Technotranscendence wrote:
>
> On Monday, March 05, 2001 6:33 AM Dehede011@aol.com wrote:
> > If you will take a look at Clarence Graham's hierarchy of needs you
> will
> > find that the motivation toward religion changes substantially as our
> > position on the hierarchy changes.
> > Most of the time the critics of religion concentrate only on very firm
> > fundamentalist churchs regardless of which major faith they are looking
> at.
> > This ignores the fact there are people in all major religions whose
> > motivational needs are quite different from those attracted to the
> > fundamentalists and whose religious practice is quite different.
>
> Excellent point! Go for the fence sitters -- not the people who have deep
> commitments to a particular religion. Go for the easiest ones first. And
> forget the rest.
>
For all the prattle locally about the power of evolution one of the
prime aspects is not being applied in the evolution of memes. Evolution
does not simply throw out was is. It builds on it and and modifies its
function over time. Attempting to stamp out the "evil" religion meme is
much less likely to succeed than turning the religious and spiritual
impules and memes in a different direction and building new memetic
structures over them.
> I tend to think most of these types are among the young, though. I'm not
> aware of Graham's hierarchy... But I reckon as most people get older they
> are less amenable to philosophical change. This has been my experience.
> (Think of when most people are intellectually active -- teens to early 20s.
> After that, most people have a worldview and don't change it much before
> death.)
Actually, the young are much more susceptible to all matter of memetic
infections. They are one of the most fertile fields for the fundies for
this reason. But don't confuse intellectual malleability with
intellectual activity level. Many of us, especially, are very much as
(or more so) intellectually active now as when we were younger.
- samantha
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