dado

i completely agree with you. unfortunately that is not a popular conception amongst a core group here who are a bit like the character at the beginning of Casablanca...

Starboy

I would agree with most of that except the very last part. I would certainly agree that atheists as a group do not have some super high reasoning capacity as opposed to non-atheists, but I am not so sure about the meme explanation of our social behavior. My guess is that we are not as dependent on social validation as theists are. This is consistent with our numbers. If it were a meme then everyone should be susceptible to being infected with atheism and that doesn't appear to be the case nor do I know of any times in history were atheism has run wild through a population similar to theism. The counter argument could be that atheism is not a meme but simply the default state. In that case a population cleared of religious memes should stay clear as long as religious memes are not introduced. I am not sure you can find any incidents of that either. Of course religions of all kinds have run rampant for so long that it may be impossible to find such a case.

Starboy

dado

i find it interesting that there is no religion anywhere on the planet immune from having members poached by another religion. following in the theme of my original post, this strongly suggests to me that no current religion has got it "right".

Starboy

I guess that all depends on what you mean by "got it 'right'".

Starboy

[Edited to Add]

If memes are constantly competing and changing then I can't see how they will ever "get it right". That is the basis of evolutionary type theories. There is no "right", just more or less adapted to the current environment. If the environment changes the memes that previously "got it right" are likely to not "get it right".

Starboy

ShadowF0x

The CockRoach isn't exactly the most intelligent creature on the planet, but it still manages to stick around.

Intelligence doesn't always equate success. Not to mention the factors of biological survival are totally different than the factors involved when it comes to the spread of ideologies.

sharon45

Both religions and cockroaches are mostly kept alive and a success because of the same thing, people.

When people start to change how they live, both will suffer a great deal.

Yahzi

Almost? That's exactly what I'm saying. I've been around a while, and I've noticed that getting laid is a lot easier when you're willing to say whatever it takes.

Don't ask me to explain Catholic celibacy, though, because that's just weird.