Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id NAA03267 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Tue, 21 Nov 2000 13:49:18 GMT Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745B26@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: religion/spirituality Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 13:46:56 -0000 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
<<Richard Brodie:
> Judaism "proselytizes" only to blood children, hence the lower rate of
> spreading throughout heterogeneous populations than Christianity. Both fit
> the mind-virus model quite well.>>
>
<Wade:
> Both fit, yes.
>
> The 'proselytizing' comes from the fact that blood matters from the
> maternal side. Thus, female wandering and cross-fertilizing is the agent.
> And there is a strong tribal system behind it all to gather in the
> children.
>
> Different sort of virus, but virus, yes, nonetheless. Or bacterium, or
> something....>
>
Still doesn't answer Derek's question though does it? Why didn't
judaism spread through the Roman Empire the way Christianity did?
Is it perhaps due to something akin to Gladwell's notion of certain
types of people being necessary for social trends to "tip"? I'm not sure I'd
buy into his journalistic typologies, but perhaps christianity appealed to
particular social classes in roman society who in turn encouraged greater
transmission than Judaism. Having been watching a fair few programmes about
ancient Egypt recently, I'd offer the example of the Pharaoh Ahkenaten (I
bet I've spelt that completely wrongly), who I believe was/is known as the
heretic pharaoh because in his reign he unilaterally altered the religion of
the Egyptian state.
If a political leader switches religious allegiance, then it usually
has a major effect on the eventual religious beliefs of that nation. I
don't know myself, but what were the proportions of christians in the Roman
Empire when it formally converted to Christianity? In other words, was it
perhaps the product not of widespread proseltyism, but of simply the
conversion of a particularly important figure, or class, in the social
hierarchy?
Somebody in a recent post, possibly in a different thread was quite
critical of retrodiction, and whilst prediction might be preferable to
really give memetics legs, this kind of retrodictive scenario is arguably
equally important. What's needed here is a mechanism for the success of
christianity as opposed to judaism in the roman empire, or to identify the
factors that led to this occurrence.
If both work as mind viruses, then what made one more effective than
the other at that time? I'd presume it may be more likely to have been some
contextual elements, rather than the contents of the doctrine per se which
is how the question started. It may also explain why some polytheistic
religions persist amidst montheistic ones- because the environmental context
of their believers offers a niche in which they can persist.
Another question might be related to the historical emergence of
montheism and polytheism, in two senses: First, what influences peoples'
decisions to relate either everything to a single god, or specific things to
specific gods, in the first place? Second, which came first and how? It
occures to me that if I want to persist with the idea that monotheism is
"easier" than polytheism, in a simple sense, then I wonder why polytheism
appears to have occurred, or at least have been dominant, before the major
monotheistic religions emerged.
Maybe early modern humans had more overactive amigdalas (is that
spelt correctly?) than later humans.
Vincent
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