*lightbulb*

[dreamer_easy]

Of course Dawkins explains religion as a meme - that is, a sort of cultural virus. If it isn't an external, infectious agent, then from his perspective, it must have evolved - meaning it must grant some survival advantage.

Comments

[drox.livejournal.com]

...it must have evolved - meaning it must grant some survival advantage.

I assume you mean it must grant some survival advantage *to its host*. I'm not sure that follows.

Successful (organisms? memes?) that depend on a host for survival and/or replication often provide some benefit to that host, but there are some that don't, or that harm or kill their hosts. So long as they survive/replicate, what happens to their host is immaterial.

If the analogy holds, most successful religions would benefit their hosts (i.e. adherents, believers etc.) but some would be neutral and others would harm or even kill them.

If I'm understanding this right, the benefit/detriment might even be situational. A religion (or any meme for that matter) might be beneficial in most instances but turn, um, virulent under just the right (wrong?) conditions.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

I seem to be confusing everyone. Let me put it more simply: Dawkins says religion is a meme, because if it is a gene, then it must be beneficial in some way, and he does not believe religion is beneficial in any way.

[drox.livejournal.com]

Dawkins says religion is a meme, because if it is a gene, then it must be beneficial in some way, and he does not believe religion is beneficial in any way.

Does he really say that? 'Cause it looks to me like really crap logic, and seems to contain a false premise besides.

...if it is a gene, then it must be beneficial in some way...

What's he think of, say, the gene that causes [pick a debilitating genetic disease; I'm too lazy to look one up]. How's that beneficial (to the host)?

...he does not believe religion is beneficial in any way.

And this is the basis of his argument? "Because I believe it it must be so"?

It's been a long time since I read "The Selfish Gene", but I thought it had better reasoning than that. I thought that religions were memes (or meme-complexes) not because of anything to do with beneficial or detrimental, but because they're coded from ideas, while genes are coded from nucleotides.

IIRC both genes and memes act "selfishly", and both can be beneficial or detrimental. Or both, depending on the situation.

Am I perhaps recalling incorrectly?

I do find it interesting that (in the case of religions anyway) "beneficial" and "detrimental" would seem to have no relation to "true".

Atheists I've spoken with don't insist that religion has no benefit whatever, but many insist that the detriments outweigh the benefits. And then there are those that merely dispute the *truth* of the religion, while accepting that religion might be beneficial (even if false) overall.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Does he really say that?

He characterises religion as a meme, yes. The rest is my guess about why he does so.