Am I Using The Word 'Meme' Correctly?

That's what he tells us. And as you note, he also admits that to describe religion in this way is "contemptuous and hostile". Seems to me he has, by his own admission, a strong opinion on the subject--even though he is an "a-theist" and therefore, by your definition, can have no such opinion. I say "opinion" since, so far, there's no proof that that's what religion is. Just cuz he's a scientist doesn't mean his personal prejudices and conclusions should be given much weight. As for religion being "dangerous", so is fire. But it also can be useful. Whether the danger outweighs the benefits is an open question.

Should we care what Dawkins thinks about religion? He's made an assertion about it. He's an evolutionary biologist, and is therefore qualified to tell us about genes. But the meme concept is basically only an analogy to those biological entities. When Dawkins gets us into the area of cultural evolution, he's stepped outside of his realm of expertise into the realm of anthropology and social science in which his background is thin at best. No controlled experiments are available to validate the theory. The notion that genes explain god and religion makes him a cultural diffusionist. Diffusionism and Acculturation. I think diffusion is certainly at work in the phenomenon of religion, and "memes' may be helpful as mechanisms behind it. Strange, though that "religion" seems to have appeared in every human society on the planet. Can that most readily be explained by cultural diffusion, or are there other mechanisms at work, such as the collective unconscious, existential anxieties, independent discovery, etc.? And is it feasible to conceptualize culture as consisting of discrete, identifiable units, with distinct boundaries, so that we can study and measure them?

I've previously discussed the strengths and limits of memetics.(Post #16). Anthropologist Scott Atram, who has studied the origins of religion in cross-cultural perspective, finds that :"Cognitive study of multi-modular human minds undermines mimetics: unlike in genetic replication, high fidelity transmission of human information is the exception, not the rule." Atram, In Gods We Trust. The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion.

Is God a virus? And if so, is it a bad one? Dawkins doesn't really prove his point, and has left it to others to try to do so--without much success. Psychologist Darrell Ray (The God Virus) has tried, but is long on rhetoric and short on objective presentation of evidence. He accentuates the negative, and eliminates the positive. Ray comes to the subject not only as a psychologist but as a casualty of a fundamentalist religious upbringing. So he has perhaps an unrepresentative experience of religion and an axe to grind--not the best background for objective scientific analysis. Is the "god virus" a refutable proposition ? I don't think so. As developed by Ray, it's more a rhetorical device.Therefore, it isn't scientific.

IMO, that doesn't make memes bad, even when applied to God and religion. I think that the concepts of "meme" and "virus" are too broad when applied to those subjects in general. But they can be helpful when the complexity of "god" and "religion" is acknowledged as clusters of component memes and the focus is shifted to explaining the transformations which both "god" and "religion" have undergone over the course of cultural evolution. I don't think memes should necessarily be viewed as the definitive explanation for these changes, but they can provide a plausible explanation of contributing causes.

 

I think that from a human cultural standpoint, “religion” and “god(s)” are best viewed as meme clusters. Religion consists of several basic components: ideas of the sacred and/or the supernatural, codes of ethics, creeds, rituals, and community.https://jacobarmbruster.oucreate.com/uncategorized/the-four-cs-and-religious-essentialism/#:~:text=The four C’s that scholars look for are,Passover for Jewish people or Easter for Christians. Each of those has been given different form in different societies thru the ages. From an historical evolutionary perspective, religion has been around practically as long as humans. The term derives from the Latin "religio" which meant "regard for sacred things, devoutness, piety, reverence".
Charlton T. Lewis, An Elementary Latin Dictionary, religiō
The Concept of Religion (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Primatologist Frans de Waal defines it as : “the shared reverence for the supernatural, sacred, or spiritual as well as the symbols, rituals, and worship that are associated with it”..
Anyhow, "religion" is a complex, multi-factor phenomenon, supported by individual perceptions, societal demands, and the agendas of leaders and societal sub-groups.

The concept of a god seems to have come fairly late in the game. In the Paleolithic, there was animism in which spirits animated the various things encountered in nature, as well as spirits of ancestors, and free wheeling good and evil spirits. Some hunter-gatherer societies added impersonal forces or transmissible spiritual energy like the Lakota Wakan Tanka (Great Spirit or Great Mystery); the Iroquois Orenda ; or the Oceanic Mana. How did this happen?
"hunter-gatherers" come in different shapes. Broken down into sub-categories,

There have been lots of theories about origins. Tylor (Primitive Culture, 1871) attributed it to an early pre-scientific human effort to explain and control the unknown. In particular, he emphasized dreams, in which people traveled to strange places and encountered animals and deceased relatives. Durkheim, who stressed the role of social conditioning, identified "totemism"--identifying with an animal or natural object as a means of gaining security. Modern cognitive anthropologists like Boyer and Atram emphasize the natural human susceptibility for pattern seeking and agency attribution as mechanisms giving us an evolutionary advantage, but also making us susceptible to believe in things unseen that might not really be there. Depth psychology stresses the influence of unconscious needs and existential anxieties.

Gods seem to have made their debut in the Upper Paleolithic and became more prevalant as societies transitioned from Paleolithic to Neolithic to the first civilizations. The difference between gods and spirits seems to be jurisdictional: spirits are confined to particular natural objects and animals, while gods control a broader range of phenomena like rainfall, crops, war, sex, etc. And as societies grow more complex, gods develop hierarchies like the Sumerian Anunaki. And the focus of religion changes, from transactional relations in which worship and sacrifices are exchanged for worldly favors to the other-worldly concerns of the Axial Age, where preoccupation with the afterlife became the central concern. Social justice made its entry with the Hebrew prophet Amos.

Apart from Dawkins and memes, there are several good books on the evolution of religion, e.g., Karen Armstrong, A History of God; Bellah, Religion and Human Evolution; and Robert Wright, Evolution of God. What might a memetic focus add to these?

 

Oh, I see. Dawins has a strong opinion--about god(s) and God. "I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented." The God Delusion. But "a-theists, dis-theists, unbelievers in theism, don't hold a belief in regards to theism. Therefore: (a) Dawkins isn't an a-theist; (b) the statement just quoted isn't an opinion; (c) the opinion isn't about god(s) , regardless of what he says; (d) Dawkins is just pulling our leg; (e) all of the above.

I don't think he did either. Where did you get the idea I do. You'll have to show me that quote. But he does say memes are analagous to genes, and says that belief in God arises from a meme or a "virus of the mind". That is his unqualified view of what God is.

That's the problem. He doesn't explain it. He said that all manifestations of belief in God are a result of infection by a virus-like meme. He doesn't go into detail about how that happened to occur in all parts of the world, but diffusion would presumably be the main mechanism in which viruses spread.

I don't think so either. Often that is done consciously as a rational, deliberative act., as we are doing now.

Yes, that's the idea. Most scientists were convinced of that by Karl Popper 1934),The Logic of Scientific Inquiry. This, in a sense, relaxed the earlier positivist view that it must be empirically verifiable. God is a classic example of an irrefutable proposition--what Watkins calls a "haunted universe doctrine"--inconclusively confirmable but irrefutable.https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251532 Most scientists leave such matters alone. Science is best equipped to test refutable hypotheses by application of rigorous methods to evidence. And it is best equipped for dispelling Type 1 errors--acceptance of propositions that are false--rather than Type 2 errors, rejecting propositions that are true. Dawkins has entered an area where most scientists fear to tread; stepping outside his are of expertise to take on the Head Ghost of the haunted universe. By doing so, he entered the world of metaphysics, and has been criticized by fellow scientists for doing so.
Most British scientists cited in study feel Richard Dawkins’ work misrepresents science
British scientists really, really dislike Richard Dawkins, new study discover
Is Richard Dawkins destroying his reputation? | Sophie Elmhirst

Not at all! As in the hard sciences, there are theories and than there are scientific theories. What Dawkins gave us is an hypothesis that God is nothing but a meme=virus. That is equivalent to saying "There is no God in the traditional sense of supernatural being. Dawkins has argued that, but hasn't attempted to demonstrate it by the usual rigorous methodology we associate with science--even the behavioral and social sciences.

However, his idea inspired a whole field of scientific inquiry called mimetics, one leading figure of which is Susan Blackmore, psychologist and author of The Meme Machine , with Forward by Dawkins himself. attempts to present mimetics as a science by discussing its empirical and analytic potential. She recently explained why she ceased to believe that religion is a virus of the mind, after encountering data suggesting that religion is adaptive rather than parasitic. Why I no longer believe religion is a virus of the mind | Sue Blackmore Data indicating that believers in God may be happier and even healthier than non-religious folks, and psychologist Ryan McKay's experimental evidence that "religious people can be more generous, cheat less and co-operate more in games..." Because religion can be more helpful to the host (i.e., simbiotic) rather than harmful (parasitic) she thinks the virus analogy is inappropriate. (On the other hand, if we go with those who tell us there are good viruses rather than just harmful ones, the analogy might be salvageable.) She goes on to explain: "This is how science (unlike religion) works: in the end it's the data that counts. Being shown you are wrong is horrid, but this has happened to me often enough before (yes, you may make jokes if you like) and one gets used to it."

Of course not. As I've stated often, Dawkins' idea of memes is central to my own world view. Stripped of his overriding anti-religious bias, it can be useful in understanding how beneficial and pathological variants of religious ideas compete in the process of natural selection, and the race doesn't always go to the just. One of the really frustrating things about entering into any discussion with you is that you seem to be oblivious to much of what I'm saying. My entry into this thread was to defend Dawkins and memes from what i thought were Woolee's unwarranted attack. But my challenge to your resistance to the term "militant" triggered the present line of discussion. It reminds me of an old Abbot and Costello routine, taken over by Sid Caesar, that I learned about from my grandfather: two people are engaged in a normal conversation when one of them mentions Niagra Falls, and the other goes berserk cuz it triggered some deep seated memory. You seem to have strong defenses for your non-belief, almost like some kind of...some kind of...virus might be involved. Or should I say a-virus?. And that's one of the things about the "meme' concept. Dawkins is most vocal about applying it negatively to gods and religion, but it actually applies to all ideas that make up human culture, including his theory of memes. Such a theory is difficult to refute, but also hard to prove. Our slender hope is that during the course of our evolution we acquired the capacity for reason which might help us overcome strong ego defense mechanisms including comforting ideas (or a-ideas).

No. I agree with Blackmore that the analogy to a virus suggests pathology, when the god meme might be adaptive. Also, the concept is hard to operationalize into refutable hypotheses. But basically what I said about the limitations are qualifiers to my own endorsement of the concept. If we get away from broadbrush generalizations about god and religion and focus on the component features of those phenomena, I think we can get a better understanding of some of the most dangerous ideas threatening our existence at the present time. But I don't pretend it would be science; just an impressionistic take that might meet the mininmum threshold of "substantial evidence"--enough to convince a reasonable person while other reasonable people remain unconvinced.

 

(a).He sure is! Militantly so!; b. the statement that God, gods and the super-natural don't exist is a fact????!!! Prove it! (d &e) they are options in a multiple choice of trying to figure out how anyone could conclude that Dawkins, an atheist, has no beliefs on atheism--only denials.

Yeah, you did. You just misquoted it. What I said (read closely) was: "He's an evolutionary biologist, and is therefore qualified to tell us about genes. But the meme concept is basically only an analogy to those biological entities". So what I said was that the meme concept makes him a cultural diffusionist. What else would you call the notion that ideas spread by being passed from one host to another?

I do, but then I'm not a diffusionist. Dawkins might not be one either, but memes are the only mechanism he's putting forward as the explanation for God.

No. As I've explained, I believe in memes and use them as a major basis for my own worldview. I'm just pointing out that they have limits in their explanatory value. If Dawkins thinks other mechanisms are at work, he doesn't acknowledge that.

No, he offers it as an hypothesis, and then talks about it as though it were fact.

T For further views, see Peter Higgs (of Higgs-bosom , who has interviewed no Brazilian butt lifters and has a scientific reputation that outshines Dawkins". He finds Dawkins' critiques of religion "embarrassing" and even calls Dawins a "fundamentalist" atheist. See also
Most British scientists cited in study feel Richard Dawkins' work misrepresents science
Richard Dawkins gives science a bad name, say fellow UK scientists
Dawkins Misrepresents Science and Scientists
[/QUOTE]Sue is upset because viruses can be both good and bad. Bacteriophages are good.
She thinks that the "God or religious virus" has to be all bad. There can't be any good attached to any religion if it is in fact a meme.
Dawkins has stated "I think we owe Jesus the honour of separating his genuinely original and radical ethics from the supernatural nonsense which he inevitably espoused as a man of his time"
You will have to find me a Dawkins quote that states that all aspects of religion, such as feeding the poor, and every person who ever held religious views have been or are evil.[/QUOTE]Dr. Blackmore, one of the leading proponents of mimetics came to the conclusion that the "god virus" term has that connotation, which it obviously does. Dawkins has described himself as a "cultural Christian", who claims to "love hymns and Christmas carols and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos, and I feel that we are a Christian country in that sense.”Richard Dawkins Takes a Step Beyond the ‘God Delusion’ He said this in an interview with Rachel Johnson on British television, in the context of preferring Christianity over Islam, which he thinks is "an alternative that would be 'truly dreadful": Islam. So he wants to get rid of God but would hate to see the "cathedrals and beautiful parish churches" go. Hmmm. If he succeds in eliminating religion, what will happen to the cards and carols, and cathedrals and churches? Maybe we'll have a-cards and a-carols, and the atheists will convert the cathedrals and churches into atheist megachurches.

Of course I agree that religion is meme like all the others, including atheism and the concept of memes. But I like Dawkins when he speaks out against religion. I just think he paints with too broad a brush in lumping all religion together in his attacks. I think that, all in all, Dawkins did us a service by attacking the abuses of religion in a way that certainly got attention. I see the merit, but wouldn't call it "scientific".

I think the religious meme helps the species to adapt. The "god virus" suggests pathology. The god meme, as Blackmore uses it, might be adaptive. Are some diseases adaptive? Strange question. Do you mean the microorganisms are adapting, as Covid-19 might be? Or that the human survivors might be stronger by developing immunities? Maybe so, but I agree with Blackmore that the term suggests pathology.

Probably not, since my complaints about Dawkins have mostly to do with his treatment of god and religion. I don't know that there is anything wrong with Dawkins, but his views on religion are based on a selective sample of religions. In The God Virus, he gives a pass to believers in Einstein's god, but dismisses Pantheists as "sexed-up atheists" and Deists as "watered down theists" (p. 40). As a Panendist, I feel doubly dismissed. Higgs remarks: "What Dawkins does too often is to concentrate his attack on fundamentalists. But there are many believers who are just not fundamentalists." Peter Higgs criticises Richard Dawkins over anti-religious 'fundamentalism'

Of course not. They're your personal a-beliefs.

 

...

 

The feeling is mutual. But you raised some interesting issues that I might address when I regain my strength. I'd prefer to move on with the topic of memes and how they can be useful in understanding the evolution of religion.

I've learned my lesson in trying to deal with the whole mulltiplex of your posts, but I'll take up a few of them in segments that I can post relatively quickly.

 

To my statement that the non-existence of God, gods and the super-natural don't exist needs to be proved , MeAgain said

That's right. All of the beings you mentioned belong in the category Watkins calls "haunted universe doctrines"--i.e., irrefutable. We could even add "multiple universes" to the list. (i'll explain that later). It might seem that nobody in his right mind could believe that stuff. I certainly don't believe in unicorns and Bigfoot. However, the general rule is that (s)he who asserts must prove (especially when they write books about it. Dawkins has asserted in The God Delusion that "There almost certainly is no God", and goes on to give his reasons, which critics find unconvincing. A theist who says "There is a God" had better be prepared to prove it. An atheist who says there is none must do the same.
A theist who says "I believe in God" and an atheist who says "I don't" are not under the same obligation.

As for "extraordinary claims", when such claims challenge our existing scientific knowledge, as in the case of virgin births in humans, returning from the dead, walking on water, etc., yes we should have extraordinary evidence to accept these as true. IMO, a passage here and there in an ancient book isn't enough. But whileile extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", plausible hypotheses about matters that don't contradict existing science are still legitimate. IMO, support for the God hypothesis in the scientific and scholarly communities is sufficient to place it in the latter category.

Far more scholars and scientists take God seriously than they do unicorns and Bigfoot. I need to be careful here. The last time I said there were no unicorns, i came across a story about an Italian unicorn, the product of a rare mutation. https://www.audubon.org/news/the-stuff-legend-italys-living-unicorn And yes, even Bigfoot has some expert support. https://www.audubon.org/news/the-stuff-legend-italys-living-unicorn When it comes to God, however, there's much stronger support even from scientists and other educated people. In fact, a majority of scientists (51%) professed a belief in God (33%), a Higher Power, or a Universal Spirit (18%) in a Pew survey in 2009. Scientists and Belief If I had been included, I'd be in the latter (15%) category. Back in the day on computer dating sites that asked "Do you believe in a personal God who answers prayer' I'd answer "No", and I still tend to feel that way, several religious experiences later, although I try to keep an open mind. The July 20, 1998, cover of Newsweek carried the headline "Science Finds God". The magazine was reporting on a conference "Science and the Spiritual Quest". "The scientists and theologians who gathered at the meeting were virtually unanimous in agreeing that science and religion were agreeing that science and religion were now converging, and what they were converging on was God". Stenger, Has Science Found God?

Why is that? Are they infected by a "god virus"? Maybe so. Scientists are human too. Some, however, seem to be impressed by evidence of "fine tuning"--the scientific fact that if the six or so universal constants that govern our universe were slightly different, we wouldn't be here having this conversation. e.g, if the gravitational constant were off by a fraction , the expansion of the universe after the Big Bang might have been different enough to leave us out of the picture. In general, the integrated complexity of the universe convinces them that there must something approximating a Designer involved. Either that or we're the lucky winners of the cosmic jackpot as a result of the operation of blind natural forces. That would be, IMO, at least as miraculous!

Now re multiple universes. Many scientists who reject design, believe in those as an alternative explanation for order in the universe. What's the "proof" they exist? None. The evidence is slender, and far from proof. It's an untested and potentially untestable idea. No one has seen one nor detected one directly. There may be another universe in which you're a religious fanatic arguing that God is real cuz the Bible sez so, and I'm saying "No way. It's figment of your imagination." But no such universe has yet been detected, nor is there consensus on how to go about detecting one.
If We Live in a Multiverse, Where Are These Worlds Hiding?
Can Physicists Ever Prove the Multiverse Is Real? | Science| Smithsonian Magazine
What is multiverse theory?
How real is the multiverse?
How real is the multiverse?
Bruce Mazet, in Skeptic, argues: "There is no eveidence whatsoever that this infinite number of hypothetical universes exists and according to the cosmologists who postulate these hypothetical universes there is no means by which to obtain any such evidence. ...I suggest that if it is acceptable to postulate the existence of multiple universes, then it is acceptable to postulate the existence of God."
Skeptics Society--The Case for God
Skeptic » The Magazine » Volume 6 Number 2 Table of Contents
Since Mazet wrote that, there have been new claims of evidence.
Does the Multiverse Really Exist? | Scientific American
Scientists find first evidence that many universes exist
So far, his reservations are still sound.

Not everything a reasonable person believes in can be proven scientifically. When I vote, I try to do so as an informed voter, and am convinced that, especially in the forthcoming presidential election, there is a clear right and wrong choice. These decisions are, at best, supported by substantial evidence--enough to convince a reasonable person, even though there might be other reasonable persons who aren't convinced. Science is our gold standard for reliable evidence, since it involves testing refutable hypotheses by rigorous testing of evidence. But these features limit its utility as a means of getting at some important knowledge. I've gone thru these before: the inability to eliminate type 2 errors (false negatives), the difficulty of claims about ancient historical events and personages where hard evidence is scant, etc. And of course there's a difference between doing science and doing life, where we necessarily heavily on personal experience, street wisdom, and intuition in making decisions. Karen Armstrong invokes Plato here to distinguish between Logos (matters susceptible to proof) and Mythos (matters which are not, but are important to our sense of meaning in life). To Go Beyond Thought, an Interview with Karen Armstrong On the latter we must either abandon the quest, or rely on reason and judgment to support our educated bets.

 

Not really, because most intelligent people and certainly most scientists would agree there are almost certainly no leprechauns, although there's no real scientific proof for that. With God, that is not the case, as I explained at some length. it's intuitively obvious.

"Seeming reasonable or likely. Enough to convince reasonable people, even though other reasonable people might not be convinced.

No, they found Him in a consensus of attendees at the conference mentioned--as a concept or hypothesis that received general support. You're such a literalist! But I doubt they were talking about the Dude in the Sky who knows when we've been bad or good.

Yes, indeed. As I said, scientists are human, too. And some may be atheists for similar reasons. I take fellowship with a group of atheists, many of whom were brought up in such families and were tired of being told they were going to hell. I recall on this site reading a post by a gay man who thought the Devil must have made him, because he was gay and God doesn't make mistakes. And I posted: "Where is Richard Dawkins when we really need him!" But some of the scientists have been convinced by arguments and evidence that the god hypothesis might help to explain phenomena like fine tuning--as an alternative to "multiple universes".

 

I surrender! You were right. The reference to genes in the last sentence quoted was obviously a typo. I'm surprised I haven't made more of them, given the length of our exchanges. Obviously, having taken Dawkins to task for stepping outside his realm of expertise (genes) to introduce an anthropological/sociological concept (memes), it would make no sense to say that he's saying genes explain god and religion, and that the biological unit (genes) explain god and religion and would make him a cultural diffusionist. I doubt that Dawkins believes in the "god gene"!

 

Before you reply to the above, I'd like to at least outline my take on how cultural evolution and memes might be involved in the Bible. This will be highly impressionistic , but I welcome ideas for refinement. Among the noteworthy developments are: (1) the transformation of El to Yahweh; (2) the transformation of Jewish religion from henotheism to monolatry to true monotheism; (3) the change from a decentralized collection of tribes governed by warlords or "judges" to a centralized monarchy; (4) a change in emphasis from ritual to social justice;(5) destruction of northern kingdom by Assyrians and migration of northerners to south , with scriptures to be integrated with souterm books;
(6) centralization of worship from regional shrines to worship in Jerusalem, and subordination of the Levite priests to the Aaronite priesthood in Jerusalem; (7) forging of Jewish identity behind monotheism and holiness codes during the Babylonian captivity; (8) introduction of Zoroastrian dualism, angels, demons, during the Persian period; (9) interest in in resurrection after Macabbes revolt against Greeks; (10) rival claims to high priesthood;(11) a shift from present concerns to apocalyptic ones under Romans; (12) destruction of temple and advent of rabbinical Judaism. This may be a little confusing to explain, because the sequence of the books of the Bible probably doesn't correspond to the order in which they were actually written. Genesis 1 seems to have been written late in the game--during and after the Babylonian Captiivity.

The evolution of Christianity would also include a series of major transformations:
1) an anti-establishment apocalyptic Jewish movement about Jesus and the coming Kingdom in the first half of the first century; (2) a predominantly Gentile movement about Jesus' death and resurrection in the second half ; (3) an embattled sect preoccupied with doctrinal conformity and an emerging hierarchy in the second, third centuries; (4) the favored religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine and Theodosius I during most of the fourth century and after; (5) divided patriarchies during the fall of the western empire; (6) working out boundaries between church and monarchs; (6) the emergence of the western medieval church and papacy in their role as successors to the Roman Empire; (7) the Crusades and suppression of heresy; (8) doctrinal and institutional division into Protestant and Catholic branches during the Reformation of the sixteenth century; (9) division into traditional and "Deist camps during the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century ; (10) division into fundamentalist and "progressive" camps over the ”Higher Criticism” and Darwin ; (11) emergence of ecumenical collaboration across denominations;
(12) fundamentalist/evangelical backlash against secular progressivism. I think it might be interesting to explore these in terms of Dawkins' memes--although I'm not volunteering to do it. The basic point is that there have been changes, resulting from mutations that produced over 200 denominations in the U.S. and 45,000 globally. If that isn't an example of meme mutation and natural selection, I don't know what is. The result made Christianity the largest religion in the world, although Jesus might have trouble recognizing it.

 

Mzzls