Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id FAA14874 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 13 Jan 2002 05:04:42 GMT To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Message-Id: <AA-60F76A5C806CAE4CBB948A79B21ECC28-ZZ@maillink1.prodigy.net> Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 00:00:44 -0500 From: "Philip Jonkers" <PHILIPJONKERS@prodigy.net> Subject: Re: playing at suicide Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Philip:
>>Religion is hopelessly outdated and obsolete in
modern
>>society. This is reflected by the Pope admitting
>>more and more scienctific truisms in catholic
>>religion. If we want to reach unity as a people
>>world-wide, religion is the foremost obstacle that
>>has to be eliminated. Since the vast majority of
>>humans adhere to some sort of religion this is
>>a truly daunting task. I doubt if it will ever be
>>feasible, all the more since it seems that religion
>>is ingrained in the human brain.
Scott:
>By ingrained are you implying a genetically based
predisposition for
>religion? If so, this assumption bears on what you
say below. Or maybe you
>meant ingrained in the sense of people growing up
with the ideas their
>entire life, so that these ideas become part of their
psychic fabric.
I guess I have already said something about this
but I'm happy to repeat myself. Actually I mean both,
religion is both biologically ingrained and
culturally nurtured. Basically what it boils down
to is the Baldwin effect. Religion supposedly offers
greater survival chances and therefore the more
biologically predisposed brain has better survival
chances and automatically increases in frequency by
selective forces that favor `religious' genes.
The phenotypical expression of religion may be only
a sub-set of a more general `spiritual' phenotype, in
the same way that it is unlikely that there are
special genes for car-driving ability but rather
genes responsible for more general properties such as
reaction speed, caution etc...
>>
>>Maybe after many
>>generations of enlightenment it may get evolved out.
>>
>>
>By what mechanism would many generations of
enlightment evolve a
>(genetically based?) religious predisposition out of
the human psyche? Could
>this elimination of religious predisposition occur in
a universal manner
>throughout the human population of Earth? Would there
be harsh selection
>pressure for such an eliminative evolutionary shift
in religiously biasing
>alleles or would they drift out in such a large
population? Maybe in the
>absence of selection (if there is actually any for
religiously biasing
>alleles) mutations which eliminate the bias could
accumulate without
>detriment?
>Were you thinking of some neo-Lamarckian mechanism
where disuse of the
>religious faculty results in its deterioration?
If humans find better survival strategies *without*
religion such selection pressures would emerge
naturally. Quite the opposite of what history
presumably offered. Scientific enlightenment is
pushing us in this direction, tradition and the
latent utility of religion as a political
weapon and control instrument is retarding
this progression at the same time. Who will have the
longest breath?
Philip.
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