Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id EAA01306 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sat, 9 Feb 2002 04:17:43 GMT Message-ID: <016d01c1b127$eaefa7a0$3e03aace@oemcomputer> From: "Philip Jonkers" <philipjonkers@prodigy.net> To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> References: <002001c1aff4$20a2b660$3e03aace@oemcomputer><5.1.0.14.0.20020201203643.03556980@pop.cogeco.ca> <5.0.2.1.0.20020207185313.00a34ea0@mail.clarityconnect.com> Subject: Re: Words and memes Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2002 20:09:09 -0900 Organization: Prodigy Internet Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 X-Mimeole: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Keith:
> >We should be concerned with the pathological memes, cults and related
> >social movements. Look at what the Pot Pol mutation off of the communist
> >meme did in Cambodia!
> >
> >Understanding that the religious wars in Europe were meme driven and
given
> >all the grief Nazism, Communism, and now splinters off Islam have caused
> >and are now causing, the study of memes and more important *why* we are
> >susceptible to memes like these should be a major topic of research,
> >particularly modeling, with the output guiding public policy.
Ray:
> No offense but I think these are exactly the topics we need to avoid at
the
> moment. First of all I don't want a developing memetics to become the
> science of religion bashing and of everyone using it as a tool to support
> their political beliefs. One man's parasite is another man's thoughtful
> insight. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. I am an
> atheist myself but I have a couple of nuns in the family and the high
> school teacher who had the most influence on me when I was growing up was
a > fundamentalist Christian. I have too much respect for these people to
> assume that their beliefs are just parasites and it frankly upsets me when
> people engage in that kind of simplification. After reading Joseph
> Campbell's works I can see that religions play very important roles in
> society independent of the truth of their premises. This fledgling field
> of study hasn't received a lot of public criticism because it is presently
> too low on the radar screen, but if it does pick up some momentum a few
> controversial over generalizations made here will end up biting us in the
ass.
We all have religious people around us, in fact as far as I know I am the
only
atheist in the family! Although I understand that religion was useful as a
social glue in the old days, today, with increased communication, global
cooperation, and mixing of ethnic groups I think religion is the major
obstacle
to achieve global peace and harmony and ultimately global unity. Memetics
identifies and emphasizes the irrational tenets of religions.
Religions spread intergroup intolerance and fascist sentiments. Memetics can
help to paralize these nasty human traits by jettisoning religions and
welcoming
humanism.
Philip.
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