll only see the merits of his philosophical ideas after he dies (or retires, whichever comes first :) )

[7DSUSYstrings]

so you have knowledge of life outside the galaxy then? you folk that think mentioning a paradox is an argument ender are just spinning in circles and getting nowhere fast. ( i say 'you folk' because the starter of this thread does the same thing.) your claim that atheism is a religion is without merit, as jm has elucidated. we all know perfectly well what we are talking about here when we say religion, i.e. the historical organized supernatural believers on this planet. to try and muddle the works by implying other definitions apply, such a a person who "religiously" puts out their trash on tuesday, is nothing more than a dissembling ploy.

 

 

:D I think threads like this are either flame bait or for fun. (Not to rile the admins...) I want to assume that most scientific minds are familiar with the Martian meteorite bearing life or at least the constituents of it. Comets are composed mostly of ice, so thought to contain the basic life bearing DNA, once again popular "science." It's tough to imagine that only the Milky Way galaxy has comets and meteors like that.

 

:D Word play? Semantics is the essence of this thread. The entire body of posts are nothing but fluff surrounding the refuge into semantics. I find it hard to believe any scientific mind would take a discussion about religion or the lack of it so... well... religiously.

 

I'm certain we all have our opinions, hypotheses, theories, etc. about theism versus atheism. I think it's like the old "Certs" commercials: "Stop! You're both right." If this was a real world company and we all allowed ourselves to be distracted from our work over an argument about religion or politics and the boos came in, we'd all be filling out forms at the unemployment office. :D

 

"Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong."

-Dire Straits

[HydrogenBond]

Another way to look at religion is in terms of human evolution. I am not thinking in terms of the debate between evolution and creation. Rather, I was looking at religion as a behavior, which evolved, common to only humans. This behavior has had an impact of the evolution of the human species, by helping to define natural selection. The pyramids were built with the gods in mind. Religious behavior provided the goal and the drive to accomplish what even modern people assume was beyond their ability.

 

The purpose of the religous instinct appears to be indirectly answered by atheism. God is not something you cannot prove in physical reality. Rather atheism sees God as something within the mind and the imagination. Religion helped evolve the human imagination, allowing humans to depart from the sensory materialism of the pre-humans. It is through the imagination that invention will appear, with civilization resulting in a quantum expansion of invention.

 

Let me give an example, 10 years ago there was no such thing as the i-pad. It may have existed within the imagination of Steve Jobs. But at that time, even science could not prove its existence, because it was not yet material in nature. Yet its material existence, would be proven in the future.

 

The pre-humans, if they could not see something, it did not exist. They may have been the first atheists. However, the next big step into civilization would require the invention of all types of things, that did not exist in physical reality. Religion made it allowable to believe in that which did not exist within material reality.

 

For example, farming was an important invention needed for civilization. But farming is not a sure thing, even with all the modern bells and whistles, but is vulnerable to many things. To invent farming, you would have to do something that has never been done, with no guarentee it will work, or even how it will work. You need to do all planning in the imagination, and use that nontangible vision for your drive and direction, so that which the pre-human can not see will suddenly appear.

[bravox]

The pre-humans, if they could not see something, it did not exist. They may have been the first atheists. However, the next big step into civilization would require the invention of all types of things, that did not exist in physical reality. Religion made it allowable to believe in that which did not exist within material reality.

Reminds me of a quote by Steve Jobs:

 

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

Or look at the beauty of the universe and see a loving God?

 

Religious people are crazy troublemaking rebels. Surrounded by a world of misery, suffering and death, they refuse to be pessimistic. They look beyond the world of appearances and imagine a universe of beauty and perfection where life is not the consequence of blind change, but the sole purpose for the existence of everything.

 

We shoud abolish such craziness, and replace it with the belief that man is the ultimate measure of all things, in a universe that is cruel and unforgiving. Then we will have nothing to fight about, because there would be nothing worth fighting for.

Edited March 30, 2012 by bravox