Re: Fwd: Questions about Islam and violence

From: Steve Drew (srdrew_1@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Mar 07 2002 - 22:07:53 GMT

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Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2002 22:07:53 +0000
Subject: Re: Fwd: Questions about Islam and violence
From: Steve Drew <srdrew_1@hotmail.com>
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    Hi Ned

    > Date: 07 Mar 2002 06:16:58 -0700
    > From: Ned Wolpert <wolpert5@cox.net>
    > Subject: c
    >
    > - --=-op4wFZOW0lbWjs4tO8OH
    > Content-Type: text/plain
    > Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
    >
    > On Wed, 2002-03-06 at 15:07, Wade T.Smith wrote:=20
    >> As practiced by millions of Muslims, Islam may well be as pacific as any=20
    >> other religion.
    > This statement is the crux of the matter. As viewed from an outsider,
    > this is quite true. Islam is as much a force of pacifism as any other
    > religion. Which is to imply that each religion is as much a force of
    > warmongering as the next. (A truism, no? A=3DB, !A=3D!B for the most part
    > applies to this statement...)=20
    >
    > On a separate but related topic, does the concept of pacifism harbor
    > more of a beneficial meme to the genetic host than the concept of
    > warmongering? On one hand with pacifism, peace makes it easy to raise
    > ones own set of kids. On the other, war reduces competition of genetic
    > strains. (When its over) Thoughts?=20

    My Guess would be that in times of plenty, the peace meme would win out, as
    the war one would entail 'genetic' risk. In times of scarcity we might have
    the opposite. Genetic survival outweighs memetic. Unfortunately, IMO, that
    was long ago and that the two are, in some respects too difficult to
    separate any more
    >
    > Does the 'war' meme trump the 'peace' meme? Or is it always context
    > representative and never clear cut. It seems easier to convince people
    > to fight than to convince people to stop fighting, and from a meme
    > perspective, its easier to rile people up than calm them down. (Course,
    > this brings the last question... does the r/k-selection help define
    > which meme is more acceptable in a population?)=20

    This is very true now. But most of the fighting seems to be fairly resource
    poor, though there are exceptions.
    >
    > - --=20

    Regards

    steve
    >
    > Virtually,=20
    > Ned Wolpert <wolpert5@cox.net>

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