http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/watch_amis.html

I believe we need to recognize and value persons as 'valid centers of subjectivity'.

Very cryptic. Is that a postmodern phrase with connotations we should know about?

Certainly we all have our own subjective side, and this can contain aspects of ourselves that are important and not to be dismissed. Nevertheless I do think there are many things that we can have objective evidence for, and some areas of thought where subjectivity ought to be avoided.

Thank you for saying 'most' Alex :). I value theology & philosophy more so than 'religion' in the technical sense.

Question of the day: Can one become 'lazy' with other meme's if one accepts the meme of memetic evolution?

Thought of the day: Infectious memes are just like any other absolutized ideologies, philosophies, rhetoric etc. I believe we need to recognize and value persons as 'valid centers of subjectivity'. :)

Response: Since Atheism is also a meme, how is this different then inserting a different type of meme in place of one’s previous meme? Warring meme’s are what you are trying to eradicate, but really it sounds like just another type of warring meme, even if one views it as ‘more correct’ from either standpoint of one's meme.

This is a bit like complaining that replacing an iron-fisted police state with a representative democracy is pointless, since there's still a government. (Very much like it, actually, given the rather totalitarian nature of most religious memes, which almost invariably label disbelief and even doubt a grave sin).

“Similarly, it is no coincidence that religious memes discourage doubt and teach their followers to shun sources of information which conflict with their beliefs. Once they have gained a lock on a person's mind, religious memes naturally will thrive by suppressing all competition. Their "aim", in the non-anthropomorphic sense, is to convince a person who is in their power to believe in them alone and to fiercely reject all other sources of information and ways of knowing. This excerpt from an e-mail sent to me by a Christian correspondent makes this explicit:

Prior to finding the truth, which is Christ, I was open to hearing opposing views, but now having found the truth it would be pointless to waste my time. …I am absolutely 100% convinced that I have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth… I heartily echo what the Apostle Paul said in I Corinthians 2:2: For I [am] determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”

Response: Hmm.. well it seems apparent that I have not been appropriately indoctrinated in this manor and neither have you, if you’re openly talking and thinking with me. However this would also imply that both of us, if not ‘in slavery’ to our own meme’s [i.e. Christianity and Atheism] be open to listening to each others meme with the least amount of insecurity as possible! Both meme’s should be valid centers of subjective and inter-subjectivity; unless, of course, we are competing with each other to ‘one up’ the other’s meme!

“Fortunately, there is an antidote to all these infectious religious memes. We atheists have the antidote - in fact, we are the antidote. And we have made great strides in spreading our own message and setting many people free from the tyranny of warring memes, but not nearly enough.”

Response: Since Atheism is also a meme, how is this different then inserting a different type of meme in place of one’s previous meme? Warring meme’s are what you are trying to eradicate, but really it sounds like just another type of warring meme, even if one views it as ‘more correct’ from either standpoint of one's meme.

After all, if a group of words exists in a book but not in the mind of at least one person, then it can't compete with other memes. It simply sits there, inert. You might say that the human brain is the sole breeding and crossbreeding ground of the meme. Human minds use many, many different ways to propagate memes, but it is all for the ultimate purpose of putting those memes in other people's heads.